Category: Computer Cases
Item: Ikonik Zaria Mid-Tower Case
Provider: Ikonik Technology
Reviewer: Kevin Elliott
Date: Nov.5, 2008

Introduction

The computer case we are reviewing today is from a company I am sure that not many of you have ever heard of before. After looking at their very well prepared catalog and examining the case they sent us to review, I would say the company has a very bright future in front of them.

The case that we will be reviewing today is the Ikonik Zaria A20, a mid-tower case that a nice list of feature as well as being very tastefully done so as to fit in various environments.  So come on along as we check out this new product from Ikonik.

Specifications

Our establishment
Ikonik Technology was founded by a team of IT-experts – who were operating for a well-known brand in the industry. Following the same business model of international business, we position ourselves in the same level of high standards in everything that we do.

Our core-business
Ikonik Technology is focusing on designing, branding, manufacturing and distribution of all computer peripherals. Not only will we create and supply these components to the power users – but we also provide the service and aftercare, in order to safeguard users’ equipments. In this highly competitive and aggressive environment, Ikonik Technology strives to deliver that extra bit more. We are constantly improving the standard of quality, surpassing users’ requirements and deliver products with performance, fun, good looks and easy to use.

Our award-winning expertise
With years of experience in R&D, sales & marketing, product and production management - we know how the market looks like. We have an award-winning team that won various international awards

Category: Computer Cases
Item: Ikonik Zaria Mid-Tower Case
Provider: Ikonik Technology
Reviewer: Kevin Elliott
Date: Nov.5, 2008

Packaging

The front panel of the Ikonik Zaria case is pretty straight forward, the only thing you can take away from it is the name of the case and a look at the case from a perspective view.

The rear of the carton is an entirely different story as it has a large number of small photos showing the high-points of the case. It shows such things as the "Dust Buster", which is a magnetic dust cover that covers the top mounted I/O panel.  Also show are such things as the "Beehive", which describes the mesh panel covering the pair of 80x10mm fans that are mounted on let-hand side panel.  There are many more of these photos showing the various parts of the case and unusual name that are given to them which you will be able to enjoy by enlarging the photograph.

An Exterior Look

The Zaria is combination steel and aluminum mid-tower enclosure that has a clean overall appearance and no real knock your socks off features that make you say wow when you first see it.  Now don't take this the wrong way since there are still some of us that prefer our cases to not have any silly gizmo and gadgets attached to it.  The Zaria has a nice clean look with a single mesh covered side-panel, and it should be noted that this side-panel can be changed to clear side-panel simply by unscrewing the mesh panel from the panel.  The clear side-panel comes with the case so don't sweat it being an option.

We mentioned that part of the enclosure was made of aluminum and that part happens to be the "Alumagate" door on the front of Zaria.  The use of aluminum on the door gives it a solid feel.  Directly below the door is a small swoosh has been added to the design line that breaks the design of the door to the bottom bezel.  Here you can see the words "Zaria" and this is also where you will find the LEDs for the power and hard drive activity light is located.

Here you can see the six-sided mesh cover that is currently in place on the side-panel.  This mesh in combination with the pair of 80mm fans that reside on  the opposite side of the case will create a great cross airflow inside the case and then combine it with the 120mm fans at the front and rear of the case and it is highly likely that this case will have the positive airflow we are looking for.

Category: Computer Cases
Item: Ikonik Zaria Mid-Tower Case
Provider: Ikonik Technology
Reviewer: Kevin Elliott
Date: Nov.5, 2008

With the Alumigate open you can see that the Zaria has a total of four spaces for 5.25" optical drives and a single slot for floppy drive or perhaps a card reader of some sort.  The door is held shut by a pair of magnets one of which is placed at the top and bottom of the door.

Next up we have the dust cover that is placed at the top of the case and can be swung around to cover all of the connection points for the I/O plate.  The I/O plate has the following connections: Headphone, microphone, two USB 2.0, one FireWire, One eSATA and one power button.

Here you can see the "Bee Hive" that covers the pair of 80x10mm fans on  right side of the enclosure.

Moving to the bottom of the enclosure you can see that they have located an opening for 80mm fan.  We did find out one thing about adding this fan, if you plan on adding the fan install your motherboard and all of its connections before installing the fan.  The reason being on our Asus P5Q Pro motherboard we would not be able to install the wire to control the motherboard if the fan were installed prior to installing the fan.

Looking at the rear of the enclosure you can see that it is basically like any other mid-tower enclosure you would come across with the exception of the matched set of holes located at the base of the case, which have been placed there to accept water cooling tubing if you design to cool your processor with H2O.

Category: Computer Cases
Item: Ikonik Zaria Mid-Tower Case
Provider: Ikonik Technology
Reviewer: Kevin Elliott
Date: Nov.5, 2008

Checking the Inside of Zaria

Looking inside the Ikonik Zaria you can see that there is not really a great deal of room if your are planning to install a full size motherboard like we are.  At the lower right portion of the case you have a five disk removable tower, each hard drive can be inserted into the tower using the tool-free slide-in rails, each of which has rubber pin and mounted disk that will help eliminate any noise the hard drives might make.  The drive cage can be removed in matter of seconds once you have removed the three thumb-screws that hold it in place.

