[Review] Xigmatek Elysium

Introduction:

Xigmatek was founded in 2005 with targets set to become world’s leader in thermal PC Industry. To ensure reaching these project aims, Xigmatek’s management followed up with hard work, experiences and customer friendly business style.
Xigmatek’s main policy is to provide impressive, innovative and practical products with lots of functionality. They are also the inventors of H.D.T. (Heatpipe Direct Touch). Actually, first H.D.T. cooler that made it to market was by OCZ but Xigmatek guys had a big hand in it. Later on they started making their own and then they jumped into other categories too like chassis and fans.

Today, we’ll be having a look at their all new Xigmatek Elysium Super Tower Case. Super Tower isn’t some new standard; it’s just what Xigmatek calls their utterly huge case. Xigmatek Elysium, at time of launch, is one of the few cases which can accommodate motherboards up to HPTX size like EVGA SR-2. Another specialty of this case is its price, all other HPTX compatible cases are pretty expensive but this monster costs around 220USD only (In Pakistan it’s even cheaper, 162USD only). It comes in four different variants; black or silver side stripes in combination with windowed or solid side panel. It makes a total of 4 options to choose from.


We got the one with black stripes and windowed side panel. Let’s have a look.


Packaging and the Case:

Xigmatek Elysium comes in a huge box. Front of the box has some artwork along with a picture of the case.


Back of box shows the case, some salient features of the case, and similar artwork.


Specifications and information about different variants of Elysium can be found on left and right side of the box respectively.

Xigmatek packed the case in very thick Styrofoam spacers. There is absolutely no chance of case being damaged on its way to your home.


-Exterior:

Elysium has got very simple and straight looks with lots of functionality. There are a total of 12 5.25inch drive bays at front. Black stripes on both sides of the drive bays are made up of aluminum. They go all the way to bottom of the case. These stripes are bolted on with bare screws; this gives a really nice and classy touch to the front of the case.


There are two LEDs on front, one for power and the second one for HDD activity.


Moving to the right side of the case, there’s nothing more than a 120mm fan slot to cool CPU socket from back side.


Left side panel has got a huge clear acrylic window and most of it is covered by 200mm fan. Even though the motherboard area is hidden, rest of the windows is big enough to give enough peaks of the hardware inside.


Turning our attention to the business end of the chassis, that is the back side, we notice that this case supports two PSUs; top and bottom mounted. If you intend to use only one PSU, second PSU slot can be used to mount an 80mm fan.At bottom PSU can be mounted in two ways with PSU fan facing upward or downward. Apart from this, there are a total of 7 water cooling holes though which you can route water cooling tubes in case if you are using an external radiator system. Rubber grommets are installed in these holes to give it a nice and clean look. There are ten PCI expansion slots on the back, this opens up the possibility to mount 4 graphics card. A 140mm exhaust fan can also be spotted on the back along with opening for motherboard backplate.


Top the case has an aluminum power button along with I/O panel and 2.5”/3.5” hot swappable bay. I/O panel is protected by a sliding cover. Under this cover, you’ll find a good amount of connectivity options; an eSATA ports, two USD 2.0 ports, headphone jack, microphone jack, two USB3.0 ports and a reset switch. I liked the placement of reset switch, there is no chance of it being accidently pressed when cover is on.


On rear part, there is a mesh cover with a popped out Xigmatek X.


This cover can be removed easily by sliding the lock located behind the I/O panel. 3x120mm/140mm fans or radiator can be mounted here.



-Interior:

First thing you’ll notice after seeing the interior is its size. It’s super huge and simple, enough to install any kind of setup. There are a good number of cable management holes with rubber grommets. With these many holes, cable management should be a breeze.


Another perk of motherboard tray is the secondary CPU retention plate cut out. Its bit smaller in size as compared to the primary one but it can serve its purpose for sure. It can save you the hassle of un-mounting the motherboard if you want to change or install a new CPU cooler/Waterblock.


As mentioned earlier, Elysium has a total of 12 5.25” drive bays. All of them are tool less.


For hard drive installation, Xigmatek included two 4-in-3 hard drive cages. Each of these cages takes upto three 5.35” bays or can accommodate upto 4 3.5” hard drives. So you can install a total of 8 HDDs in these cages. With both of these cages installed, there is still more room to install six 5.25” drives.


Front of the case can be pulled of easily; it reveals two 120mm fans installed in the front of both HDD cages. You can move these anywhere you want from top to bottom. These cages can also be bought separately if you wish to install more HDDs.


