Cougar QBX Ultra Compact Gaming Case Mini-ITX

Product Information

I'm not sure where a 240mm Radiator would fit though once the PSU is installed, I can only see space for a 120mm above the CPU on the top panel. It isn't much of an issue if you're using integrated graphics, as you can use the space that would normally be occupied by a discrete graphics card for cables, too. But if you have video card installed, it can get tight behind that panel. Installation Last but not least, all this power needs to be well cooled or all those components in a small space would simply burn themselves. QBX solves this problem with what is the best cooling on the market for a case of its class. Up to 7 fans with possibility of installing water cooling (up to 240mm long) will provide all the required airflow, including a dedicated independent PSU airflow that prevents the air from that particularly hot part of the computer to get to the rest of the components. The QBX's pro-cooling design guarantees that this airflow gets to the right places through the right ways, optimizing cooling even further. Then there is the matter of power cables/etc going to devices and the board. Is this coming with custom short length cables?The PSU draws air in from the side and exhausts out the top. The QBX is a wonderfully tight, and semi-frustrating, mini-ITX enclosure. On one hand, the stringent PSU requirements, poor documentation, and unique design that can make fitting parts into place a challenge will test your patience. However, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and if you take your time (and possibly make some concessions), you'll end up with a mini-ITX build that's actually about as mini as you can make it, if you max out the parts.

Cougar originates from Germany and originally specialized in advanced computer peripherals. During the past few months we have looked at several of their high end peripherals and mice. The company however produces more than just keyboards and mice, having diversified towards PC power supply units and cases. Cougar however is not particularly well-known for their cases, even though they have nearly a dozen designs available. One of their most recent releases is the their first Mini-ITX case, the QBX, which was unveiled at Computex and even won a design & innovation show award in the process. This is the case that we will be reviewing today. Instead, the ports are located, somewhat stealthily, on the side and slightly behind the front panel toward the bottom… When I first tried to insert the MSI GTX 960, it was bumping up against the cables and wouldn’t align with the slot properly. So I unplugged the power cables and put the card in. It fit perfectly, with plenty of room to spare, length-wise. But there was a very, very small gap between card and power supply. I avoid Fractal and NZXT like the plague. They are really just crappy quality. They completely ignore obvious design choices in every model...there's always one thing that utterly ruins the case, requiring some extreme modding and wasted time to work around. The QBX splayed open. A mini-ITX motherboard fits into the top-left corner, while the top-right holds the power supply. Zoom in on the picture and you can see circular half-globes rising out of the metal. That’s for the motherboard. It’s pre-risen!There is also a secondary, removable metallic tray mounted on the left side of the case. This tray can be flipped upwards or removed entirely for the easier installation of components. It has a slot for one 120 mm fan and a cage that can accommodate one 3.5" drive and two 2.5" drives. If the cage is removed, a 240 mm liquid cooling radiator will fit but only one fan can be installed. Otherwise the cables needed to power the drives and fans that may be installed on this tray may create a little bit of a mess. BurntMyBacon - Monday, November 16, 2015 - link @quest_for_silence "Unfortunately those negative comments were mostly groundless/rather questionable"

If you don't install a 3.5-inch hard drive, you can use the space for a 240mm radiator, though as previously mentioned, you can use only one 120mm fan to cool it. That restriction aside, it's a clever design that maximizes the available space. However, this might not work if you're installing an optical drive, which is a bummer because as it turns out, finding the right size PSU with a compatible plug orientation isn't easy, especially if you rule out generic (read: low-quality) units. With that massive dual chip GPU it leaves little room for cable management, there are more appropriate GPU's for iTX cases that are noticeably shorter. Interestingly enough, despite having only a single case fan and not much else in the cooling department, the T60-SFX runs significantly cooler than the Cougar QBX when it comes to the GPU temperature. This is probably due to the location of the case's air intakes that serve more or less as a funnel, running all of the ambient air past the graphics card before it's brought up to the CPU. Overall, even the CPU runs a few degrees cooler in this case, which is somewhat surprising given its design.The interior of the QBX deceptively looks very spacious because of the case's length. Only the left half of the main tray is reserved for the motherboard. A large opening allows for the installation of coolers without having to remove the motherboard from the case. The large opening extends beyond the top end of the motherboard for the routing of cables. Smaller openings also exist to the right and bottom of the motherboard area for the same purpose, none of which is covered with a rubber grommet. The right half is almost entirely taken by the PSU, with a narrow strip reserved for the slim ODD drive. Cougar markets the QBX as a compact case for gamers, and that's certainly viable. Its small size makes it a candidate for a home brewed Steam Machine, and it would also work well in a dorm-room setting, a cramped apartment, or anywhere else where space is a premium commodity. However, there's no reason to rule out other applications, as well. A full-length (350mm, to be precise) graphics card fits along the bottom of the case. In the foreground, you can see the detached panel that includes a 3.5-inch hard drive cage and slots for two SSDs. There’s also space for a single 120mm fan (or radiator+fan for liquid cooling) to be mounted here. Removing the panel is stupid easy: it slides in and out of the slots at the top of the case, so you can also flip it up for easy access to the guts without completely removing it.

I went hunting around the office, and between the component supplies of PC Gamer and Maximum PC, found three more standard ATX power supplies that were all 160mm long. Finally, we found one that fit: a 140mm Rosewill Valens 500.Although the Cougar QBX can take a full size ATX PSU, there is a catch – only PSUs up to 140 mm long will fit and they need to have their AC cable receptacle oriented in a particular way. According to the company's documentation (below), PSUs with the receptacle facing upwards are not compatible with the QBX. SFF cases are inherently at a disadvantage when it comes to cooling. To account for that, both side panels on the QBX sport large cutouts, but instead of side windows, each panel sports a large mesh grille… From top to bottom, there's a power button with an integrated LED, a drive-activity LED, two blue color-coded USB 3.0 ports, and separate headphone and microphone inputs.