X2 strives to surpass the needs of our peers with the satisfaction and our guarantee of reliability, compatibility and consistency in our products. Our mission is to provide the highest endeavour of performance while obtaining top-quality levels in all our products.

(http://www.x2products.com/about-us last accessed 22/06/2013)

Overclockers Tech says; Of course we know that X2 (as previously mentioned) are in fact Spire Corp, just catering to the enthusiasts so without further preamble let us move on to the specifications and features of the 6019 Mod chassis.

 Specifications

Some of the specifications listed below show a marked improvement over Spire Corp’s previous efforts.

Features

Packaging

Our 6019 Mod case came with an outer carton, (probably allowing for shipment from Taiwan) and a simple removal of the packaging cords revealed the inner box underneath. The Spire Box itself is a nice shade of Red, well a Red that we at Overclockers Tech approve of. That is not a kind of Red that a ‘loose’ woman wears on her face whilst prowling the streets on a Friday (clubbing ) night, erstwhile  looking like she has spread her make up on by the use of ‘Bob the Builder’s’ plastering trowel.  Yes we know that we have used the latter analogy before in other reviews, but hey as the saying goes if it isn’t broke……….. Anyhow the Red is a lovely shade and gives a striking look to the box. The front panel sports an image of the case itself, which gives in our view a slightly futuristic look of the product.

The side panel is  essentially the same as any other chassis box out there, in which the outer packaging simply boasts the specifications of the inner product.

As shown above the inner packaging is exactly the same as any other chassis.

Now that we have the boring part out of the way let us explore the more interesting parts of this review and that would be the external looks of the Spire 6019 Mod.

External Looks

On first sight it is kind of hard to gauge what the front panel looks like. Not that there is anything wrong with its aesthetics, however if one tries really hard then we could almost liken it to something akin to a futuristic look.

The chassis sports five 5.25″ drive bays at first glance (more on this later)  and a 120mm front intake fan of which uses the usual Blue-Led colouration. So without further aplomb let us slowly work around the outside of the case and explain some of its features.

The I/O panel has a rather large power button in the centre, that has a chrome finish of which lights up a typical Blue colour. Here at OCT we are getting a little bored of the constant Blue lights that come standard in cases. This shade of LED used to be the fashion some three years ago, however like everything else tastes have moved on. A good suggestion would have been to utilise a dual  LED where one could have the a colour to indicate standby or power off mode and another to represent the powered on phase. To the left of this one has the HDD activity indicator which glows a deep red and the front FAN led indicator which glows a blue. It is also worth noting that the fan and the two indicators glow a similar shade.  Above these, we have the reset button and the ability to turn off the clichéd Blue light of the front intake fan. Next to these we have the functions of fan on/off for the intake and exhaust fans. At the top of the panel we have two USB and 3.0 and one USB 2.0 sockets and the usual Microphone and speaker connections. Overall the I/O section is spaced out well, easy to reach for all functions and intuitive. The only thing that bugs us is the obsession with catering to the colour BLUE for the LED’ functions otherwise  we see no real issues with the panel.

Whilst we are on the top panel a fan grill lies behind the I/o panel of which can hold either two 120mm fans or two of the 140mm variety.

Next we move onto the front 5.25 bay area.

The front intake sports a bright Blue LED fan which is of the 120mm variety and is fairly quiet to boot. What we have noticed is that all the bay clips and the whole front panel in general sport dust filters which is great news for the avid consumer whom has no wish to blow dust out of the machine every month or so.

To be honest everything here is pretty much standard with nothing nothing unusual here or to be fair wrong either. The front of the chassis whilst not being inspiring it doesn’t have any faults either.

Moving around to the side panel we some rather interesting designs. Rather than it being the usual grill for a side panels the design is only aesthetic in appearance.

Moving on to the rear panel we have eight PCI-E slots a 120mm fan hole and four rubber grommets for water cooling tubing. The latter we find an issue with as we are of the opinion that ‘drilling’ holes in the back of a case does NOT make the chassis water cooling ready and in our opinion Spire need to pay close attention to this. If a user cannot fit both the fans and a thin 30mm depth 240mm radiator inside without obstructing the motherboard then it is simply not watercooling capable.

With the above taken into consideration let us move on to the internal workings of the SPIRE X2 6019 MOD chassis.

 Internal Looks

In order to gain access to the inner sections, Spire has employed the old tried and trusted method of ‘ using Two thumbscrews in order to open the side panels. On removing these the panels feel solid and were removed easily along with a nice and meaty ‘thunk’ sound.

As the above images show the case is compartmentalised into three distinct sections, with these being the processor, main board and power supply unit areas. Whilst nothing new in the case world this is a first for Spire. However what is slightly different is that one of these compartments can easily be removed if the consumer so wishes. Having said that the purpose of this section is to prevent the heat of the Central Processor Unit from impacting onto the graphics card area.

Here we can see the CPU inspection area which is large enough to accommodate both the processor and the  Northbridge (MCH)  features of  (the older) type of motherboard.