These hard drive cages can be taken out by unscrewing one thumbscrews present on each side and then twisting the tool less mechanism to unlock it. After this you’ll able to take the tool less mechanism off and the cage will slide out.


As mentioned earlier, each cage can take up to four 3.5” drives. There is no possibility to mount 2.5” drives. HDDs are installed into these cages with the help of screws that are provided by Xigmatek with the case.


Xigmatek Elysium has a total of 10 PCI expansion slots, they are held in place by thumb screws.


Bottom PSU mounting area is padded with foam lining to absorb any vibrations from PSU. If you install the PSU on top, then you have space to mount 3 fans of sizes varying from 80mm to 140mm.


Another great feature of the Elysium is the two small PCBs which can be used to plug-in 3-pin fan connectors. Each PCB can take up to 5 fans. They get power from a single Molex connector. These little PCBs help in reducing the cable clutter. There are a total of 4 places in the case where you can install these PCBs.


Front panel cables are pretty long in Xigmatek Elysium. They can easily be routed to any part of the case according to your needs. Apart for traditional front panel cables, we have a Molex wire to power up hot-swap bay.



Accessories:

Xigmatek Elysium comes with following accessories:
• User manual
• A bag full of black screws
• 4 casters
• Some zip-ties



Specifications:



Assembly:

Installing hardware in Elysium should be a breeze due to its huge and spacious interior. We’ll start the process by installing the PSU. As we mentioned earlier, bottom PSU mounting area is lined with rubber to dump any vibrations and there is ample space to install PSU of any length.
All the wires were routed to the back of motherboard tray via a huge cable management hole near PSU mounting area.


To install hard drive, you need to take the hard drive cage and after that it’s really simple. Place the HDD in the case and secure it with provided screws. Now, install the hard drive cage back in the case.


Then comes motherboard installation, our ATX board almost got lost in the Elysium. This case is too big for such a board. Even an E-ATX board will look small in this case. This case is totally meant for HPTX boards like EVGA SR-2.
Motherboard stand-offs are already installed in some holes on motherboard tray. You only need to move them to holes according to the size of your board. All the holes are labeled.


Next thing is the installation of graphics card and connecting all the wires.


This is how it looked with all the wires connected. As you can see there is a lot of space still left with everything installed and cables are also nicely managed.


Even though we used a modular PSU, there were still a couple of extra wires that are now hidden behind motherboard tray. There is a good amount of space behind motherboard tray.


This is how backside of the chassis looks like with all the cables tied with help of zip ties.


All the pre-installed fans in Xigmatek Elysium have white LEDs except 200mm side fan. All of these fans, when lit up, give a nice white effect. Power LED is blue and HDD activity LED is red, these two contrast a bit with over all lighting of the case.


Final Words:

Xigmatek did an astonishing job with this chassis. Priced at $219 in USA (PKR 14,000 in Pakistan), It’s the most affordable HPTX-supported case on the market right now. Being affordable doesn’t mean that you’ll have to compromise on functionality or quality, everything is top-notch.

Two CPU retention holes, USB 3.0 connectors and little PCBs for powering up to 10 fans; all the features make this chassis perfect for any kind of build.

This case is idyllic for both air-cooled and water-cooled rigs. Up to eight 140mm & one 200mm fans can be installed, in case you are going for water cooling then you can install a 420mm radiator on top and 240mm radiator on bottom. I am pretty much sure a 420mm radiator can be mounted in front 5.25” drive bays with a little bit of modding.

Cable management holes with plastic grommets are another plus for this case. These holes are present all over the motherboard tray which makes cable management a really easy task.
Build quality of this case is second to none. All the panels are quite sturdy and well built. Front Aluminum strips add a nice touch to overall looks of the case.

Xigmatek Elysium is absolutely worth the money; in fact it gives you much more. It snatches away our ‘TOP PICK’ award.


-Pros:
• Price
• Hot-Swap bay
• Vast support for watercooling
• Dual PSU option
• Excellent cable management options
• Four included fans
• Enough expansion slots to install four dual slot graphic cards.
• HPTX compatibility
• PCBs to power up to 10 fans
• Support for up to 8 3.5” drives
• Two Large CPU retention holes

-Cons:
• No support for 2.5” drives to be mounted internally
• Minimal accessories (Some power extensions wires were expected with such a big case)

Xigmatek Elysium and other Xigmatek Products are available at IAMEXTREME.