Aerocool DS Cube review

The Aerocool DS (Dead Silence) Cube is about the size of a chunky home cinema sub, but is designed to contain all the PC you’ll need in its compact case. Available in a range of colours, the matt exterior looks and feels good, although the white model we reviewed picks up marks very easily. An acrylic side window lets you look inside, but even our tidiest build efforts still looked rather untidy.

The case isn’t exactly silent; not much noise escapes, but some acoustic foam wouldn’t have gone amiss. Two quiet case fans are fitted: a 120mm exhaust at the back and a 200mm front intake. It’s easy to get at the case’s innards, as you just have to remove the top and side panels. We were annoyed to find that we had to remove the external 3 1/2in drive bay to fit our 275mm graphics card.

The inside of the case isn’t awash with space, so you’ll find life easier if you fit the graphics card, processor, memory and CPU cooler to your motherboard before putting it into the case. There are four expansion slot blanking plates at the back, which is enough for an average microATX board’s expansion slots. Routing power supply cables can be rather awkward, so if possible get a modular PSU with detachable cables to make your life easier. There was plenty of room for our 165mm-high CPU cooler, and you’re well served for storage, thanks to trays for two 3 1/2in and two 2 1/2in drives and a cage with room for two 2 1/2in drives.

The case comes with swappable solid and mesh top panels, which you can fit extra fans beneath. The mesh panel gives you better airflow but both panels felt a little rattly and the interchangeable latch to hold them shut became easily detached. Alongside the panel are two USB3 ports, two USB ports and the usual mic and headphone ports.

It’s reasonably easy to build a PC using this case, but the Aerocool DS’s cramped interior, poorly positioned 3 1/2in external bay and somewhat flimsy top panel make it an inferior case to the BitFenix Prodigy M.