Streacom FC5: A Chassis To Build A Completely Fanless PC, Great For Linux HTPC/SteamOS PCs

Earlier this year I tested the CompuLab Airtop as a completely fanless, high-performance PC. Many Linux users were interested in the Airtop and its innovative design. The only downsides with the Airtop is that it's very expensive to ordinary consumers and you don't have free rein over what components you wish to install. Fortunately, more standards-compliant fanless cases have been coming to the market -- including some that support fanless CPU cooling. One of the newer contenders in that space is the Streacom FC5 Alpha, which is a fanless aluminum case I've been using the past month and could work out well for a SteamOS Linux gaming living room PC or HTPC.

The Streacom FC5 Alpha is a fanless chassis that can support between mini-ITX/ATX to full ATX motherboards, up to six 2.5-inch SSDs or three 3.5-inch drives, one optical drive, and one full height expansion card. The FC5 is rated to passively cool CPUs up to 65 Watts is what's recommended, but a maximum TDP of 73 Watts is listed. With being just 55mm tall, it can fit well in a living room environment or almost any environment.

The overall dimensions on this unit are 435 x 325 x 60 mm. Obviously given the height and fanless design, the power source for the PC has to be via a motherboard that supports an external DC power connection. The case itself is made out of aluminum with a 10mm thick front panel. The unit we received was black but there is a silver option as well as with/without the slim optical drive slot.

As this is our first time checking out any products from Streacom, they are a relatively new company (2010) and they are headquartered in Holland. Streacom is primarily focused on the manufacturing of innovative cases and power supplies along with a line of accessories

The FC5 is not Streacom's only fanless chassis but they have have many interesting designs from the FC5 Alpha to the F10 Alpha to their most recent DB4 fanless chassis addition.