Testing:
The first portion of the testing will take a look at the temperatures of the various components installed in the case, as they compare to the system when it wasn't installed in a case at all. Some cases provide airflow that will actually be cooler than the open air condition, while others have poor ventilation, resulting in hot spots within the case.
The components listed in the previous section were used in the testing, and the 4 probes on the Cooler Master Aerogate 3 were used to take the readings. I measured CPU, GPU, DDR, and hard drive temperatures all in load conditions achieved by running a combination of SiSoft Sandra 2005 and 3DMark05. The hard drive used was the Hitachi unit located in front of the intake fan, with the thermal sensor mounted on the center of the top surface. The CPU and GPU sensors were installed under the heatsinks as close to the cores as possible. The DDR temperature was recorded by affixing the probe to the mid-span of the heatspreader of one of the modules. Throughout the testing, a rather warm ambient of 25.5 degrees Celsius was maintained.
As you can see from the graph above, the CPU and DDR weren't really impacted by moving the system into the Codegen Group Briza-97 case. The temperatures didn't improve, but they weren't bad to begin with, and I was glad to see they didn't get any warmer either. The GPU did see a rise in temperature once installed, and I would have to assume we have a hot pocket in that back corner of the case. There are no intake or exhaust fans in that area, and it is conceivable to believe the heat of the graphics processor is trapped in that area. The one item to really benefit from installation in this case was the Hitachi hard drive, which operated 9 degrees cooler once installed.
Next up came the testing of the power supply. This system has recently been tested on a few other units, so they were all brought back to see how they compared to the Codegen 400W unit. For competition, we have the ArrowMax PSX-550AL-24 550W PSU, as well as the Ultra Products 500W Xconnect and the Ultra Products 600W Xfinity.
The testing of the power supply will be focused on determining how well the main voltage rails (+5V, +12V, and 3.3V) perform under load conditions. The load condition was established by loading the system up with components and fans, while Folding@Home and SiSoft Sandra 2005's Burn-in Wizard ran for a period of at least 60 minutes. A Radio Shack multi-meter (Cat. No. 22-810) was used to record all voltage readings.
From the data listed above, we can see that the Codegen unit was the farthest from specification on the 12V and 5V rails, and was right there with the other units on the 3.3V rail. Performance was not poor according to the readings, but something did occur twice with this unit that did not occur with the other three units. During the SiSoft Sandra CPU Multimedia benchmark portion of the Burn-In Wizard, the system went to a blue screen and was forced to reboot. Considering this was the only variable in the testing, it is safe to say that the PSU is not up to the challenge of running such a system under a heavy load. The system was able to complete 11 cycles of the Burn-In Wizard eventually, but the other power supplies didn't need three attempts like this one did.
Finally, I also hooked up the Seasonic Power Angel Power Monitor simply to check the PF (power factor) value of the Codegen unit. Again, we have another disappointment, as under a full load it offers the lowest reading of the four units on hand.
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