Open-air cases are the latest thing in PC gaming enclosures. For years, many gamers chose to run their PCs with the side doors open and large external floor fans pointed at the components. While this solution provided good airflow, the components are still all mashed into a vertical ATX PC case. Plus, you would have to worry about keeping enough space around the case to place the floor fan.
Antec has attempted to fix these frustrating issues with their first open-air case, the Skeleton. Looking like some sort of futuristic reactor more than PC case, the Skeleton features room for four internal drive bays as well as four additional drives along its side. The motherboard is seated horizontally on the upper-tier motherboard rack, which slides out the back of the unit like your friendly neighborhood server slides out of a rack mount, making reaching around different places of the motherboard easy. There is an issue with fan overhead however, and we found that tall aftermarket CPU coolers will not make the clearance given by the large 250mm unit. What this means is that you will have to use a shorter third-party cooler or the stock unit.
The room is not nearly as plentiful in the below-mobo area where the PSU and internal drives are located, with snaking cabling about becoming a real pain at times. In addition, the way the PSU faces to one side takes away from valuable cable length when pulling cables to the opposite end of the case. These bottom-tier space issues aside, the ease of getting to your mobo components makes it well worth the trouble to be found underneath. Need to add a video card? Simply slide the component tray out the back of the unit and slap it in there, all easy like!
The Skeleton comes equipped with two fan units. The most prominent being the 250mm Tri-Cool fan at the top of the unit. It draws cool air in and pushes it down onto the components below. Also included is a smaller 92mm fan which attaches to the front of the internal 3.5′ drive bay, providing hard drive cooling. It is important to keep the air moving underneath the motherboard as it acts as a barrier from the forced air coming from the 250mm fan above. By circulating the air underneath, this problem is alleviated.
Installing everything was actually fairly difficult. Not because the process itself is overly hard, but deprogramming myself after years of vertical ATX case installing took some time. 
To make matters worse, Antec’s in-box documentation is not very good, and they refer you to the much more well-written online PDF. In the online document (available here) you will find color photos of the setup in action which are very helpful.
If you are like me, you have a ton of hard drives in your current PC case. With the Skeleton only supporting four internal drives (two 3.5” and two 5.25”) you may feel like you have run out of room. Do not fear, as the case allows you to mount up to four 3.5” drive bays on the outside of the frame using special mounts provided in the packaging. This solution, while a bit unconventional, does the trick nicely and keeps those drives easy to access.
Unfortunately, testing the Skeleton against the old-school open ATX case and floor fan would not be very scientific as reproducing the results would be highly dependent on fan model, age, etc. So, we turned to aluminum case maker Lian Li’s PC-X2000. This tall (and expensive) metal monstrosity is renown for its thin profile and cooling. Lets see how they stack up.
Temperature Rating (Lian Li PC-X2000 / Antec Skeleton)
Case Ambient @ Idle: 28C / 24C
Case Ambient @ Load: 30C / 24C
GPU @ Idle: 38C / 34C
GPU @ Load: 53C / 44C
As you can see, the Antec Skeleton consistently provides lower temperatures than the Lian Li thanks to it being more exposed to a cooler source of air. Cool air just spends less time turning hot and lingering around the Skeleton due to its open design.
Overall, we did like the component cooling given by the Skeleton’s unique design as well as the easy access to mobo components when you slide the tray out. While not perfect, the Skeleton is a good purchase for gamers and PC tweakers out there. Just watch out for that overhead height limit with regards to the CPU cooler.
SteelSeries has long been known as a developer of high-end gaming peripherals and their ‘7G’ gaming keyboards keeps to this tradition well. It is the most solid and well-made keyboard I have ever had the pleasure of using.
However, it is an all-metal design and can chafe if used for long periods of time. While SteelSeries has told us this design decision was made for durability purposes (gel rests can puncture and decay), and this makes sense, we recommend you put a soft barrier between the rest’s metal and your wrists for your own comfort.
This can be seen pretty much anytime your USB ports ‘freeze up’. While the PC processes what is going on, if you had a PS/2 keyboard installed it would still be able to pass on your key presses. Also, this allows the 7G to be used during your PC’s booting period where a USB keyboard might not have been detected yet. We would like to thank Mr. Rom for his helpful answers.
Conclusion: If you are looking for the best ‘functional’ gaming keyboard possible, the SteelSeries 7G gaming keyboard is exceptional and well-worth its $150 dollar price point in that it very well could be the last keyboard you need to buy until the apocalypse, maybe. Even then, the thing might just hold-up fine. Unfortunately, nuclear testing was not part of our review regiment. Also, we cannot say what the value of the beast will be in bottle caps. Sorry, we have been playing Fallout 3 too much. The biggest complaint we can find about this keyboard is the lack of back-lighting. If you can get over not having the ‘bells and whistles’ and are able to afford it, the 7G is easily the keyboard for you.
