ZALMAN Black Aluminum HD160XT Plus ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: Pretty much everything about this case screams quality and precision. It looks beautiful (even on the interior), it runs well, and the fans are near silent. Zalman put a lot of thought and care into the design and manufacture of this chassis.

Being able to take standard ATX motherboards and 10.6" GPUs (along with a healthy complement of hard drives) is also a big plus.

Cons: Certain motherboard mount points are optional (used primarily for micro-ATX board installation); you basically screw on a standoff extender to enable them. The problem is, the standoff extenders don't have much screwhole depth--all the included screws bottom out without actually securing the motherboard. This is simple to cope with but is a little lamebrained on Zalman's part

For USB, you may have to reassemble the internal connectors to match them to your motherboard. This can be done with a simple pick tool but is a pain. On top of that, the LCD module has an extra-long cable with an external USB end, with an adapter to plug into an internal USB header. It's straightforward to build a shorter cable with an internal USB end, but no such cable is included.

It would be nice if the LCD's VGA extender had a low-profile right-angle VGA connector, just to reduce cable clutter in the rear.

Other Thoughts: The chassis's optical faceplate may require you to do some custom carving on the drive tray for it to fit right. This is par for the course when optical drives are hidden this way.

eSATA in the front would have been nice. That's still rare for any chassis, though, so no eggs lost for that.

I'm planning to run Linux (XMBC, Boxee, or MythTV) on this thing, so I have no comment on the Windows software.

Fans appear to run off 5V. They have 3-pin headers, but they connect to Molex adapters, so the tachometer lines are unused. I don't know how well fan power would work running off 12V mobo headers, and I'm a bit hesitant to try. However, I may split off the tach lines to plug into mobo headers and crimp all the power leads straight to molex.

Pros: Quiet, Quiet and Quiet. Lot of space for any type of Video card/CPU cooler, GPU cooler. Lots of space for Hard drives. Solid built, Remote included and IR works with Harmony remote. Nice LCD display to add luxury to your Home theater!

Cons: Size, may be a factor for poeple with less space for media components. Heavy(it is not a con, or is it?)

Other Thoughts: Plan to buy this if you really want to display your HTPC built to many people, it doesn't have the chaep looking VFD display, like Antec :-)

Pros: Probably the quietest case I have ever owned. Excellent construction. Roomy. Easy to route wires and mount cards and Mobo.

Cons: For the price and usage (home theater), the included software called iMedian is the worst I have ever encountered. From the iMedian site, it looks like most modules have not been updated since 2004 or 2005. iMedian, when it does not lock up the machine, has VERY limited functionality.

It is also a lot deeper than the 18" in the spec. The front panel needs a large loop of cable so 21" is the least for en enclosed cabinet.

Other Thoughts: If you are looking for a quite case, this is it. Just plan on finding your own home theater software.

I took away 2 eggs because of the importance of the software in a home theater application.