The finished build looks pretty clean. Most cables neatly tucked away to allow maximum airflow. We tested in 3 different manners : First with with no spinning case fans. Secondly with the fans at 50% speed and last but not least with the fans running flatout. This to see how they influence the operating temperatures of the build and its components.

Let's start with the CPU. Our AMD 1090T running at 4000Mhz at 1.4Vcore, during an hour prime95 run, custom set 12K -12K.

Since it's quite a large case, CPU temps with active case fans are pretty good. It's pretty normal when you take away all the airflow that the temperatures are negatively influenced. The impact is in fact pretty big, more than 5°C on top of the same setup with the fans spinning at 50% ( +/-1000rpm) The idle temps are the result of half an hour idling, before starting he stress test.

Our Asus Crosshair IV has got onboard sensors for the Northbridge en Southbridge chipset temperatures. The read out was monitored via the AIDA64 software.

Exact same behaviour as with the CPU tests. More fan speed means better cooling performance. Take note that the Xigmatek case has got no fan directed straight onto the motherboard. Two fans blowing on the hard drive bay and one sucking hot air out via the back or the top. The temperature difference is marginal between 50% fan speed ( +/-1000RPM) and full blast (1890RPM), the noise generated however is something totally different.

With the ATI 5870 running a 10 min MSI Kompressor tests we logged the highest temps. Ofcourse we did not manually put the GPU fan at a fixed value. The fan was regulated by the vidcard itself, determining optimal fan speed in regard to the heat generated. Very close results here, as the fan speed at load makes the difference. Ranging from 30 to 36% to keep the stressed ATI GPU under control.

Noise wise it's was a good idea by Xigmatek to include the fancontrollers. Running at full blast the included fans generate quite a riot. Reducing to the fan speed to +/- 50%, resulting in approx 1000RPM for the fans makes them almost inaudible. Yet looking at the above results, still creating a decent airflow to keep ya components pretty cool.