Written By:
Date Posted: July 12, 2002

Benchmarks

I have an AMD Thunderbird 1.2(100) processor that I have had for a couple of years (upgrading soon but that is another article) that, when I first got it, was running on an ASUS A7V133A motherboard.  This board would run almost completely stable with a cheap CoolerMaster HSF and completely stable with my MC462A at a speed of 1.33(133). When I upgraded my motherboard to the ABIT KR7A-RAID it wouldn’t even boot at 1.33.I was/am less than impressed with this board. I was never able to make it to 1.4(133) even with the ASUS board.  I left it at the stock voltage as I thought I was already having cooling problems and upping the voltage would just compound matters.

Total number of readouts: 744
CPU Speed: 1336 MHz
Running from: 6/23/2002, 10:54:19 AM
End: 6/23/2002, 12:57:46 PM

After FINALLY being able to overclock back to 1.33(133) I kicked off Prime95 and went out and ran a few errands.  Two hours later I came back to find only a 6°C (11°F) temperature difference from idle to full load.  I was able to over clock the processor to 1.4(133) and Windows booted and things seemed ok but when I tried to run Prime95 it errored out.  I will have to revisit that speed at a later time.

Noise Level

With 4 120mm fans this case isn't silent but with the fans being so large it has a much lower tone than smaller fans. The tone of the fan makes it very easy to tune it out completely. For a noise level comparison it doesn't make a whole lot more noise than that of a refrigerator running. I believe there are also lower RPM fans available the should make this case nearly silent at the expense of great air flow.

Final Words

All in all I am pretty happy with the quality of this setup.  I think with a few very minor improvements they could have a real winner on their hands.  This system is easy to set up as compared to the Do-It-Yourself kits but could use quite a bit of help in the instructions area.  On the up side this case is huge with plenty of room for future mods and upgrades. As for its cooling ability I was very happy—it gave me speeds I couldn’t hope to achieve with air cooling alone.

Website:   

The Good:  Excellent cooling abilities; a must have for hardcore overclocking; tons of space for modding and/or upgrading.

The Bad:  Crappy instructions; Pretty basic kit, not much in the way of bells and whistles for the price.  

Bottom Line:  If I were out shopping for a water cooled case this would definitely be in the top of the heap.

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