With the increasing popularity of small form factor PCs and Home Theatre PCs, Akasa have just announced a new range of products designed specifically for that market. There’s a new mini-ITX case with an 80W PSU and a pair of low profile coolers one each for Intel 775 and AMD AM2 mounting brackets.

Enigma ITX Case – AK-ITX01 BK
The first of the new releases is the ITX case going under the name ‘Enigma’. I’ve seen plenty of information around the web about this already and you probably have too so I’m not going to talk too much about it.

It looks a reasonable option for building a small ITX based PC in and is certainly good with regard to it’s dimensions but for me it just doesn’t have that nice look that you want from an ITX case. That’s obviously my opinion and looks are something that we all have to make our own minds up about. It should certainly be in your list as an option if you’re looking for an ITX case.

Heatsink and Fan for Intel 775 ITX – AK-CC044
There’s also a CPU cooler for use with 775 socket CPUs upto 65W TDP. It’s a low profile unit designed specifically with ITX in mind and I assume particularly with the Enigma in mind!

It has a total height of just less than 31mm and includes a 2800rpm 70mm fan. The fan is 3pin only and so won’t support fan control via PWM so bear that in mind as the last thing you want with a SFF HTPC is CPU fan noise spoiling your multimedia.

Heatsink and Fan for AMD Socket AM2 ITX – AK-CC032
As not to leave AMD feeling left out there’s also a heatsink for the AM2 socket CPUs. This is the one that seems to be of most interest as it’s a low profile passive (fanless) heatsink. You are guaranteed zero noise from the fan on this as there isn’t one.

Apart from being fanless the other interesting feature of this heatsink is that it can be mounted with the fins running in either direction so the intelligent system builder can position it in line with the general airflow of the case.

My thoughts
The enigma case appears to be worth a look and the AMD heatsink is definitely a good product on the face of it. Obviously Akasa didn’t feel that they could make a passive Intel heatsink that fits with the ITX form factor. This will be due to the higher heat output of the Intel chips, although this is nowhere near as much of a difference as in the Athlon v Pentium4 days.

Other Items
There’s also a few new minor product releases from Akasa, they are low value products but invaluable to those that need them – cables and cable adapters.

• AK-CB050 : Slimline SATA cable for Slimline Optical Drives




• AK-CAB-PC-01 : Power cable adapter for slimline optical and floppy drives




• AK-CB051 : PCIe to 8-pin 12V CPU power adapter (for dual CPU motherboards)




• AK-CB052 : PCIe1.x to PCIe2.0 Power cable adapter (6pin to 8pin)

That’s all of Akasa’s recent news for now, feel free to browse the rest of the site and leave comments as you wish.

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