Internal Inspection:
The internal layout is fairly clean, and not much space is wasted. The Altair A380 is capable of handling both Micro ATX and standard ATX motherboards. At the front of the case there are two removable drive cages; the optical drive cage is on the left, and the hard drive cage is on the right. These are both held in place with thumb screws and slots on the case with tabs that slide into holes on the drive cages.
Under the optical drive cage are two green PCBs. The smaller board on the left is for the front microphone/headphone jacks, as well as the two USB 2.0 ports. The larger board on the right controls the front IR receiver and the 52-in-1 card reader.
The only markings on the case fans are for
GlacialTech, so I am unable to tell whether these are made by GlacialTech or are rebadged. The specifications state that they are rated for 1500RPM and produce 16dBa of sound, so they should be fairly quiet.
Power Supply:
Four screws hold the small form factor power supply in place. With the power supply removed I noticed the standard power rating, warning, and certification label. Taking a close look revealed that this unit is only rated for 220W, not the specified 270W. Considering the non-standard form factor, you may be hard pressed to upgrade this unit if you had a system that required more than 220W of total power.
The cables are shown in the above right image. There is an ATX motherboard cable which is the first disappointment of many regarding this unit. It only has a 20-pin connector, and not a 24-pin connector (or 20+4) as many modern boards require. The other cables include a 4-pin auxiliary power connector and two leads which provide a total of two 4-pin drive connectors and one floppy drive connector. The biggest issue here is the lack of SATA power connectors. SATA drives are pretty standard these days, and any power supply should be able to support them.
When I opened the power supply (which you should never do as it can void your warranty) I was surprised at the size of some of the components. Specifically the large heat sinks used to help draw heat away from the other components. Other than that there is nothing special to be seen here; no adjustable potentiometers, etc.
