Cougar QBX Mini-ITX Gaming Chassis Review




/ 9 years ago

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Introduction


9_98Cougar has been launching some pretty incredible products recently, from their stunning range of gaming peripherals, which includes great keyboards and mice, as well as their chassis products. Today we’ve got their latest mini-ITX chassis, the QBX and it promises to be a competitive gaming chassis for the small form factor market.

There’s a lot of demand for small chassis these days, especially with the rise in popularity of LAN gaming events. Then you’ve got people like myself who have a smaller system in the extra room to work on quietly, space is limited there, so a compact desktop system comes in handy. Let’s not forget the “smart TV” HTPC style systems that are growing in popularity, especially for those who want to take PC gaming to the big screen, so there’s certainly a lot of scope for a compact chassis that can still hold some great hardware.

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The QBX comes bundled with all of the screws and fittings you’ll need, as well as a screw in mesh for one of the extra fan mounts; nothing fancy, but it’ll get us through the build.

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This is a really nice looking chassis, it’s got a huge amount of ventilation down the left side, perfect for getting airflow to your hardware and keeping temperatures down, but it’s going to play hell with acoustics, so think carefully before you buy a cheap graphics card with a blower type cooler.

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The right side panel is the same design, giving the chassis a nice uniform look from both sides, making it easier to place at either side of your desk without having to look at what most chassis have; a boring side.

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The front panel is pretty simple, just the cougar logo at the bottom, but the lightly textured plastic panels are rather pleasing on the eye, at least about as much as plastic can.

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Tuck up behind the front panel, you’ll find a slot-loading ODD bay although the drive its self isn’t included; the bay is a little hidden by default.

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The top panel can be slid back easily enough, giving you access to the drive slot; a nice way of having it accessible without breaking up the clean exterior design  of the chassis.

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Just behind the front panel, you’ll find the main I/O. It features the usual power controls, USB 3.0 ports and HD audio jacks, pretty standard stuff, but it’s good to have it all within easy reach.

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The PSU is mounted towards the front of the QBX, so there’s a cable pass-through built into the rear of the chassis to help accommodate this.

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The base of the chassis is really sturdy and has two full-length feet with rubber grips, giving the QBX great balance. One cool benefit of this design is that the chassis has good ground clearance for airflow and there is a large slide-out and washable dust filter to help provide clean airflow to your components.

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Interior


With the left side panel removed, you will find an extra side mount which can be used for additional cooling and storage.

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The panel is held in place by four screws, behind which you’ll find a range of 3.5″ and 2.5″ drive mounts, helping you take full advantage of the space within this tiny chassis.

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With the panel removed, you’ll get unrestricted access to the interior of the chassis and there’s a surprising amount of space in here for your components, you’ll even be able to fit a sizable graphics card too!

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The ventilation in the base is a welcome bonus, as it’ll be perfect for feeding extra airflow to your graphics card.

DSC_2641Lots of room in the front for a full ATX PSU, as well as a space for it to take airflow from the right side panel.

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An 80mm fan is pre-installed in the back, which doesn’t seem much, but there’s a lot of passive airflow on the QBX.

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Behind the motherboard mount, you can see yet another 2.5″ drive mount, as well as a lot of smaller holes which may help with cable routing.

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Complete System


Installing our test components in the QBX looks like it was going to be a tricky affair, but it really wasn’t as there’s quite a lot of room in there. The top panel unscrews to give you access to the PSU mount and pass-through cable, so that’s easy enough. The only issue I had with the PSU is that our be quiet! 850W unit was too long, but it’s not like I didn’t have a few extra PSUs to pick from, so I’ve used our shorter design Fractal Design unit instead.

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There’s a good amount of space in the front for a bit of cable management, but keep in mind that this space will be limited by the size of your graphics card, the size of the power supply and your choice of modular or none modular cables.

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There’s a good amount of space for a powerful GPU and good clearance underneath it for airflow from those bottom air vents.

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Cable routing is a little tricky, but certainly possible with the use of a few well-placed cable ties. This will help keep airflow free around the CPU cooler and exhaust fan. It’s also nice to see that while we’ve used a low-profile cooler, there’s certainly room for something a little bigger.

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All panels back in place, you can still see the main components through that side panel mesh. Fortunately, we’ve got reasonably quiet test components in here, so my concerns about noise were quickly washed away, but again, you may not want to put 2500RPM fans and blower-type graphics cards in here, as there’s little or no protection against noise pollution in this chassis; there is an upside, there’s lots of air flow.

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Final Thoughts


Pricing

The Cougar QBX is extremely affordable and can be picked up from most major computer retailers for under £40! I managed to find a good price at CCL for just £34.99, but be advised that I have seen a few retailers listing it as high as £60, so be sure to do your research. This is a very impressive price overall and if I had to guess, I would have thought this chassis was more valuable.

Overview

The Cougar QBX isn’t the most practical chassis in the world, for those building their first system, they may find this a little tricky to work with. Cable routing needs a bit of care, you need to make sure you purchase a compatible power supply, then also take into consideration if your chosen PSU will limit your GPU length. So yes, a little extra thought needs to go into your part picking process, but this much is true with most builds, especially so with smaller chassis.

The QBX isn’t the smallest chassis in its class, nor is it the most capable, but when you look at the specification vs price, you’re going to have a hard time getting anything better. I even think you’ll struggle to find a small chassis for this price that looks as good as the QBX, as it’s certainly a pretty looking case.

Airflow on this chassis is very good, so those wanting to put a powerful graphics card inside it shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Acoustic performance is obviously something to consider, but given that many modern graphics cards run passively when not under high load and modern CPU coolers and processors are fairly efficient, it shouldn’t be tricky to combat the issue.

Build quality is perfectly reasonable too, on par or above the average for something in this price range and form factor, so overall, this is a rather great chassis for a very competitive price.

Pros

  • Good build quality
  • Nice aesthetics
  • Lots of airflow
  • Dust filters
  • Fits an ATX PSU
  • Room for long graphics card
  • Slim ODD slot

Cons

  • Little protection again noise
  • PSU compatibility issues with some 3-pin connector types
  • Tricky cable routing

“The Cougar QBX is a great little case and would make a nice looking addition to anyone’s desktop, home AV or LAN gaming setup. It’s not perfect, but at this price with such a smart looking design, you’re going to be hard pushed to find a better deal.”

Cougar QBX Mini-ITX Gaming Chassis Review

Cougar QBX Mini-ITX Gaming Chassis Review

Thank you Cougar for providing us with this sample.

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