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Good case with excellant cooling for mad air cooled overclocking.

C

coolred

Diamond Member
Yeah I said it, "MAD" air cooled overclocking. I am thinking of going with the DFI Lanparty UT 250Gb and see how high I can take it on air, so I want to make sure my case has adequate ventilation. I am considering getting the Antec Sonata. IT ships with 1 120mm fan with room for one more. It also has a dual fan power supply. But I am not really sure what else to look at, I have mainly only used antecs cases.
 
I'd look towards the CM Stacker - up to 4x 120mm fans, and 3x 80mm fans, you could get some excellent cooling going. Especially with the front and side being practically all mesh. I have only set up with 3x 120mm case fans, plus a 120mm on the xp-120, all connected to a fan controller - works wonders.
 
I am planning to get the XP-120, assuming it is the best, or at least very good, which it appears to be, but no matter how good the heatsink and fan are its not gonna be much help if the inside of the case is super heated, lol. I kinda wanted to keep this somewhat small and I am not totally sure I like the look of the CM stacker.
 
Max airflow is important but that doesn't necessarly mean 10 fans blowing a gale through your case. Best to have large case fans blowing lots of air gently through the case, and then powerful cpu cooler/fan. If you have lots of fans blowing at high speed in lots of directions all you get is noise and turbulence. Particularly for the cpu try to blow the cool air onto it in the direction of the cpu fan, not accross it if possible.
I mention this because I have a modded antec sonata with two 120mm fans in stock locations, and I drilled a hole in the side and put a 3rd 120mm fan blowing onto cpu, mem and graphics card. Cooling is very good with all case fans at low speeds (cpu runs several degrees cooler with the side on the case), and it's quiet.
 
I kinda new that already, hence the reason I mentioned the Sonata. I am just not a huge fan of the side ways hard drive cage, seems like it would inhibit air flow thus inhibit cooling.
 
ive read a silverstonme review they said its the coolest running case they have tested, ever. and noise wise its average what they thought was impressive considering that it ran the very coolest.
 
The coolermaster centurion 5 offers surprisingly good cooling from a steel case, the front is all mesh too. 120mm fans all round.
 
steele aluminum does not matter at all. every thermal dynamics engineer would laugh at this. the heat gets removed through airflow not throw the case sides. the ammount is so small its utterly negligible.
 
now dont get me wrong my case is aluminium and i do believe it looks way better it just doesnt do anything to keep my case cooler. it does make more noise tho.
 
I just got my Silverstone TJ06 today put my althon 2100+ and slk 800 in there running at 2.4ghz i can maintain around 36c while rendering stuff in 3ds. That is 8c cooler than my old case that had 4 120mm fans each about 60cfm each 1 top 1 side 1 back 1 front. I cant believe the difference this thing made considering it only has the 2 fans. Also according to speedfan my hdds run alittle cooler and the only fan up there right now is the psu. I also picked up a vantec fan controller with the case so im going to go ahead and add 1-2 more fans 1 top and one side above gfx card.
 
Yeah I didn't figure the aluminum did too much to help cooling.


Originally posted by: Thermalrock
steele aluminum does not matter at all. every thermal dynamics engineer would laugh at this. the heat gets removed through airflow not throw the case sides. the ammount is so small its utterly negligible.
Click to expand...

 
yea kinda embarressing, i didnt mean to type throw instead of through. i will check my spelling twice when im a lil intoxicated from now on. cheers.
 
Originally posted by: GnomeCop
The coolermaster centurion 5 offers surprisingly good cooling from a steel case, the front is all mesh too. 120mm fans all round.
Click to expand...



Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn the Centurian 5 have a 120mm in the back and an 80mm up front? My theory is this is actually better, as it creates a partial vacuum in the case, allowing air to passively flow in through the mesh front grill and thus distributing cooler air over a larger area....
 
Originally posted by: coolred
I kinda new that already, hence the reason I mentioned the Sonata. I am just not a huge fan of the side ways hard drive cage, seems like it would inhibit air flow thus inhibit cooling.
Click to expand...

The fan sucking air accross the hard drives from the front doesn't really do much more then cool them. Not only does the air have to get passed the hd's but also has to come in through the fairly small front vents so you're not going to get much airflow. Does a quite acceptable job of keeping hd's cool however. Hence the reason I have a side fan on my setup pushing air straight onto cpu/graphics/memory with no obstructions.
Hd layout is ok - if you put the cables at the back it looks very neat and tidy with no cables cluttering up the case (fiddly to install however). Serial ata cables will only fit that way anyway (unless you get some with a 90 degree bend at the plug).
 
Yeah actually I read in the review over at SPCR that it actually made the hard drives runa bit warmer, since they aren't getting direct dcontact with the air, since they have a metal part of the cage on each side. But I am not so worried baotu that as I am abotu lack of intake airflow for the rest of the system. I suppose I could add a blow hole, but not sure how good i would be at that. I do like the fact that with the sonata though, it is easy to hide the cables. The new issue of CPU magazine has an article about it, including a pic of the sonata all nice and tidy.



BTW, completely off topic, but this is my first post from a Linux OS.


Originally posted by: sbuckler
Originally posted by: coolred
I kinda new that already, hence the reason I mentioned the Sonata. I am just not a huge fan of the side ways hard drive cage, seems like it would inhibit air flow thus inhibit cooling.
Click to expand...

The fan sucking air accross the hard drives from the front doesn't really do much more then cool them. Not only does the air have to get passed the hd's but also has to come in through the fairly small front vents so you're not going to get much airflow. Does a quite acceptable job of keeping hd's cool however. Hence the reason I have a side fan on my setup pushing air straight onto cpu/graphics/memory with no obstructions.
Hd layout is ok - if you put the cables at the back it looks very neat and tidy with no cables cluttering up the case (fiddly to install however). Serial ata cables will only fit that way anyway (unless you get some with a 90 degree bend at the plug).
Click to expand...

 
Originally posted by: coolred
Yeah actually I read in the review over at SPCR that it actually made the hard drives runa bit warmer, since they aren't getting direct dcontact with the air, since they have a metal part of the cage on each side. But I am not so worried baotu that as I am abotu lack of intake airflow for the rest of the system. I suppose I could add a blow hole, but not sure how good i would be at that. I do like the fact that with the sonata though, it is easy to hide the cables. The new issue of CPU magazine has an article about it, including a pic of the sonata all nice and tidy.



BTW, completely off topic, but this is my first post from a Linux OS.
Click to expand...

Trying to break free from the Bill Gates stranglehold - good luck (I at least use firefox, but that's my only stand against ms domination).

Didn't know that about hd. To be honest I don't find mine get too hot (2 raptor 10000 rpms, and 2 7200 rpm seagates) and I don't really see the point of trying too hard to cool the hds - it's not like you're going to overclock them or anything. As long as they stay a bit within operating tolerances (55 degree max) they'll be just fine.

As for making a blow hole. The sonata is made of thick steel to help make it quiet. To do a nice job you really need access to some proper metal working tools. Personally I just used a drill (punched a grid of 10mm holes in it) but it ain't going to win any beauty contests. However I didn't really care about that, I wanted my case cool and quiet, and for that it works just fine.
 
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