AOpen Aeolus G325 review

If you like the idea of a mini barebones PC but still want the flexibility of choosing your own components and motherboard, AOpen's Aeolus G325 may be of interest.

It takes a standard microATX motherboard and is a touch wider than one of Shuttle's barebones PCs, but is still considerably smaller than a regular PC case. As there's no motherboard provided, you get to choose exactly what you want to put inside the case, including whether you want an Intel or AMD processor.

We like the case's slightly bulbous appearance and the handles that decorate the top. These are only for show, though, and a sticker on top warns you not to try and lift the case using the handles, as they can't bear the weight of a loaded case.

Building the case is slightly trickier than you may first expect. To get everything in, you first need to remove all the drive bays and the front panel. Perhaps the strangest thing about the G325 is that the power supply hangs out of the back and is screwed into a mounting bracket. There's not much room to manoeuvre the power supply, so it's a real fiddle to get it attached. Once in place, a plastic cover screws into the mount and hides the power supply from view, leaving just the power socket exposed. With the case assembled, you'll never notice the protruding supply. The main benefit of this design is that you can fit a full-sized, powerful supply in the G325, and you're not limited to the lower-rated supplies that Shuttle uses inside its mini PCs.

There's not much room to work inside the case, and you have to be careful inserting a motherboard through the side of the case. Even being really careful, it's easy to scrape the board accidentally against a metal support, which could cause damage. We'd recommend taking this step as slowly as possible to avoid problems later on.

Once inside the case, there's plenty of room to get the motherboard in place and secured using screws. The motherboard has a fair amount of room above it, so cooling the processor shouldn't be a problem. You should be able to fit all but the largest of processor coolers without any trouble.

There's a surprising amount of room for drives, with two 3in internal drive bays for hard disks, an external 3in drive bay for a memory card reader, floppy disk or another hard disk, and a 5in drive bay for an optical drive. This is hidden by a flap, so you don't need to find a drive with a coloured bezel to match the G325. There are four blanking plates for expansion cards, which are held in place with a screw-less mount, so fitting them is easy.

As you'd expect from a modern case, there are two front-mounted USB2 ports, FireWire and audio-in and -out ports. These are covered with a flap, too, which keeps your case looking good when you don't have any peripherals connected.

The Aeolus G325 feels very sturdy, and the case didn't rattle or move in our tests, so it's a good basis for building a quiet computer. Its looks might not be to everyone's tastes and it's not as small as a Shuttle barebones PC, but it's still small and its flexibility makes it a good choice for anyone who wants to choose every component of their mini PC.