Final Words & Conclusion
Conclusion
For their first chassis series Gigabyte did a rather nice job with the Aorus AC300W ATX Mid-Tower. Overall this is a very decent chassis with some interesting features. There is however room for improvement as most of the competition simply is a mile away with tempered glass and more advanced features. However at a selling price of 99 USD/EUR the product is nice and has good looks as well, so it makes sense in that aspect. Airflow seems okay, albeit two fans for this chassis feels a little on the shy side. Where the chassis however excels are its overall looks. The styling is good with nice RGB LED design elements you can link up to your Aorus RGB compatible motherboard. Gigabyte however will need to be a bit more careful placing Aorus logos all over the place as end-users do not like led lit logos on their chassis in the year 2017. Features like the HDMI connector bypass towards the front panel is nice, but here again I think that if you ask any regular end-users if he/she would prefer tempered glass or the choice of that top mounted HDMI connector, well the outcome would be a preference for tempered glass. VR has peaked already and is getting more and more on the decline, however the ones that do appreciate VR and have a matching Gigabyte card, for them this could make a lot of sense of course.
The Design
The Aorus AC300W ATX Mid-Tower can be classified as a PC chassis for a mainstream to somewhat high-end build. It has a nice size and if you are digging the style, it looks great. We like the open plexy see-through side panel, but do feel it would have been better with tempered glass. The storage options for HDDs are limited, just two of them and they do not get rubberized seats. This might be an issue with resonating noises. SSD wise Gigabyte did well, three in the back is simply put very decent. Support for up-to regular sized ATX motherboards is here as well as space for the biggest graphics cards. Liquid cooling wise you have two primary options, the front, and top:
- Front - 120mm x3 / 140mm x2
- Top - 120 mm x2/ 140mm x2
- Rear - 120mm x1 / 140mm x1
The Innards
The chassis innards are done well, we mentioned the advanced hiding options at the lower side, hiding the PSU to the right that HDD bay, as well as the rear, mounted SSDs. You'll have a nice all black interior including all black cabling with plenty of hidden holes to work with. We appreciate the overall space for everything and that shielding, albeit simple enough, is screw based. Also, the most lengthy graphics card will fit (410mm) and CPU coolers can have a height of up-to roughly 185mm, that is a proper tolerance. There's space for pretty much all popular liquid cooling formats. The motherboard tray also has a massive cutout which has a shield at the back side as well. With the two included fans you can create okay airflow. That said, there aren't too many meshes which can restrict that fact a bit.
Final Words
The Gigabyte Aorus AC300W ATX Mid-Tower is a very decent chassis overall. For 99 USD you really can't go wrong as it certainly looks nice. The VR HDMI connector and options to vertically mount the graphics card are more a gimmick feature then the real deal though. Cable routing, however, is average at best but, with a bit of endurance and time, it'll get the job done. For the next series, I like to see some rubberized grommet holes and sure, tempered glass. Other than that this is a very decent looking chassis with some nice options and styling. Albeit being acrylic, you get a big see-through window with stuff like the PSU and HDD nicely hidden away, creating more of an overview over your expensive components. If you are digging all the Aorus branding or just its styling, then this might be a nice chassis for you to opt. But herein is a problem to be found, is Aorus a big enough brand already for you to purchased an Aorus branded chassis? We doubt that a bit. Other then that you can't go wrong with it really, the reality is also that the product does not excel heaps from the competition. And that competition is very stiff and plentiful in numbers. At 99 USD it's priced spot on though. Recommended.
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