Fan duct performance tests

The fanduct is a pretty interesting feature, both for overclockers and professional (workstation/server) users, looking for a quiet or effective way to cool their CPU. The fanduct itself is adjustable in every direction: it can slide left/right, up/down and the 'neck' of the duct can also be slit in/out, enabling you to fix the duct against your CPU heatsink. If you are planning on using it with a large “tower” heatsink you might run into problems though.

Here are my test configurations:

Blackrabbit’s Athlon XP Test Setup
CPU	Athlon XP 1800+
CPU Cooling	Thermaltake Volcano 6CU+ with 80mm fan
Other	Geforce4 Ti4200 modded with 80mm fan Maxtor HDD Chieftec 360W PSU

As you can see, the duct really helps the cool air to reach the CPU heatsink. But why does the fanduct perform the same, with or without a 120mm fan installed? I recon it's because of the added turbulence (which also results in more noise), causing the cool air to move not in a way it is supposed to. I'm sure there are setups possible where this fanduct combines both quiet operation and decent cooling, but with this setup it wasn't the case.

As I was not 100% satisfied with these results, I decided to install other components and rerun the tests:

Blackrabbit’s Athlon 64 Test Setup
CPU	Athlon 64 3500+
CPU Cooling	Stock AMD heatsink &fan
Other	Geforce 6800GS Maxtor HDD Chieftec 360W PSU

With the Athlon64 the extra fan in the fanduct gives an extra boost to the cooling of the CPU.


Summary/Conclusion

So, who should buy this case? Server administrators? Casemodders? Overclockers? I think this case is capable of pleasing people of all these categories. It offers a lot of space, it is sturdy and has features which will come in handy for everybody.

Does it have it's flaws? Certainly: the manual is lacking in detail (it took me some time to find all the features) and the flip-open 5.25" front is not compatible with all 5.25" drives, but these are all just minor issues. I think I can conclude this case is a winner, combining a lot of ideas into an enclosure which can be had for an reasonable ~$120 price tag.

PRO
Very spacious interior
Excellent airflow design
Anti vibration mounting for hard drives works well
A nice feature set makes it a great case

CON
Hard drive positioning could be better
Flip-open 5.25” front does not work with all optical drives
The manual is lacking in detail

I like to thank Nigel from I-Star for giving us the opportunity to review this case.

Question/Comments: forum thread