Akasa Freedom Xone Case Review

Performance Analysis

With an improved cooling setup over the very similar NZXT Beta we’d really hoped for better cooling results from the Akasa Freedom Xone. However, its thermal performance was actually a huge letdown. When idle the case was no cooler than the Beta.

As the Beta is one of the poorest cases we’ve tested for cooling, and it only ships with a single 120mm fan mounted at the front, that’s a poor result for Akasa’s twin-fan Xone.

Under GPU load the Xone caused our GPU to run 2°C hotter than the Beta, while the CPU was an incredible 5°C hotter. It seems that the roof fan was sucking heat from our graphics card into the CPU cooler, but didn’t have the airflow to suck that heat out of the heatsink effectively. This is an effect that’s likely to be repeated with any card with a toasty backplate, such as the Radeon HD 4850 or any GT200-based card.

While the Xone is poor compared to the Beta, it’s even worse when pitched against the Antec Three Hundred. This £40 case also ships with a 120mm and a 140mm fan, with the 140mm fan in the roof and the 120mm fan at the rear.

When it comes to cooling, there’s no contest between the Antec and the Xone, even when we set the Antec’s fan to low speed. The Antec out-cooled the Xone by 15°C in the loaded GPU test, and by 3°C in the CPU load test. Those temperatures might not sound much, but when you consider we used identical test kit, and the Xone comes with the same number and type of fans, it’s clear to see how effective the Three Hundred is at cooling.


The Xone’s poor cooling performance really is baffling, as has a 140mm roof fan while the NZXT Beta had no cooling at the back of the case. This should translate into better cooling, but it didn’t. The key is the placement of the PSU. In the Beta our PSU acted as an exhaust, as it was in the roof and had its intake fan pointed toward the CPU cooler.

In the Xone, the PSU is housed in the floor, so it couldn’t act as an exhaust. In fact, with the vents in the floor of the Xone, the PSU is tasked with only having to cool itself. This is great for your PSU – not having to deal with any extra heat from your other components will help its longevity and efficiency. However, Akasa has clearly used a poor 140mm fan to replace the cooling abilities of the PSU in the Xone, hence the poor cooling performance.


A silver lining is that the Freedom Xone’s fans are at least quiet, and there’s plenty of room to improve the cooling situation with three extra 120mm fan mounts. Populate these (and possibly replace the 140mm fan) and you’ll doubtless see performance improve. However, with good 120mm fans costing around £13 each, you’re looking at spending at least £26 on top of the £45 of the case just to bring the Xone up to scratch.

Conclusion

While the Xone might have a more interesting look than Antec’s flat-faced Three Hundred, the Antec is sturdier, has superior cable management and is great at keeping your hardware cool. Despite looking the business, with painted steel inside and out, and boasting plenty of useful extras (tool-less installation, cable management, the cut-out behind the CPU socket to name a few), the Xone failed where it really counted with inferior build quality and dreadful cooling. Once again, another new cheap case has failed to surpass the Antec Three Hundred, making the Antec our choice for a wallet-friendly case.

• Build Quality
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 5/10

• Ease of Use
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 4/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 5/10

Score Guide