Syntax EZ-Clocker I-Series: Small Form Factor System

Company: Syntax
Product: EZ-Clocker I-Series
Street Price: ~$230 USD
Date Reviewed: February 20, 2004
Reviewed By: Jason Rabel

EZ-Clocker Chassis & Accessories:

The main chassis of the EZ-Clocker is very impressive, first thing I noticed was how incredibly light the unit was. This is partially due to the all aluminum construction, and also the external power supply.

The front of the chassis is very clean looking, all ports & bays are covered with flip-open panels. The 5-1/4 bay is on the upper left, with an eject button directly below. The bottom right panel hides a front Firewire, USB, and earphone & mic jacks. The very bottom panel is for the 7-in-1 card reader. The large mirrored panel in the middle is actually the EZ-Watcher display, giving all the vital system statistics with simple icon representation. The dial is to allow over over/under-clocking the CPU, which can be enabled/disabled in the BIOS. Lastly are the power & reset buttons positioned right in the middle of the chassis.

The back of the chassis is packed full of features. The very top plug is for the power, and is keyed so the plug only fits one way. The motherboard headers are clearly color-coded for all the ports: PS/2, serial, parallel, (Intel) onboard video, 4 x USB, Firewire, LAN, and audio. Also visible are the two slots for AGP & PCI cards. At the very bottom is the phone jacks for the CNR based modem. Lastly a single 80mm exhaust fan is present, which is thermally controlled to keep the noise level to a minimum.

Power is supplied via an external 200w power supply unit. A blue LED is visible when the unit is plugged in, also a small fan helps keep everything cool. Having the power supply external achieves two things, first it keeps the size of the main chassis smaller, and second it helps to keeps chassis temperatures lower. The power cord is long enough that you can set this unit under your desk and out of the way.

The EZ-Clocker comes with all the usual accessories, a power cord, phone cord, screws, thermal paste, driver CD, instruction manual, and a Syntax sticker. The manual focuses mostly on how to use the various features on the EZ-Clocker, and how to use the EZ-Watcher display.