HSPC Top Deck Tech Station

Justin Robinson attempts to structure his testing escapades.

A handful of important discoveries have influenced humanity throughout history. Fire, the wheel, electricity, splitting the atom. These now appear meaningless, eclipsed by something that looks amazing – on paper at least. Benchers and overclockers alike have toiled away on tabletops, kitchen counters and coffee tables, but HSPC aims to change that.

Resembling a multistory car park, the Tech Station is split into two levels. The bottom level includes a neoprene mat, onto which the DVD drive and PSU are placed. Hard disk drives are suspended by two acrylic rails (held on by a pathetic four screws), up to a maximum of two drives. Up on top is where the action is, with space for the mobo, expansion cards, and cooling.

Unfortunately, this is where the execution starts to warp. The Tech Station is flatpacked in a plain white stickered box, and an instruction book. Proclaiming a simple “20-30 minute assembly”, we set about putting the station together, comforted by the message on the box “no sharp edges”. Boy, did that box lie.

Assembly took a total of one hour and 32 minutes, three times the maximum amount described on the box. Sharp edges were more populous than oxygen atoms, causing small cuts on our hands, and the occasional exclamation of frustration. Holes that were supposedly pre-threaded took a herculean effort to screw anything into them (not to mention the dodgy plastic thumbscrews that ‘secure’ the expansion cards, and rather than screw in neatly, simply shred themselves into plastic strips).

When finally assembled, sure the thing looks good. But the ATX holes, which are a standard that every single case manufacturer can adhere to, do not line up at all; rather they appear to be placed within a 10mm radius of where they should be. The only way to actually secure a motherboard to the station is if you happen to have an EATX board, as no other standard has provision for it.

With a jaw-dropping price, hand-lacerating build quality, and overall uselessness, this product isn’t worthy of any serious enthusiast’s attention, and should be avoided like the plague.