mCubed HFX Mini-Metal Heatsink Cases

The HFX® Mini Metal heatsink case is a very slim and compact media PC case with a unique design and a truly silent passive cooling system. With its dimensions the HFX® Mini Metal fits perfectly into any home HiFi environment. Due to the large heatsinks it will cool almost any system passively without any fan noise. The HFX® Mini Metal combines performance with very low power consumption.

Mini-Metal Black/Silver

The front cover shows only two buttons and a opening for a slot loading DVD burner. The customary USB, Firewire and audio ports are all available. Also visible is the IR receiver and LED lights for power and hard drive activity. All in all, this gives the Mini Metal its gorgeous looks.

The HFX® Mini Metal supports and includes power saving technologies, which ensure highest performance at lowest power consumption. The HFX® Mini Metal is totally passively cooled without the need for any fans. Additionally the hard disks and DVD are noise isolated. The DVD burner is noise isolated in a special silent box and connected with the case heatsinks via copper plates to cool down the drive. A special HDD silent box is also available. The box supports up to two hard disks which are cooled by copper plates that connect to the outer case heatsinks. An additional hard disk can be placed next to the DVD. If the DVD is not used, a forth hard disk can be placed inside the case.

Mini-Metal Black

The HFX® Mini Metal offers enough space for an ATX motherboard (or smaller), a DVD burner, three hard disks and three expansion slots with riser cards. The power supply is fanless and external, just like laptops.

The case can accommodate up to three expansion cards, for example graphic card, TV and sound card with the help of riser cards.

Recommended Optional Extras

The HFX® Mini Metal is supplied as a bare case, therefore if you want to use the CPU heatpipe system that will attach to the side of the case then it will need to be purchased separately. Here is a full list of optional extras that will be ideal for the Mini Metal case. Items marked “HR” are highly recommended so you are urged to add them to your basket. Items market “R” are recommended but not essential.

• HFX 597 BorgFX CPU for Classic and Mini Case “HR”
• HFX 625 EF19 External Fanless PSU 190W or HFX 547 External Power Supply EF28-B 280W “HR”
• HFX 599 Blue-Ray Player, Sony-NEC-Optiarc or HFX 592 DVD Mini Sony-NEC, Slot Loading “HR”
• HFX 536 HDD Mini Silent Box for two HDDs “HR”
• HFX 600 Vista Remote Control GP “R”
• HFX 521 BorgFX VGA, Heatpipe GPU Cooler “R”
• HFX 532 Safety Control System for Classic/Mini
• HFX 542 Riser Card PCIe 16x
• HFX 546 Riser Card PCIe 1x
• HFX 570 Riser Card PCI, bottom
• HFX 528 BorgFX Bridge, Heatpipe Northbridge Cooler
• HFX 527 BorgFX Extension, Heatpipe Extension Set

Recommended Components

As mentioned above the HFX® Mini Metal is compatible with standard ATX motherboards and full height expansion cards. There are a few things to consider when looking to use this chassis. We hope the following information will be helpful.

Motherboard

The only thing regarding the motherboard that needs to be considered is that some motherboards now supply SATA connectors at right angles and the location of these connectors is generally towards the upper right hand side edge. This location collides with the hard drive enclosures so it is not possible to attach the SATA cables.

CPU

With the case using heatpipes to cool the CPU is it recommended that you choose a CPU that does not generate a large amount of heat. Intel’s new Core 2 Duo CPUs are ideal. The E6300 to E6850 only produce 65 watts (W) and therefore will be ideal for this type of system, even the X6800 which produces 75W will be fine. Unfortunately the new Quad core CPUs generate in excess of 100W and therefore are not recommended.

For AMD we recommend the Athlon 64 X2s that use the Brisbane core, these CPUs only produce 65W. Manchester, Toledo and some Windsor cores are not recommended. Alternatively any of the Sempron range will be ideal because they all produce less that 65W.

Power Supply

The only power supply that is compatible with the Mini is the Fanless EF28 280W External PSU. Unfortunately it is not possible to mount a PSU inside the Mini chassis. This power supply is powerful enough to power a Core 2 Duo system.

Hard Drive

The Hard Drive Enclosure is highly recommended for two reasons. Firstly it provides a secure mounting system for the hard drives and secondly it also helps to reduce the noise the hard drives output. The enclosure can support up to two hard drives.

Graphics Card

If you want to use a Media PC for games then the Mini chassis is not ideal. This is because there is not a vast amount of space inside the case and that the PSU that is compatible only provides 280W. This means we recommend using a graphics card that will utilise the Heatpipe Graphics Cooler and is equivalent to the nVidia 7300 series. If you do want a Media PC that is capable of containing a good graphics card then you are urged to opt for the Classic Case.