Exterior
That shot above pretty much shows you what the SCAN 3XS Chameleon chromatic paint job is all about. SCAN's painting maestro, 'Pete The Painter', makes the 3XS Chameleon look awesome in the flesh. The colour, under non direct light, is deep and makes you stare, and the shine on the thing is just immense. As you can see there's also a flip to the colour with a metallic green blended in to the main dark purple, the visuals of the chassis changing depending on the angle you look at it from.
The blacks of the drives and the blanking plates on the front sit well with the paint job for me and while I could leave the graphic footprints that SCAN apply to the 3XS Chameleon, the overall look is brilliant to this reviewer. I love the paint, there's no other way to put it. Almost everyone who's had a peek at the 3XS Chameleon as they popped round says much the same thing; and when they see the the Chameleon's party trick, jaws drop.
Shown near the PSU area, the paint is heat reactive, changing colour and getting lighter as it gets warmer. After extended periods of load that area around the PSU is a very light pink. However, SCAN's willingness to watercool the main heat producing components in the 3XS Chameleon mean that the PSU area is the only thing that changes colour over time! Everything else is so cool, that back section of the PC is all that'll blush when the Chameleon is made to work hard.
Regardless, it still rocks when viewed up close and it's unique to the SCAN 3XS Chameleon; as far as we know, you won't get the thermally reactive paint on a PC anywhere else.
The rear of the chassis shows the custom made mounting bracket for the 36cm x 12cm radiator and the associated fans. The watercooling loop comes out of the chassis at the bottom to feed into the radiator with the fans lighting up white when they're on. The bracket is a nuisance though, and in a big way potentially.
The DVI ports on the right hand side are the only ones accessible easily and while thankfully the port you can see me plugging the test monitor into is the primary one in SLI mode, if you want to make of any of the left side ports you'll have trouble. And as you can see, if you've got a DVI-to-VGA adaptor to use you can end up fouling the cage with your cabling. Thankfully, S-Video cables are more easily bent to avoid the cage.
The cage adds another visual dimension to the already attention-grabbing chassis, and when it's all lit up and the room is dark the Chameleon lets light from the interior spill out, adding to the white light on the radiator's fans.
An overall look that very much pleases my tired old eyes, from the good looking chassis and it's new clothes, to the well done radiator cage and exterior details.
