Since making the decision to go back to college to get another degree that will allow me to change career fields, life as I know it has become all too hectic. I had to sit down and make a list of my priorities of what I needed to do in order to accomplish my goal. Unfortunately, my volunteer time here at PimpRig had to be scaled back to a more manageable position. That meant that I was going to step down as the Lead Pimp Writer to only Pimp Writer status and I would have to put my availability for reviews on hold for a while until things settled down.

The Lead Reviewer for PimpRig, Brett “BigAkita” Rosene, had asked me if I was interested in doing a new case review before I made my decision. The day after I had made my decision, lo and behold, a new case shows up on my doorstep. Rather than shipping it off to another reviewer, I thought I would do one more. The Xion Gaming PC case is labeled by Xion as having "The Ultimate Engineering". Quite a bold statement coming from a relatively new and widely unknown manufacturer So, did this case cause me undue hardship in rearranging my sleep patterns or did this case give me a sense of satisfaction for going ahead and doing this review? Let’s find out.

Package and Contents

Yet again, I was spared the heartbreak of receiving a package from the express courier services where the dimensions of the package were less than when it began its journey. The Gaming PC case arrived in a very sturdy cardboard box, framed by the standard two pieces of Styrofoam. Additionally, Xion took the extra step and wrapped the case in a protective plastic that is actually harder to tear apart than it looks in the photo.

Included in the case was the standard bag of screws with a couple of zip ties, four pair of rails of a different design for the 5 1/4" bays, a schematic of the front I/O panel wires, a cord for the power supply, and, surprisingly, two PCI slots covers to replace and of the PCI slots that you happen to punch out but don’t need anymore. That was pretty thoughtful of the folks at Xion; however, they managed to hit upon a pet peeve of mine. No where to be found inside the case or on the website is an instruction booklet. While perhaps you and I can assemble a computer in less than a couple of hours in our sleep, the lack of an instruction booklet can be an utter nightmare for a person looking to build their very first PC.

Specs

Let’s take a quick look at the specifications (taken from the Xion website):

Model: Xion Series
Case Type: Mid Tower Full size Steel Chassis Case
Dimension (WxHxD): 205 x 445 x 500 mm
Cooling System: 1 x 12 cm Silent Fan in rear, 1 x 80 mm LED Fan on side panel
Drive Bays: 10 Drive Bay - 4 x 5.25" (External), 2 x 3.5" (External),
4 x 3.5" (Internal)
Material: SECC Steel Chassis
Colors: Black w/Green LED, Silver w/Blue LED, Blue w/BlueLED
Expansion Slots: 7
Power Supply: 450 Watt Power Supply (P4 & AMD Ready)
Weight: 7.1 Kgs
Motherboard: Standard ATX, Micro ATX, Baby AT, Mini ATX

The specifications listed on the website were pretty right on the mark with two major exceptions. There are actually 11 drive bays of which five of them are internal. Also, the power supply that was included with the case is a 400W power supply, not a 450W power supply.