Zalman’s HD160+ home cinema case will change the way you think about living room media centre PCs forever! It features a built-in LCD with remote control receiver, and as you would expect, boasts full compatibility with Zalman’s award-winning range of PC noise reduction cooling products.

Ideal for Windows Media Center

The HD160+ is a home theatre PC case packed full of features. Every case is supplied with a liquid crystal display (LCD) and a remote control. There is also a volume control knob on the front of the case if you want to turn things down manually.

Traditionally, the problem with home theatre-style cases is that it has been difficult to get a LCD and IR receiver mounted internally so that they both use the same window on the front of the case, eliminating ugly “add-on” external IR receivers. Zalman have spared no expense in the design of the HD160+, providing a solution to this problem through their use of a custom-made PCB which mounts both the LCD and IR receiver.

Cooling and noise

When building a Home Theatre PC, cooling of the installed components is a very important consideration, as well as how much noise they produce. Zalman have addressed both these issue with some very clever design work!

The first thing you will notice is that the roof of the case has a fan grille that is designed to introduce cool air into the system directly over the CPU, which will help keep the CPU temperature to a minimum.

There are also two grilles on the side of the case. The grille adjacent to the PSU is in a very useful position because when used in conjunction with a power supply which has a 120mm fan, it allows cold air to be taken into the PSU instead of it using the warmer air inside the case. This helps to keep the temperature of the PSU down which is a good idea when you consider that most quiet PSUs work on the basis of a temperature-controlled fan. We highly recommend Zalman’s Heatpipe-cooled PSU (except the 850 and 1000W PSUs, these are too long) because it is a very strong unit which uses a 120mm fan. The Nesteq and QTechnology PSUs would also be worthy of consideration.

The case has been designed so it is possible to install very quiet components without compromising on performance. Zalman’s CNPS9500-LED and VF900 can be installed into the case without any clearance problems. This means it is possible to adequately cool a high end Home Theatre PC while keeping noise to an absolute minimum. As shown in the image below, airflow generated by the CNPS9500 is directed towards the two rear 80mm fans which expel the warm air straight out of the case, resulting in a lower internal ambient temperature.

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Specification

Enclosure Type Desktop

Dimensions 460(L) x 435(W) x 160(H) mm

Weight 6.8kg (14.9lb)

Material Aluminium

Motherboard Compatibility Standard ATX / micro ATX

Power Supply Compatibility Standard ATX / ATX12V

PCI/AGP Card Compatibility Full Size

Drive Bays 5 X 3.5” Internal Drive Bays, 1 X 5.25” External Drive Bay

Cooling Components Rear Panel : 2 x 80mm Exhaust Fans, Bottom Panel : 1 x 80mm Exhaust Fan (Optional), Side Panel : 1 x 92mm Exhaust Fan (Optional)

Expansion Slots 7 Slots

Front I/O Ports 2 x USB Ports, 1 x IEEE1394 (Firewire) Port, 1 x Microphone, 1 x Headphones

LCD DFSTN Negative LCD Type