Biostar iDEQ 200T - Packaging and Design
Published on 2004-02-18 23:36:20 By: Hooz

The packaging is pretty average for this type of system. The case is held securely in foam "end caps" which form nice crevices to hold the box of accessories. The acrylic face of the case is additionally protected by a plastic cover and then a plastic (peel-off) sheet. There isn't any worries about this thing getting damaged in shipping unless the UPS guys try to use it for a soccer ball.

Let's take a look at what Biostar includes in the box besides just the iDEQ 200T.

  • User's Manual
  • Installation Guide
  • Driver CD
  • StudioFun CD
  • Serial ATA Cable
  • Serial ATA Power Adapter
  • Power Cord
  • Screw Pack
  • Thermal Grease

Not a ton of extra stuff in the box, but then again, what else do you really need? The only real gripe I had was one that Jim so eloquently stated in his SB62G2 review: "It's nice that they include 1 SATA drive cable but given that ICH5-R gives us RAID abilities, it'd be nice to have two wouldn't it?"

Design

The iDEQ 200T is a bit different from most SFF boxes out there now in that it has a sliding door that covers the drive bays and drive faces. This can be kind of handy if you already have beige drives and don't want to shell out for black or silver drives, but it can also be a hindrance if you're constantly feeding disks to your burner or something along those lines.

Either way though, the case cooling doesn't change with the door up or down and the door doesn't block any of the ports on the front of the machine (although it does cover the power and reset switches). Just leaving it open isn't going to hurt you a bit, and it doesn't change the overall aesthetics of the case much.

While I'm (sort of) on the subject of cooling, I just want to say that the iDEQ 200T has one of the best SFF cooling solutions I've seen. The case has the traditional punched metal vents along the bottom sides covers, but instead of relying on one fan to exhaust hot air from the system and the CPU heatsink, Biostar has devised a two fan system that is pretty darn effective.

The case ventilation is provided by medium sized, low RPM (and low noise) fan that sits directly behind the CPU socket. For CPU cooling, they include a very nice thin-finned, copper, heatpiped heatsink that uses another large, slow fan in a "wind tunnel" configuration. The beauty of the setup is that the heatsink fan blows through the fins and directly at the case exhaust fan... Effectively funneling the hot air directly out of the case.

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