Assembly

We generally use a normal ATX mainboard for our case reviews and as you can see, it dwarfs when placed within the Elysium. Sadly, we do not have access to an EVGA SR-2 board for this review, but rest assured, that it will fit. I have seen it within the Elysium and there is still plenty of space on all three sides of the board to allow for clean cable routing, thanks to the well placed openings in the mainboard tray. Needless to say, there is no graphics card big enough to require all 44 cm of free space available.


As the hard drives are separated from the chassis and modularized, you will have to remove the entire contraption from the chassis and use the supplied screws to install a hard drive within the cage. Once that is done, simply slide it into place and use the plastic lock to fix it. These work surprisingly well to be honest. As you can see, the end of the hard drive extends well beyond the drive bay, which would bring the total length of graphics cards down to a maximum of 40 cm, still much more than even the longest dual-GPU offering in the market today.


Installing the optical drive does not require any tools but I did encounter a small problem, as the very top slot cannot be used for a drive. Looks like the power and data connectors of the SATA hot-swap bay are in the way. Having these angled with the cables running horizontal instead of vertical would instantly solve this issue. Maybe Xigmatek can implement the change in the retail case. As it stands now, the top slot is only viable for card readers, fan controllers or the likes, but not for a traditional ODD.


Installing the PSU within the Elysium is straight forward and there is plenty of space for it, which means that even the longest units in the market will fit with room to spare.


Once all the parts are inside the Elysium, there is still an incredible amount of room, so even if you fill the chassis with an XL-ATX or HPTX board along with multiple graphic cards, there should still be plenty of room to keep things clean. Speaking of which, as you can see, most of the cables are nicely hidden behind the mainboard tray thanks to the many possibilities to route them within the chassis.

Finished Looks

Once everything is inside the chassis and the side panels have been replaced, I had a little "wow" moment when turning the Elysium on. While this is a purely subjective opinion at this point, I really do like the massive, somewhat industrial looks and the white LED fans within the chassis. It is a welcome change of the all aluminum HPTX cases on the market today. That said, the installed fans are by no means the quietest ones, so you may want to invest into a fan controller if you are a fan (no pun intended) of silence. As you can see even the side fan is LED equipped as the light can be seen through the metal mesh. Of all the HPTX cases out there, this one is the most "LAN party" capable one in my opinion - if you do decide to carry this monster of a PC to such an event.


The only design oddity which Xigmatek has included in the Elysium is the blue power LED. Considering all the white lighting aspects, this blue one stands out a bit too much in my humble opinion. Having placed a SATA hard drive within the included hot-swap bay, it fits perfectly and also works like a charm. This bay is probably the one reason why nobody will ever place the Elysium under the desk, but right next to it. The total height of clearance approaches 80 cm if you decide to use this extra HDD bay for example.