We now take a small break as we venture out of the Nangang Exhibition Centre and enter the suites of the Grand Hyatt hotel in Taipei, where our first hosts we Streacom.
Due to a packed schedule last year we were unable to visit Streacom, so this year at Computex 2018 we were determined to see some of the best craftsmanship in terms of PC chassis Streacom had to offer.
On the right hand side of the photo you will see the Streacom DB2. This is still a prototype, but Streacom hopes to have this available by the end of the year.
As you can see from the large fins on the side of the chassis, the DB2 is a fanless mini-ITX chassis. Via the use of a DB4 cooling kit which comprises of a GPU mount, heat sink mount, heat pipes, universal bracket, VRAM coolers and thermal paste, the heat from within your system is channeled to these large fins to dissipate the heat.
Aside from the large fins on the side, the DB2 is based off the main chassis of the recently released Streacom DA2.
The DA2 design is definitely styling and cooling over lighting, so you are not going to find any RGB here. The DA2’s upper and lower openings of the frame are a designed to improve cooling and avoid restrictions of airflow.
The side and back panels of the DA2 has over 2000 precision cut holes, and if you factor in that the internal frame of the DA2 utilises the universal brackets previously seen in the F12C and DB4 , in that you can move the brackets anywhere, you can mount multiple fans in any location you want.
Being a small form-factor chassis for a mini-ITX system, space inside the DA2 comes at a premium but there are surprises. If you went for small SFX PSU, you can still fit a 240mm water cooling radiator AND a full size graphics card in the DA2. But if you opt for an ATX PSU, then the length of the graphics card is limited to 225mm yet there’s still enough room for a 140mm AIO water cooler!
This strange looking ‘drawing board’ looking thing is the Canvas Case. The Canvas Case is collaboration between Streacom and Maverick, is a startup company that has chosen to specialize in premium quality computer gear, but with a think-out-of-the-box approach that breaks the status quo of design, function and performance.
The Canvas Case is a proof of concept design that incorporates an open chassis where all your hardware components are not screwed in, but secured onto neodymium magnets which attach onto the case’s stainless steel backplate, or ‘canvas’.
On these magnetic mounts, you can literally mount your hardware on whatever angle, layout, and/or configuration you want. Don’t want to have some hardware parts on display, no worries, as you can mount them out of sight on the back of the canvas. A small key feature to show just how well the Canvas Case has been designed are the magnetic cable-tidies which you use to guide and route your cables around the canvas.
The Canvas Case will come in different shapes so you can pick from a small frame for a mini-ITX system, a square shaped one to mount of you wall, or a rectangular one to sit on your mantelpiece.
The Canvas Case’s main frame is made from lightweight aluminium. Each of the ‘stands’ have rubber rings around it so you can put it on whatever angle on your table you want without scratching the surface. You can even stack multiple Canvas Cases together for a full customisable layout, imaging a water cooled system mounted on it with all the water cooling components on one case, with the main PC hardware components on another. And as a person that has struggled sometimes to get the correct lengths in the water cooling hard tubing, you now don’t have to worry so much as if its a few millimetres out, just shift the water cooling setup a few millimetres for adjustment!
The Canvas Case as mentioned is still proof of concept and is open to feedback from you, just contact them via their website if you have any ideas for it. Once all the feedback has been collected and the tweaks are done, expect to see the Canvas Case on Indiegogo!
