The housing came shipped in a three-ply shipping box. I took it out ready to assemble the pieces, but it was pretty much together. The only thing I really had to do was take the two housing fans and the power cord out from inside the case. I also had to assemble the bottom plastic stands or legs as you would call them.  Next, I carefully installed the DX34 motherboard that AOpen also supplied for this particular housing setup.

Here are a few things I liked about this housing case:

1. Abundance of room, good for air circulation.

2. 5 Tray hot swap cage, optional for Raid configuration (to include more hard drives, CD-ROMs etc.).

3. Built in redundant fan system  (In case the housing fan fails).

4. Security : Door Key Lock & Chassis Open Alarm.

Testing This System:

For this project I used an AOpen Dx34 dual processor motherboard with two 1.0 GHz Coppermines, a 40 gig Maxtor hard drive and a Creative DVD / CD-ROM drive.

A  GeForce 2 GTS 32 meg card and Soundblaster Live! Xgamer+ handle the video and audio end of things. I hooked up all the components, installed Windows 2k, put in 512 PC133 RAM and was ready to test this beast of a game server.

The first thing I wanted to test was how this system worked as a game server. I installed Quake 3 because it seems to really push machines to the max. Before on my mediocre old 550 MHz system when I started a server with me and about 20 bots running around, it really bogged down. This time it did not, and I must say the frame rate stayed high as well, with the server not producing any lag.  A few people even joined in increasing the number, and still the server's performance was great. 

The other way I like to test system performance is by using the Sandra 2000 benchmarking program. 

Completed System

Power Source

The SV320 comes with a Hot-Swap Redundant Power Supply module bay. This allows the installation of two 337-watt power supply modules in a hot swappable redundant configuration. This configuration allows for one power supply to take over if the other power supply fails, keeping your critical server up and running.

Final Thoughts:

Depending on what you require in a case, the A-Open SV320 should be sufficient for the hardcore person who wants his or her own powerhouse game server.  It should be big enough for the components you have now, and the ones you plan on adding in the future. The structure of the case is strong and comes with a kick ass 337-watt power supply which is great for those gig Coppermines and other high powered components. You may want to have at least 3 extra fans running with the dual monster. My overall final thoughts on this case are that AOpen has done a great job with the SV320 housing.  It offers a lot of features but at the retail price of around $335 it should be good! Yes there are some negatives to this case but the positive features far outweigh the negative.  Overall this will be a great game or file server.

Positives

- Tons of room

- Excellent 337-watt power supply

- High expansion capacity with 5 slots and 13 drive bays

- Thick steel construction

- Have a key to lock the server from unwanted guests

Negatives

- Kind of heavy

- A little steep in price at $335

Buy this product today from www.myaopen.com/aopsvbrserho.html