![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, April 11, 2007
- Author:
- Tim Roper
- Editor:
- Jason Wall
- Google +1
Maingear X-Cube
Last year's winner for Best Boutique Integrator returns with a small form-factor gaming box. Will the X-Cube live up to Maingear's high reputation, or will unexepected problems throw a monkeywrench into the works?
Part I - Product Overview: Packaging
The X-Cube arrived in a brown cardboard box bearing the Maingear logo. The box was in good cosmetic shape overall, despite some minor corner crunching.
Styrofoam peanuts provided the only cushioning for the interior box.
This definitely would not be acceptable for a full-size system, but for an SFF, it’s a bit more forgivable.
Maingear reused the retail SilverStone chassis box for the interior packaging.
Inside, we found our system wrapped in a plastic bag and suspended between two white foam brackets. On one side of the box, we found an anti-static bag filled with extra cables and adapters.
On the other side, we found a blue Maingear binder. Like with the F131, the Windows XP OEM sticker had been affixed to the inside cover. Unfortunately the binder lacked interior pockets, and several loose items (including software discs, the OEM Windows disc package, and several manuals) had been placed inside, many of which spilled out onto the floor the first time we opened the binder. Again, we’re probably nitpicking here, but the point of having a binder in the first place is to bind everything together, and simple pockets on the inside of the front and back covers would have been sufficient to hold everything. We’re disappointed that Maingear overlooked such a simple solution, especially since it’s gotten it right in the past.
The contents of the binder, however, were exemplary. We received a Windows XP Pro disc, driver discs for the Intel motherboard and NVIDIA card, a restore kit (bootable CD and a DVD containing the drive image) emblazoned with our name, CyberLink PowerDVD 6, Dark Messiah, Guild Wars: Factions, Nero 7 Essentials, and manuals for the various components in our system. The printed section of the binder consisted of a personalized, color owner’s manual containing a 3DMark06 screenshot, thank-you note, system setup guide, troubleshooting guide, system restore instructions, warranty information, and support contact information.
We also received a second, much smaller package that contained a Maingear coffee mug and a white ringer t-shirt. Several companies send free t-shirts with their systems, but the coffee mug is a very cool touch. What better way to fuel an all-night gaming binge than chugging coffee out of a Maingear mug? It can also hold Mountain Dew and Red Bull, in case you were wondering.