Temperature Testing

Stress Test

We measure several temperatures and the system noise level across all cases. Every test is performed with the same set of components installed. The out-of-the-box fan setup is used, connected to the motherboard, with the board adjusting fan speed automatically. This puts the onus of noise and performance on the case manufacturers and motivates them to actually care about thermal performance instead of simply using active cooling as a marketing bulletin point.

On the software side, the test setup includes Windows 10 Pro with Furmark and Prime95 both running at the same time to put the maximum load on both the processor and the graphics card.

While Real Temp offers excellent and repeatable temperature results, we employ a REED Instruments SD-947 Data Logging Thermometer with four K-Type sensors that have been placed as closely as possible to the benchmarked areas of the CPU, GPU, M.2 SSD, and motherboard chipset. A fifth sensor is used to monitor the room temperature for an accurate delta T result.

We let the chassis sit at idle until temperatures have reached equilibrium. Next, our stress-testing load is started, and it continues to run until temperatures are stable. The temperature result for each section of the case is the highest value measured during the test run. All reported temperatures are normalized to 20°C room temperature.

Gaming Test

To measure how the case and our standard hardware stacks up in gaming, we let the system cool down to reasonable levels and then used Doom Eternal with VSync off at 1080P and full details to let the GPU throw everything it can at the system. By turning off VSync, the GPU renders all the frames it possibly can, which eliminates any bottlenecks due to the monitor refresh rate. Once again, this system was left running for 30 minutes to allow for temperatures to level out. I will include proper comparison bar graphs in the future, once we have a few results with other enclosures.

Comparison

Noise Testing

Noise levels are recorded with a calibrated REED Instruments R8050 Sound Level Meter, Type 2. It is placed at chassis height on a Manfrotto Tripod. Measurements are taken from a 45° angle towards the case, at a distance of 10 cm to the closest edge of the chassis.