‘War. War never changes’. It is with these words that began one of the greatest role-playing games ever made (of course I mean Fallout). The RPG and its sequel are renown for their tongue-in-cheek humor, stylistic design, and isometric gameplay. When we heard Bethsoft was taking the reigns on Fallout 3, and that it would be a first-person game, forums around the ‘net lit up with flame wars on the subject. Die-hards of the series naturally had a worry that by bringing the series into the first-person, Bethsoft would be taking away an aspect which made the previous games undeniably ‘Fallout’. We are pleased to say, however, that this worry has proven itself false. This is a Fallout game.
Thankfully, if you can get past the sense of sadness for the human race as a whole, you will find a gigantic amount of things to do and see. Quests can be found in abundance and it is very doubtful you will finish everything in one play through. In fact, your character’s level is capped at 20, making it very likely you will play the game over again at least a few times, trying different character builds. Bethsoft has stated numerous times that they wanted to increase the re-playability of the game immensely and they have succeeded in this feat. Of course, the low level cap is also probably some foreshadowing that forthcoming DLC will raise it somewhat for added quests, etc.
When you are ready, simple click accept and the fun begins. The results of your stacked actions are shown in a cinematic, bullet-time, method with various camera angles and the like. The V.A.T.S. combat system can lead to some VERY cool-looking combat. For instance, using my Chinese pistol (which makes me feel a bit like Han Solo) I initiated combat with a raider. I queue up V.A.T.S. and assign two shots to the body, one to the left leg, and the last to the head and then click accept. The following ‘cut-scene’ (and I use the term loosely as it is all done in-game) blew me away and was completely unexpected. My two shots to the body blew the raider back a bit, obviously wounding him deeply. He turned around and began to run in an attempt to escape my wrath but he was not fast enough. My shot to his leg crippled him, sending him to the ground in a heap. My last shot finished him off with spectacular gore and violence. This kind of scenario does not happen all the time. However, it happens enough to make you want to continue using V.A.T.S. whenever possible. Using this mode drains you of action points (or ‘AP’) which must be recharged in real-time mode. This is just another example of the great lengths Bethsoft took in making Fallout 3 accessible to new gamers as well as fans of the original RPGs.
A new feature in Fallout 3 that we have not seen before in the series is the ability to own your own home. In certain areas and by accomplishing certain tasks, it is possible to own your own residence. This provides you with a free place to rest and heal up as well as the ability to customize it with house-specific items like jukeboxes, first-aid stations, and more.
GMC, a Korean company, has been making its mark on the North American PC case market for a short time now. They usually offer cases with plenty of cool features and eye-popping designs. Their first gamer-specific enclosure, the X7 ‘X-Station’ is no different.
The X7 is designed with militaristic-looking black lines which lend themselves well to the gamer-centric motif. It actually reminds me of something you would see in Batman’s ‘Tumbler Batmobile’. The bezel features a couple of cool orange power lights as well as four USB 2.0 ports, power button, and reset button. We would like to have seen an eSATA and/or FireWire port on the front, but we digress. The X-7 also features a backlit LCD display which shows the case temperature and fan speed. 
Inside the case, there is just enough room to accommodate a gtx 280 video card, making cabling somewhat of a challenge. This is not out of the ordinary though, as most cases have issues in this department.
The case allows for up to four 3.5” drives to be installed, right behind the 80mm forward area fan to promote hard disk cooling.
Q) What kind of a design process is used in developing new Pro-Flight peripherals? How much are real pilots used in this process?
Q) How would you describe the flight simulation market currently???
Q) And last, is there anything you would like our readers to know about that we have not covered here???
I had a vague idea of what to expect from seeing it played briefly at this year’s E3 Media and Business Summit. At least, I thought I did. I guess seeing it played in a brightly lit convention room flooded with fellow gamers is a lot different than sitting down in a darkened room to play it by myself.
The design of the necromorphs is perfect. They look to be inspired by Rob Bottin’s and Lance Anderson’s work in John Carpenter’s 1982 film, The Thing. This fact alone did not bode well for me, as growing up The Thing was the only movie to ever really scare me. The idea of something using your own body for its grotesque purposes just creeped me out, and still does. Killing these abominations is a matter of tactics, just not spraying and praying. You have to dismember them first by blowing off their limbs/tentacles. This will usually kill the creature. If you try shooting it in the torso or head on the other hand, you will usually just piss it off. Trust me, don’t piss them off if you can help it.
Your weaponry will consist mostly of unusual tools such as a plasma cutter. You will get a couple more standard military weapons, but ammo is nice and sparse in the game leaving you constantly hungry for more. You will also get some other engineering hardware which allows you to move things from far away, a sort of engineering telekinesis. Issac also gets to play with a stasis tool which slows down whatever object he hits with it. This can range from a fast-moving obstacle to a fast-moving tentacled infant-monster (creepy). This, coupled with your finite inventory space can lead to much pondering over what to keep with you and what to leave behind.
There are several other cool gameplay gimmicks in the game, even having to do with zero gravity, however I will not spoil anything more for you. Dead Space is one of those games which you just have to experience for yourself. If I can tell you one thing in this review, it is that if you usually enjoy shooters, creepy survival-horror titles, or sci-fi horror in general you will love Dead Space and should buy it right now. Go and support quality productions like this. There are far too few of them to let this one pass you by. And for goodness’ sake, try playing in the dark to start with just to get the full effect. Good luck…