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Insights from the Inside: BitFenix Colossus & Survivor Chassis Previewed

By on June 1, 2010 4:55 am
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We make a trip to BitFenix Design Labs to take a look at their chassis development. Get peeks of their upcoming Colossus and Survivor chassis inside.

Earlier in April this year, BitFenix Design Labs was launched. At that point, we mentioned that we had seen some impressive 3D renders of BitFenix’s upcoming products. Today, we managed to squeeze some time off, to visit BitFenix Design Labs in Taipei.
Waiting for us were two mockups made to represent BitFenix’s yet-to-be-released product line. First up is the “Survivor” mATX form factor chassis. This is essentially a steel chassis equipped with some rather clever-looking extrusions made from Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), polycarbonate and rubber, to better withstand the typical LAN Party sort of abuse.

What you see here is a very early prototype that serves as a proof of concept, and “conceptual” is one word that describes this chassis design rather accurately.

You can see the extensive use of perforated steel throughout the case. The ABS extrusions help to withstand hard knocks – vital if you often shift your PC around.

The top grille is where an exhaust fan and a carrying handle will eventually be located. BitFenix finds little practical use in specifying their chassis innards for positive or negative air pressure, and hence they have implemented matching intake and exhaust fans on the Survivor (consisting two 140mm and two 230mm units). Users can hook up these fans to a standalone fan controller unit to tune the chassis air pressure for optimal perfomance.

Here you can observe what goes on inside the Survivor. BitFenix anticipates its users to mount hefty heatsinks on their mainboards (even for a mATX mainboard), and have hence included a relevant cutout to facilitate backplate installation. There is however, no plans to implement a removable mainboard tray at this point in time.

One notable feature on this chassis is the use of removable hard disk cages to facilitate the installation of lengthy graphics accelerators. Those who wish to sacrifice drive bays for speedy graphics can do so without moving up to the (larger) ATX form factor.
“What about ATX form factor chassis from BitFenix?” you ask.
The answer is “Colossus,” and you can see more of it on the next page.

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