Velocity Micro Edge Z55 Intel Core i7 Gaming System

Through the case’s side window, you can see that the interior of the Z55 is roomy and neat. This not only looks clean, but it also helps promote airflow. As one might expect, the heatsink/fan assembly and dual Radeon cards take up the majority of the space near the motherboard. Velocity Micro took great care to route the cables as efficiently as possible to maximize component access.

The case’s side panel easily slides off by removing of two thumb screws. The graphics cards' cables are routed near the edge of the motherboard, which may make it slightly difficult to access the only open 5.25-inch drive bay. Other than that, the cables are largely out of the way.

There are four additional bays for extra hard drive storage, though adding additional hard drives would affect airflow and cut down on the internal light from the system’s two front fans.

In addition to the system’s three case fans, there are fans on the CPU heatsink, motherboard chipset's heatsink, and on each of the two graphics cards. Even with all of the fans running, the system is reasonably quiet; the air noise is definitely noticeable, but it’s not intolerable.

The two ATI Radeon HD 4850 cards completely block the motherboard’s two PCI Express x1 slots. The single PCI slot is open, but if you were to put a card in it, you would significantly reduce the airflow to the top graphics card.

There are six SATA connections on the motherboard. Two are used for the Lite-On drives, and one for 750GB Hitachi 7200rpm hard drive. The three available SATA connections are easily accessible.

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