Over the years, open-frame PC cases have risen and fallen in popularity. Traditionally, the most popular kind have been “desktop orientation” horizontal ones, designed for easy access to components to enable quick change-outs or testing work (say, in a computer lab). The DA6 XL, from Rotterdam-based case maker Streacom, is decidedly not one of those utilitarian types. Instead, it’s a blank-slate opportunity for intrepid DIY-ers who prioritize exposed-innards style over practicalities like dust filters (or keeping curious fingers or paws out of fans). This $175 case is a loose design made of tubes and rails that support your parts suspended in air, and it’s all about flexing your creative muscles. Buy it if you want your PC to be a conversation piece, not if, say, you want to install lots of drives. It earns an Editors' Choice award for the best compact open-frame chassis we've seen in ages.
Design: These Lines Are Hard to Define
We got a chrome sample of the DA6 XL; Streacom also offers a version in all-black. Note that Streacom also offers a version of this case simply called DA6. The added “XL” in the name indicates an extra 35mm to the height, extending its maximum supported graphics card length to 358mm. A quick look at the case straight out of the box, though, gives us little indication of how that card connects to the motherboard. Even determining where the motherboard itself might go requires a closer look. (Spoiler! It mounts on the two thick vertical posts that jut up the case's center.)
In the image below, you can see the power button and the USB Type-C port. But before you can say, “Of course! That must be the top,” we have news: We’re actually showing you the bottom of the case. The port and button reside on a removable panel that’s situated on the same panel as the motherboard I/O plate in Streacom’s as-delivered configuration.
You can move the button and port to one of the top panel’s mounting holes, if you’d like, and Streacom will even send you a different type, if that’s what you’d prefer. Dual Type-A, Type-A plus Type-C, dual Type-C, and even fingerprint-scanner options are all on the menu, if only the rest of your parts leave you enough space to use them.
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The button assembly is secured by just two screws that pinch against the edge of any corresponding hole in the top or bottom panel.
The DA6 XL’s bottom panel also contains a triple-slot opening for your GPU with a single replaceable slot cover. (Of course, the notion of closing such gaps with slot covers might seem pointless on an open-frame chassis.)
Streacom even puts a standard PC power jack on the bottom, to help keep all the cables that protrude from the enclosure pointing in the same direction. An extension cable with a right-angle end sticks out the back of that jack.
The cross-rods you see here are hooked on one end and partly covered in vinyl sleeves to provide grip against the chassis tubing. Loosening a screw allows the entire rod assembly to slip apart and fall into your hand. Reinstallation is as easy as holding one end together with your left hand, the other end together with your right hand, and tightening the screw with the Allen key…OK, so maybe it’s not so easy. But we got it done.
Because the DA6 XL’s design is so flexible, we’ll need to add parts before the chassis makes much visual sense.
Building With the Streacom DA6 XL
The DA6 XL comes with a PCI Express riser cable, a total of 20 #6-32 threaded screws divided into three styles, and 12 M3 screws in two styles. You also get a dozen stars for attaching various devices to the enclosure’s metal rods, rubber mounting pegs for two fans (they can be up to 140mm format), four cable clips, two long screws with spacers, two short screws that match the empty screw holes on the PCIe card bracket, four washers, and a ball-end hex key.
Cables are a simple affair, as the two small ones go to the power button and its centered indicator LED. Strangely enough, the Type-C port is fed by the type of cable that normally feeds two Type-A ports. (We’ve never seen one of these wired as Gen 1x2 before.) The power extension cable’s right-angle end helps it to protrude…less…from the case.
And so, onward to assembly. As you can see, the Mini-ITX motherboard, mounted on its posts, gets sandwiched here between our graphics card and our liquid cooler's radiator, with the GPU attached to the motherboard via the riser cable and hiding most of the motherboard from sight. You see, we really wanted to use our closed-loop cooler to test the DA6 XL, and while the case was delivered with two of its rod sets tucked inward (to keep the power supply’s cable tucked in), we didn’t think ours would fit that way. But it worked out fine. We used an SFX power supply here, as we do with some Mini-ITX cases; had it not been for our radiator, we could have stood a full-size ATX power supply vertically against the back of our graphics card, facing in one of the two other possible directions.
Now, if only we’d found a place to hide the power supply’s output cables up top there…
...but all told, a pretty neat-looking build, considering we used our standard test parts, nothing specially selected for such an extreme high-visibility case.
The DA6 XL can also be used horizontally, making hiding cables and accessing the front-panel ports a little easier. Here, it stands next to the recently reviewed InWin POC One, which was also designed to be used either horizontally or vertically.
As for installing drives, we relied on the M.2 slot on our Asus test board to carry the boot drive. We didn’t attempt to stuff any 2.5- or 3.5-inch drives in this frame, especially as each would require a data and SATA cable that would be hard to hide. We’d suggest the same and advise looking for a Mini-ITX mainboard that has two M.2 slots if you want future storage expansion beyond the boot drive.
Still, if you want to try, attaching an SSD or a hard drive involves what Streacom calls “universal brackets” (translation: rails) that can run up or down any of the four sides. Streacom notes that the case, at maximum, can host two 3.5-inch and four 2.5-inch drives, but the fitment will all depend on what other hardware you choose and install, which may interfere with a full complement of drives and where you can put them. (A full ATX PSU, for starters, will eat a bunch of rail real estate you could use otherwise for drives, versus an SFX PSU.)
Testing the Streacom DA6-XL
Here’s a recap of the current suite of standard case-testing parts we use for Mini-ITX chassis...
The good news is that the DA6 XL leads in all three of our thermal tests, which is something you might have expected from an enclosure that’s not enclosed at all. The only bad news was for InWin’s competing POC One, since that case had to be flipped “wrong-end up” to stay cool vertically.
Surprisingly, the DA6 XL tested slightly quieter from some angles than the POC One did. Then again, the POC One did have a fan of its own.
Verdict: PC DIY in the Great Wide Open
Builders who buy the DA6 XL for its aesthetic (and that’s, indeed, the main reason to buy it) will have to make peace with whatever Mini-ITX hardware configuration they can fit into its rails. (A modular PSU is a must, for starters, to keep the cables to an absolute minimum.) Those looking for convenience may prefer one of the other two cases we compared. But for maximum exposure for your GPU and other parts, nothing beats no cover at all, and few open-frame chassis we've seen can beat the DA6 XL on looks. It made our ordinary testing parts look spectacular; imagine what it could do for you if you choose yours with intention!
Artistic flair is what Streacom’s unique DA6 XL is all about. It’s an open-frame Mini-ITX PC case that will reward careful component selection (and cable-hiding judo) with a stunning compact build.
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About Thomas Soderstrom
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