 Judging by the photos shown above that wire management all seems to be in the correct place and in this model (Unlike the Savit model) sports a CPU EPS (albeit very small) hole for powering the processor. Our only qualm with the wire management are the rubber grommets, as it appears there is not much of an overlap on to the metal and when wires are poked through the centre of the grommet the latter comes loose. This happens most often when the 24 pin connector is routed through the system.

The inner back panel sports a silent 120mm fan which (and thank goodness for that) lacks the Blue LED’s that are present with the other fans. As usually there are eight PCIE blanking plates to the rear of the chassis, whilst at the front we have two hard drive cages-one of which can be removed when the consumer utilises a  larger graphics card. Each slot within the cage can accommodate either 2.5 or a 3.5 inch drive which is handy should anyone wish to employ the use of a Solid State Drive.

The above  show the smaller of the two drive cages which is just large enough to fit two drives, whilst the last photo shows the drive caddy itself. Whilst it is not the worst we have ever seen still feels a little on the flimsy side for our tastes.

The first photo below shows the front 120mm intake and as we discussed earlier is of the Blue LED type and we feel that Spire should have braided this cable in all fairness in order to make the cable blend within the chassis colour scheme.  The top fan is 140mm in size and is also of the same light colour, however as one can see by this photo the fan placement looks as though it could potentially causes issues with higher performing processor coolers. We shall explore this later in the review.

The reverse side of the chassis displays the wire management features and at first glance all looks to be normal with the usual inbuilt cable tie clips which have all been placed in the correct positions. However towards the front of the case there is an additional wire cover which allows the consumer to hide all the major cables in a more efficient manner.

 Again we looks at that wire cover we mentioned earlier and once this has been removed we see the cables that lead to the front I/O panel. Now with these cables normally i would mark a product down when either fail to use black cables or are lacking the same colour braid. However with this removable cover there is no issue as the cables are hidden anyway. The PSU area is pretty much the same as all over cases but it follows on from the theme that it is sectioned off in order to prevent either mother board and PSU heat from travelling from one section to another. Of course this area sports a dust filter in order prevent the former from entering into the system and to be honest this is a feature that is expected in all chassis these days.

Finally if the reader of this article will recall we spoke of the issue of the top fan being a little too close to the motherboard area to fit slightly larger or higher grade processor coolers? Well below shows this issue in detail.

Let us now move on to the conclusion of the Spire X2 6019 MOD

Conclusion

The X2 6019 Mod may sport a unusual name, however when we were first asked to review this product we did so after not a small amount of trepidation after the issues with the Spire Savit. We are happy to proven wrong in this case and all in all the chassis has been a pleasure to review. In its construction we can see there has been lots of cues taken from existing products from other manufacturers- most noticeably Lian-Li. Having said the latter we see other ideas that have been thrown into the mix. If we use the analogy of home-made soup we would say that though the liquid has some familiar herbs and spices the whole tastes well from the sum of its parts.

Thought the fans are not incorrect by themselves I wish Spire would have included either RGB fans or the same of another colour as Blue LED’S are cliché these days. The external features of the case though being plain are solid in its construction and the use of dust filters throughout. Internally the  rear cable duct and its internal dividers surprised us greatly. The I/O panel. with its ability to shut down and switch off the fans/LED’s is a nice bonus.

Near here comes the bad…. The front fan really should have had a braided cable in order to give the case a more ‘finished look’ and the rubber grommets easily come out their holes. The other two issues are the placement of the top fan grill and the fan itself obstructing larger sized CPU coolers. The final issue is and we always have this problem with Spire cases and that is lack of Internal water cooling support. At the risk of repeating ourselves; Drilling holes in the back of the case does NOT make a chassis water cooling ready. If the product cannot accommodate a standard 240mm radiator and fans internally then it simply should not be sold as ‘Water Cooling Ready’

On the balance side there are some interesting ideas and as we have mentioned before the ducting idea for the cables is a really neat innovation as well as the compartmentalised scheme. The whole frame is built rather solid and the overall feeling is one of quality and at a price of 100 Euros including taxes which equates to £85.92 GBP then things are looking up for the Spire X2 6019 Mod indeed.

If Spire sits down and listens to the watercooling enthusiasts and builds a chassis based around what they require then they will be on to a winner. As it stands this is a great first start for the X2 series and if they keep on employing new ideas and even taking ideas from other products but making a fusion of these innovations into something new then things will indeed bode well for Spire.

Pros:

• Excellent coverall construction
• Thermal divider between PSU bay and motherboard area
• Metal duct behind the motherboard tray
• Fan on/off switch for two individual units
• Fan LED on/off switch
• Three fans included
• Easily removable 5.25″ covers
• Dust filters on intake areas
• A myriad of ways  to secure loose cables behind the motherboard tray
• Removable HDD cages
• Removable plastic divider within the motherboard tray

Cons:

• Blue LED’s on the fans and front fan lacking a braided cable
• NOT watercooling ready!
• Top fan too close to the motherboard as to obstruct larger CPU coolers.
• Rubber grommets easily slip out of the holes.

It has been a pleasure to review the X2 6019 MOD chassis and given the above information we would like to award the product a 8.0 out of ten and therefore a SILVER award.

As usual we like to thank Spire for the review sample.

Author Gilgamesh