Thermal Stress Test

Our test setup focuses on four components small enough to fit into every chassis format. This allows us to compare the impact case size and cooling have on a modern system. Each of the measured components is connected to a REED Instruments SD-947 Data Logging Thermometer with K-Type sensors that have been placed as closely as possible to the benchmarked areas of the CPU, M.2 SSD, and motherboard chipset. A separate sensor is used to monitor the room temperature for an accurate delta T result. While we do usually include the GPU in this setup, as the computer-1 utilizes a loaner EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with an intact warranty sticker, we could not install a sensor within it and will keep that out of these benchmarks as it does not provide any comparable data to our usually used Zotac GeForce GTX 3060 Ti anyways.

While we also usually opt to use the manufacturers provided fan setup, the computer-1 is meant to be include an 80 mm unit. While we picked the Arctic F8, you may choose any other cooling device of that size that fits your preference.

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.

We let the chassis sit at idle until temperatures reach 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.

Comparison