Overclocker's Tower!

Our very own Hardware-Lord chiller has the lowdown on what tower to choose if you need some extra space - or preferabely to pimp some extra goods out of your Pentium III 550 (read: push it up to 733MHz, or maybe 825MHz if you are lucky). Here's his thoughts on Addtronic 7896A, a overclocker-friendly tower....

Posted by Ståle "chiller" Kristoffersen, 18th April 2000

My old midi tower was getting old, and I needed a new tower. I did a little research and found out that they sold Addtronic towers here in Norway. They guy who sold it had a shop in Sarpsborg, and he called it Sarpsborg-Engineering. I ordered it and I chose to pick it up myself. It was a long drive, but it was better than having the postman getting rich on it :)

Once I got home and took it out of the box, I realised, it's BIG! I had no problem with the installation of the motherboard, it was inn fact very easy, it had a tray that I could take out with only 4 screws. I then installed the motherboard and all the add-on cards on before I inserted it back in the tower.

The installation of the Hard Disks was not harder. I removed the Hard Disk bay (fastened with only one screw) and it was an easy task to fasten them, and screw the bay back in. Then it was time for my 5½" bays. I just fastened a bracket on each side of the DVD-ROM, burner, and on my removable Hard Disk bay (with two screws on each side). I could then fasten them with two screws in the front of the tower, so If I need to change one later I don't need to mess with screwdrivers inside my tower!

Then it was time for all the cables! It all went fine, except that the power on cable was a bit short. It isn't a big problem for me, but it could have been for some people. The tower doesn't have any sharp edges, and that is a big plus because it's a pain in the ass to start bleeding when installing new hardware (computer-equipment and blood does NOT mach, ok?).

The next thing on my list was the fans. This is where the Addtronic tower really shines. It has room for 9 80x80 mm fans (+ the fan in the Power Supply) out of the box, without modifications! I could have easily installed a bunch of them, because it's a very big tower, but I don't feel like using a jigsaw on my tower (I paid A LOT for it).

The way that the "doors" swing-open is also an enchanchment that other tower brands should copy. Just swing the doors a couple of degrees out and just lift it off (You don't need 3 meters in every direction like the Aopen HX08.

And voila - I now have a tower that serves my P3 500 FC-PGA a delightful chill temperature! If you have any questions related to the tower, or what fans I used for the processor, mainboard etc. - feel free to mail me!

	Pros		Cons
	Big No sharp edges Room for more fans than you can buy Smart solution on how to fasten CD-ROMs		Short power on cable (easily modifyable, though)

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