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Installation
**click to enlarge**
It's a small case with no removable motherboard
tray but there is enough room to work comfortably. However, there were
a couple of things I did not like...
**click to enlarge**
For one, I did not like the fact that I had to
install the PSU upside down. This excellent PSU features a large 120mm
fan and I would have liked the fan to be on the bottom for proper
ventilation.
**click to enlarge**
The only other issue I have with it is the drive
cage. I just couldn't get the holes to lineup, forcing me to install
only one screw on each side. How this even got past their design team
is beyond me. You can certainly mod it with a dremel by make the holes
bigger, but it is seriously a flaw in its design.
**click to enlarge**
A small but nice touch was that the three fan
connectors were labeled so you know which fan is connected to the controller
on the front of the chassis.
**click to enlarge**
A final shot with all components installed.
For the rear exhaust, I installed the excellent AeroCool Turbine 120mm fan
also available at
Xoxide. Blended in quite nicely.
Performance
What you are all probably wondering by now is
how good is its cooling performance with the massive fans it features.
To test its cooling performance, I ran the system with and without the 250mm
fan connected to capture the difference in temperatures. Temps were
recording both idle (after 1hr) and under load. To load the system,
Sisoftware's SANDRA Burn-In wizard was used.
Let's first take a look at the test system
specs...
| Motherboard: |
Abit IS7 |
| CPU: |
Intel P4 2.8GHz ~
3.5GHz |
| Memory: |
Corsair
TwinXP1024-3200XL XPERT |
| Hard Drive: |
Western Digital
Raptor 10K 74GB |
| Video Card: |
ATI Radeon 9800Pro |
| Optical Drives: |
Lite-ON SHW-1635s |
| CPU Cooling: |
Thermalright
XP-120 + AS5 |
Now, I was actually hoping to make this my
primary system case but the massive side fan did not allow me to run the
excellent CoolIT Freezone I reviewed here. With that said, the older
components above were used for testing...
Also note that all temps recorded were running
on maximum O/C. With this particular setup, I know that the maximum
stable overclock with air cooling is 250FSB. Results were running
a 2.8GHz processor at 3.5GHz.
1. Cooling Performance - W/O 250mm Fan
Without the side fan running, temps were still
pretty damn good. Keep in mind that not only the 140mm fan was
running, but three other 120mm fans as well.
2. Cooling Performance - 250mm Fan
The the massive side fan on, the case temp when
running idle would not budge passed 28ºC. That's pretty good cooling
and there was a 3º drop in CPU temp when under load.
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