Installation and Operation:
If you have ever built your own computer, installing your system in this case will not present any challenges. Like other mid-tower cases, the motherboard will take up the majority of the case's open space, running pretty close to the power supply. If your CPU socket is located near the top edge of the motherboard (close to the power supply), you may need to be careful when choosing a CPU cooler so that you don't go too large and pick something that won't fit.
Once the system is turned on, there are a variety of blue LEDs that light up. As I mentioned previously, the power button is surrounded by a ring that glows blue from LEDs, and although I could not catch them in action, the hard drive access lights are the same color blue as around the power switch.
 
Testing:
The test system installed inside of the Xclio 3060 Plus ATX Case with 36cm Fan consisted of the following components:
» AMD X2 6000+ AM2 processor
» Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard
» 4GB (4x1024MB) Patriot PC2-6400 Low Latency DDR2 RAM
» eVGA 8800GTS 640MB video card
» Xclio 1000W power supply
» 2x 80GB Hitachi Deskstar 3Gbps hard drive
» 1x 120GB Seagate 7200.9 SATA 3Gbps hard drive
» 1x 400GB Western Digital 7200 SATA 3Gbps hard drive
» Memorex DVD/CDRW
» Cooler Master CoolDrive IV
If you look closely at the picture of the installed system, I initially installed this system using the Cooler Master Mars CPU cooler, however the Mars is not designed for high end CPUs, so I switched to the stock AMD AM2 6000+ cooler (which is surprisingly decent). Using the stock AMD AM2 6000+ CPU cooler I tested this system in the following configurations: The first test was conducted without the side panel, the second was with the side panel on but with the fan turned off, the third test was with the side panel on and the fan turned on low, and finally I tested it with the side panel on and the fan turned on high.
The chart below details the idle and load temperatures measured from the CPU using the Cooler Master CoolDrive IV, while an ambient temperature of approximately 26C was maintained. The idle condition consisted of letting the system sit at the Window's desktop with no other applications running. The load condition consisted of running 3DMark06 and the Sisoft Sandra Burn-In Wizard for 60 minutes.
Without the side panel the system stays the coolest, but running without the side panel is not an option for most of us. With the side panel in place, the temperature dropped about 10 degrees Celsius. The side panel fan certainly does a good job at cooling the system. With a better CPU cooler, I could expect to see a larger drop in temperatures.
With a larger fan, you might be concerned about the noise level. I'm happy to say that on low the fan was barely audible. Turning it on high produces a dull hum, but it was still quieter than the fan on the 8800GTS video card, and much quieter than the fan on the stock AMD cooler.
|
|
