Cooltek V6+

[testman78]

Introduction

There are many praises for Cooltek powered by Jonsbo V6 after launched, and now its time for the company to introduce V6+ which have an aluminum plaque front panel.Except changing to use anod wiredrawing aluminum plaque front panel,nothing has been changed.



V6+ is an extremely light Mini-ITX case.It features a simple but effective design and the ability to hold a full ATX power supply all while keeping overall dimensions as compact as possible.




Packaging & Contents

Cooltek packs the V6+ into a white cardboard box with brown and black print.The front of the package shows the chassis,while the rear has another simple image of the cube's separate parts.



Both sides of the cardboard box share identical bits information in the form of specifications.




The V6+ is held in place by foam spacers, and a plastic bag has been applied at the factory to protect it from scratches and fingerprints.




You won't get a lot of stuff with the Jonsbo V6+. Included are a very specific number of screws, five zip ties, and a single-sided manual.





A Closer Look - Outside

The V6+ convinces by the revised front design in brushed aluminum. This gives the case a particularly noble appearance.



On the edge of the front panel you will also notice that there is a vented section,this is so there is some airflow available for the power supply fan which will be mounted in the front of this chassis.



At the very top we have the chassis front IO panel.This consists of a single USB 3.0 port, 3.5 mm headphone and microphone jacks and a single USB 2.o port.In the middle of the front IO is the power button.



The exterior of the chassis is on piece of brushed aluminium.It simply slots on,and is held in place by three thumbscrews on the rear of the chassis.The one-piece lid is made of 0.8 mm thick SECC steel and the chassis has a thickness of 0.6 mm.This gives the compact chassis an enormous stability.



Here is what the external shell of the V6+ looks like when removed. It is a single piece of brushed aluminum and as you can also see is held in place by four thumb screws towards the rear.



As you can see towards the front of the chassis,there is a vented mesh area.



This is also on the same place on the opposite side of the chassis.



Moving onto the rear of the chassis we can see that Cooltek have decided to go with a rear 140 mm exhaust fan positioned above the motherboard IO slot.Whilst this is fine with many of the coolers designed to fit this chassis, you may run into problems with orientation on some of the tower coolers on the market.On the right hand side we have the two PCI expansion slots which are held in play by a bracket which utilities downward pressure from screws.Lastly on the top left hand side we have a kettle plug input for the power supply.



On the underside of the chassis there is not much to note, in each corner we have four rubber feet and a small ventilated area under the front side.The reason for there being no air intakes are that the power supply is mounted in the front of the chassis and intakes air through the front panel.




A Closer Look-Inside

Upon removing the outer brushed aluminium shell we are greeted immediately with a view of the storage caddies implemented into the V6+. Cooltek have decided to keep all of the storage focused around the roof of the chassis, mainly because there is a lack of real estate in the main chassis,but more on that later.



The metal parts in V6+ are small and exquisite, but not simple.The entire product is made by mature molding punching,there are 11 parts and 51 sets of mold,the investment is not less than any traditional tower case.



As you can see, the interior of the chassis is also black.Everything works perfectly fine and the cable length of each of the cables is refreshingly short, making the best possible use out of the internal space.Taking a closer look at the inside of the chassis,you can see the power supply mount as well as the internals of the front IO panel.On the bottom side of the case you will also notice the input for the power plug and how it trails down that side to the power supply mount.



3 x 60mm fans can be mounted behind the front cover,increasing the air flow significantly.



All the cables are black and come with the usual set of connectors, and each of them is clearly labeled.




Two HDD holders can be easily removed by loosening four screws.Both holders can accommodate two mass storage devices.Here's a close-up of the holders.Thanks to the intelligent layout of the inner space of the case,you can install either 4 x 3.5 inch or two each 2.5 and 3.5 inch HDD/SSD.



The "primary" disk holder (see manual) allows the decoupled mounting of either two 3.5 inch or two 2.5 inch HDD/SSD.



The “secondary” holder is equipped for two 3.5 inch or one 2.5 inch and one 3.5 inch HDD/SSD.



High quality Taiwanese quiet fan has been used in the rear of the case.




Installation and Finished Looks

Installing the motherboard within the V6+ is quite simple.There is plenty of space around the board, so you do not have to force things. One should naturally install any components, like heatsink and memory, before putting the board in place.The front panel I/O wiring also comes into the case from this side so keep that in mind during installation.The second step consists of installing the power supply. Due to the compact nature of the chassis, connecting everything before installing the PSU is vital here as well.When using ATX power supplies,CPU coolers with a maximum height of about 65 mm can be installed.



V6+ can also support dual PCI slots display card with 200mm length.As you can see there is still a little bit of room at the end of the chassis for a slightly longer card.



As you can see, the standard sized ATX unit fits into the V6+ just fine, but those who use modular ones need to ensure that the package does not end up being too large.I will advise the use of SFX power supply,in order to maintain the innerspace more clean for air circulation.



I was able to comfortably mount my storage devices out of the way from all the cables below and still fit in under the caddies.



You may also be able to see, that whilst my cable management within the chassis was not great,there is still plenty of room left to route any cables to make it tidier.




Test System and Methology

Processor: Intel Core i5-3570K
Motherboard:GIGABYTE Z77N
Cooler:Thermalright AXP 200 CPU Cooler
Memory: 4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1800MHz
Graphics Cards:Asus GTX760-DCMOC
Power Supply: Antec Eartwatts 650w
Boot Drive: Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB
OS: Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit



To test the thermal performance of the Cooltek V6+ i loaded my test system for 15 minutes using Prime95 and Furmark and recorded the maximum temperatures reached using CPUID Hardware Monitor.I then restarted the system and left it for 15 minutes before recording idle temperatures.Room temperature was maintained at 20 degrees C for the duration of my tests.


Temperature

The V6+ comes with one 140mm rear exhaust fan but does have some exemplary ventilation.This ventilation is enough to help my Thermalright AXP-200 tame the heat from my i5 3570k at Stock Settings and the Asus GTX760-DCMOC Mini which i use for my thermal tests.




Noise level

With its fan running at full speed,the V6+ registered 39.1dB, a very comfortable level of noise for most users.For users who care more about acoustics than thermal performance,the fan on low speed dropped this figure down to an inaudible 29.9dB.




Conclusion

The Cooltek V6+ upon first impressions seems like a unique entry onto the case market with its small, compact design, front mounted power supply and read mounted motherboard.It allows three 60mm fans to be mounted below psu drawing air from the front of the chassis.Whilst the front of the chassis could be improved to allow a stronger airflow,the ventilation is still good and with some 60mm intake fans,yes you would get more noise,but only a little which would be more than offset by the increased cooling.The appearance design of V6+ is refer to some high-end audio equipment.In the thermal and acoustic tests the Cooltek V6+ performed as expected, being a little warmer than tower cases.This was no surprise due to the single 140 mm fan in the V6+.It manages to outperform the Lian Li PC Q-33 in the thermal and acoustic tests.



In summary, I would say that Cooltek have generally done a good job with this chassis.The design of the chassis is excellent right down to the minor details.The storage solutions are very good and allow for a good amount of storage to be crammed into such a small chassis.With its simple, sleek aesthetic on the outside and its well thought out internals,Cooltek almost has the perfect ITX chassis on their hands. As you can fit 4 storage drives into such a small chassis,and still have plenty of cable management room and good cooling,the Cooltek V6+ is fully deserving of my Outstanding award.