A Closer Look - Outside

The Ocypus Iota C70 ARGB follows the playbook pretty closely when it comes to the overall dual-panel glass chassis design blueprint. Each of them has black stripes on three sides, with the edges that make up the corner coming together to make it one big window into the interior. The chassis employs straight lines with a steel and plastic material mix. The steel feels pretty thin allowing you to flex it pretty easily, unfortunately.


Looking at the front, you can clearly see the pre-installed fans inside thanks to the lightly tinted glass. The Iota C70 ARGB comes equipped with a round display in the top right corner which will show your CPU or GPU temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit. Looking at the rear, you can see that the chassis sports an upright motherboard layout with the PSU and things like storage hidden away behind the motherboard tray.


The main side continues the all glass surface and gentle tint as the front. Ocypus has designed it so that there are no screws, just a very subtle tab to pull the glass off the chassis. But even so, there are little surface mounted corner brackets held in place with a thumb screw. Odds are you can just remove them and put them aside unless you are planning to transport your system and want that added security. On the opposite side, the same method of a tab and pins is employed, and this steel cover comes with two well-placed vents to allow for airflow for the side intake fans and the PSU.


In the rear, at the very bottom, you will find the six expansion slots. This means that there will likely be little to no room at the bottom edge of the board, as the chassis is already slicing off that seventh slot with barely any clearance towards the floor. On the upside, each slot is protected by a removable cover and there is a thumb screw equipped plate to close the gap that gets created during the tooling process to form these type of expansion slots. Above that there is a mounting position for a 120 or 140 mm fan. Ocypus includes a 120 mm unit here which is set to blow air out the back of the case. Thanks to the elongated mounting holes, you can adjust the vertical position of the cooling unit to best align with your setup.


On the left, essentially hidden behind the motherboard tray, there is an ATX PSU bay with one set of mounting holes. Above that, there is a vent behind which Ocypus has installed an HDD cage, which is held in place by four screws. As we will see later on, the cage is designed in a way that allows you to install all the drives without removing it, but during assembly you may want to route cables in that part of the chassis, so it would have been nice if these were thumb screws holding the cage in place instead.


In the top, there is a magnetic mesh dust filter on top of a vent which can hold three 120 mm or two 140 mm fans. Alternatively, you will also be able to install a radiator of up to 360 mm in size here with what looks to be plenty of clearance to the motherboard. The top of the case is also where you will find the I/O in the shape of power and LED buttons, two clean, black USB-A as well as a USB-C port. As we will see later on, the Iota C70 BK ARGB includes a controller which also allows for motherboard ARGB control. Labeling this small button as LED even though its wire is marked as Reset makes it weird if a user opts to control the ARGB via the motherboard.


On the underside, Ocypus employs two long metal bars which act as feet on the Iota C70 ARGB, with a magnetic mesh cover to keep dirt out. While this is functional, this means you will always have to tip over your running system to get to it for cleaning purposes. It would have been better to have a slide out variant - ideally something that could have been pulled out towards the front.