Testing:
Testing the chasis consisted of benchmarking it against open bench and comparing CPU/Northbridge temp. I anecodotally referenced some other temp measurements, but they were just observations.
After a ridiculously easy installation, the designed in cable management allowed for an extreme amount of air flow. The following system was used during the testing:
- Acer H57h-AM2
- Intel i7 860
- WD Black 1TB
- ATI Radeon HD 5700
- Thermaltake 630W PSU
- 8GB DDR3
- Stock CPU Cooler
- DVD-RW
For the performance test, we ran the CPU under idle condition for 30 minutes to gather a baseline temp reading. All motherboard controlled fan speeds.
Then for max thermal, we tested after 15 minutes of Prime95, running 8 workers, keeping all 8 cores maxed at 100%.
We measured utilizing the onboard motherboard temp reading at the CPU area, and observed northbridge infrared. For basis of comparison only onboard is utilized.
The zero point score was the reference Gateway FX gaming chasis these components were removed from.
Please click on thumbnails for bigger images
Test Result?
This is by no means as exhaustive as it could have been, but the major takeaway is the chasis does a tremendous job of cooling. Under idle conditions it lowered the motherboard temperature reading by more than 20 degrees. Under load, the reduction was even higher, it kept the internals at a cool 95 degrees. The included 4 fans vs. 2 in the baseline made an incredible difference. As did the extra internal space.
There was a tradeoff, this thing did make more noise than the basically silent hardware in comparison at idle. This box does not utilize a fan controller so it’s always roughly the same, with exception of the CPU fan revving up. I don’t have the equipment to adequately measure how much louder, but this machine was audible; the other was not. Under load however the machines were actually quite comparable. I found the noise completely acceptable for a quite office use.