With the drive cage out of the way you can see that they have already added a 120mm fan bearing Ikonik logo.  Located directly above the 3.5" removable drive tray are drive bays for the optical drives and these are also tool-less since all  you need to do is insert the drive and latch the slide, then to remove it simply reverse the step.

I can honestly say I have never seen a latching system like this to hold the slot covers into place, I have some similar in a few other cases and in my opinion it works but it is not my favorite means of latching card in place.  I'm old fashion when it comes to how I want to hold my cards in place and that is to just use a screw, then I know the particular video card(s) or NIC or sound card will be in place without the fear of it moving.

The rear 120mm fan and the pair of 80mm fans are all controlled by the SIM (System Intelligent Management) is new innovative thermal solution. The concept of thermal solution is not new, however SIM brings something new for PC-enthusiasts. The difference with IKONIK and other existing solutions is the independency of SIM. Taking into consideration the number of brands available now days. SIM is compatible with all industries available platforms

Category: Computer Cases
Item: Ikonik Zaria Mid-Tower Case
Provider: Ikonik Technology
Reviewer: Kevin Elliott
Date: Nov.5, 2008

Here is an inside view of the two 80x10mm fans that are wired to before mentioned SIM.  These fans create a very nice cross-flow as we mentioned earlier and I think their placement is an excellent idea and hope to see this feature adopted my other case makers.

Another nice feature which is not that expensive to carry out is the fact that Ikonik has taken the time to add padding strips for the power supply, another smart measure to help cut down on the amount of vibration the case can generate.  This is another feature worth adding by other case makers.

Now we have the chance to finally look at the SIM, it is simply a square plastic box that has numerous wires coming and going in and out of the box.  There are also four connectors where you have the option of connecting four additional temperature probes.  Which is exactly what we have done by connecting two of them to our hard drives one to our GPU and one to the north bridge cooler.

Looking at the back of the side-panel you can see the screws that hold the mess in place and by simply removing these screws you swop the mesh for the transparent side-panel. 

One thing I like to see in a case are the small springs that push a small piece of metal against the side-panels of the case once they are installed. These serve a dual purpose, first they help keep the doors from vibrating and secondly they help cut down on RFI or radio frequency interference that can happen when a two pieces of metal resonate at a frequency to give off noise that can be heard on radios and televisions.

Here is the screen on the bottom of the case where you have the opinion of placing an additional 120mm fan.  The next photo shows where the outside air can be brought into the front of the case, you can also see the stereo type feet that the Zaria uses, these type of feet add a nice touch to an already sweet case. 

Category: Computer Cases
Item: Ikonik Zaria Mid-Tower Case
Provider: Ikonik Technology
Reviewer: Kevin Elliott
Date: Nov.5, 2008

Here you can see the rails that will be attached to the hard drives we will be installing into our system. You can see that at each attachment point on the rail instead of having a metal pin that sticks into one of the three screw holes on the side of the hard drive there are two rubber pins that take their place.  This small feature helps dampen the noise the 7200 RPM hard drives can create.

The next photograph shows the system after it has been completed, you can now see where the problem might occur if you place a fan in the bottom opening of the enclosure.  You will have problems plugging in USB and FireWire connectors along with power switch and reset switch on the Asus motherboard.

The SIM Software 

The first panel from the SIM monitoring program shows the four different fan speed indicators .

The second panel is temperature monitor .

Category: Computer Cases
Item: Ikonik Zaria Mid-Tower Case
Provider: Ikonik Technology
Reviewer: Kevin Elliott
Date: Nov.5, 2008

Test System

Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro
Processor: Intel Q9450
Hard Drives: 2 - Hitachi 750GB
Memory: OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 / 800MHz
Heatsink: Zalman CNPS8700 LED
Power Supply: Aero Horsepower 1020 watt

The check and see just how well the fans helped cool our test sytem we ran a couple of tests to find out. We first tested the system with all side-panels in place and all of the fans working. The second test we removed the power from all of the fans to see how much difference this made in both case and CPU temperatures.  The temperatures we achieved with the fans was 27 degrees C @ Idle and 47 degrees @ full load.  Our next tests were run without any of the cases fans running. This resulted in these scores Idle 34 degrees C and at full load 57 degrees C.  So you can truly see that the fans do an outstanding job.

Conclusion

While this may be the first review we have done for Ikonik, we can honestly say I hope it isn't the last.  The Zaria in our opinion is a great case for anyone that is not in need of full-tower case.  We do applaud the use of tool-free features used throughout the case and solid aluminum door.  Combine that with the pair of 80mm fans used on the secondary side-panel insures that adequate cross ventilation take place.  The use of the SIM monitoring is something entirely new to us and we usually see this feature carried out my the software that comes with the motherboard. To summarize in a single sentence the Ikonik Zaria if worth checking out if you want a fully-functional and attractive mid-tower case. 

Ease of Assembly 7 Fit and Finish 9 Cost 8 Performance (cooling) 8 Warranty 8 Total 40

Total Score

Scores   0 to 10 = Not a chance in hell
Scores 10 to 20 = If my arm is twisted
Score   20 to 30 = Worth a second Look
Score   30 to 40 = Would recommend
Score   40 to 50 = Must have product