Cullinan has bad air flow?

[Elixer]

I admit, the cullinan looks nice with the tempered glass, however, the airflow of the case seems to be pretty bad.
3 front intake fans on 'high' (fan controller), then 1 rear exhaust, and then 2 fans exhaust on top, and temps for SSDs & HDs have been hovering near 50C. These are all 120mm.

Ambient temp is around 90F.
Filters are clean.

 

[UsandThem]

That's what Tom's found when they reviewed it.

But in it's defense, those temps are in line with other cases where the drives are mounted behind the motherboard. In fact, I ended up moving my drives to an empty 5.25" bay with an adapter in my Fractal R5 because I didn't like the temps back there. My 850 EVO was running 10c - 14c higher.

It helps with cases looking 'clean', but there just isn't good airflow back there with all the cables.

 

[Elixer]

I'm wondering if 140MM fans will be better, but, yeah, seems there hardly is enough space back there to have good air flow. They should have had a dedicated air chamber or, at least a duct to force the air to go back there.

Actually, that might work, adding a duct or some kind of deflector to make the air go back there.

 

[UsandThem]

I'm wondering if 140MM fans will be better, but, yeah, seems there hardly is enough space back there to have good air flow. They should have had a dedicated air chamber or, at least a duct to force the air to go back there.

Actually, that might work, adding a duct or some kind of deflector to make the air go back there.

Yeah, if someone is handy enough to someway force some air back there, I imagine temps would be much better. It's basically like a stagnant oven back there sandwiched between the hot motherboard and the side panel (or sound deadening material in my case).

However, I think that case is limited to 3 x 120mm in the front, right? I didn't see the cfm spec on the included fans, so maybe they just look pretty yet suck.

//Edit//

I found a review where they say the four stock 120mm fans (3 in front, 1 in rear) can be replaced with 140mm ones:

http://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreview...n-case-review-vs-anidees-ai-crystal?showall=1

If I bought that case, that would be the first thing I change (especially some quiet, high SP fans in the front).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Aside from SSDs behind the mobo, hows the clearance for 240/280mm AIO CLCs?

Would it be worth getting one of those over, say, a Phantek P400.

Edit: Unless the price has come down on the Rosewill, it appears that the Phanteks is significantly cheaper, at $79.99 + $5.99 ship from Newegg on ebay, for the model with an RGB strip and tempered glass.

 

[XavierMace]

NZXT S340 Elite?

 

[Elixer]

Aside from SSDs behind the mobo, hows the clearance for 240/280mm AIO CLCs?

Would it be worth getting one of those over, say, a Phantek P400.

Edit: Unless the price has come down on the Rosewill, it appears that the Phanteks is significantly cheaper, at $79.99 + $5.99 ship from Newegg on ebay, for the model with an RGB strip and tempered glass.

That is about the only thing there is nice room for, the CLCs. Can be mounted either on the front, or top.
If only they had a few mm more room in the back, it would have made the case so much better.
It is a huge PITA trying to fit all the cables back there, and forget about adding 7200 RPM drives, they just get too hot with the low amount of air that is circulating back there.
That whole front cover plate that "hides" the PSU/cables is really a bad design.
The drives should have been mounted in front, on that, and that would have solved the cooling problem instantly.

The two small holes they have for the HDs, trying to get air from the bottom front case fan is pretty much worthless as is. Adding some plastic ducts to force the bottom front case fan to be dedicated for the HDs only helped by 2C. So, instead of 50C it is 48C, so, it still is pretty toasty back there.

 

[bfun_x1]

Yeah, if someone is handy enough to someway force some air back there, I imagine temps would be much better. It's basically like a stagnant oven back there sandwiched between the hot motherboard and the side panel (or sound deadening material in my case).

However, I think that case is limited to 3 x 120mm in the front, right? I didn't see the cfm spec on the included fans, so maybe they just look pretty yet suck.

//Edit//

I found a review where they say the four stock 120mm fans (3 in front, 1 in rear) can be replaced with 140mm ones:

http://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreview...n-case-review-vs-anidees-ai-crystal?showall=1

If I bought that case, that would be the first thing I change (especially some quiet, high SP fans in the front).

The Anidess Al-Crystal is the exact same case but with 140mm fans. I'm not sure it the size difference will even matter because the larger fans are blocked by the case frame basically turning them into a 120mm fan.

I was really hoping to get a mid tower case that can support custom water cooling with a reservoir but it sounds like any case that puts the drives behind the motherboard is going to have a heat issues.

 

[crashtech]

50°C might be a bit on the high side, but not terribly so. This Google hard drive study is getting a bit old now, but it actually shows that HDDs like temps in the 45° range, which seemed astonishing to me at the time.