The GT1000 ‘Z Machine’ from Zalman is a mid-tower chassis designed for quiet and cool gaming, though there’s nothing to it that limits its use for anything else. The Z Machine is very solidly contructed from 5mm aluminium. Double doors on both sides of the machine give access to the roomy interior, while also allowing for the motherboard to be swung out and worked on without resorting to flashlights and cramped spaces.

The air flow for the GT1000 is reasonable, but not the best we’ve seen. Twin 90mm fans at the front of the case pull air in over the hard disk drives, then across the CPU cooler and out via a 120mm fan under the PSU.

The chassis holds six 3.5in hard disk drives: four in a novel rubber roller gripping cage, and two on the bottom of the case. All the mounting parts (including nicely engineered clasps) are included. There’s room for four 5.25in drives and a floppy, as well as a side window, if you’re into showing off your hardware. There’s two front-mounted USB ports, a single FireWire plus headphone and mic. From the outside the Z Machine is no-nonsense, well constructed and not hard to look at.