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Sansun Bat Mid Tower ATX Case Review

Cases & PSU/Cases by piotke @ 2006-02-14

Sansun is a newcomer to the retail enclosure market; with years of experience in the distributor sector they put their experience to good use. Straight from the darkest pits of a dark cave comes their first offering, the Bat case. We draw the Joker from our pack of twisted product tests and find out if this case is up to the challenge.

Testing and conclusion

Noise / Performance testing

Piotke's Test Setup
CPU	AMD sempron 64 2600+ @ 2 Ghz
Cooler	Zalman 7000Cu - Fan @ 5 Volt
Mainboard	Albatron K8 Ultra
HDD	Maxtor 250 gig
VGA	Albatron GF4 MX480
Memory	2*512 Mb A-Data Vitesta DDR600
Optical	Nec 2500 DVD writer

The Sempron 2600+ @ 2000 Mhz and 1.6 vcore is putting out close to 100 Watt according to this online calculator. Measured with a power meter we found following power usage:

Idle: 99 Watt

Stressed: 151 Watt

Noise level was recorded with SmartSensor SL4001A. The lowest dBA reading in the test room was 35.7dBA

Ambient room temperature: 22°C

Madshrimps (c)

Having the supplied fan installed gives a remarkable increase of performance, but unfortunately also in noise.

When using decent CPU cooling and PSU the system is almost completely silent, as it produces only ~37/5dBA@60cm; that’s an increase of only 2dBA over ambient.

With the additional side fan installed the dBA meter measures 46.7dBA from the side (@60cm) and 43.6dBA from the front (@45cm). So using the fan (@12v) makes the system twice as loud.

Conclusion

This special designed case has a lot of commendable aspects, but unfortunately also some negative. The front panel and door are made of plastic but very well finished. The same goes for both the bat wings on the side panels. The eyes of the bat give a little extra *bling* to the case, but it isn't overdone. The panels that cover the 5.25" bays are securely attached and while removing them can be a little difficult, I don’t find this a negative as this is only needed when changing or installing something.

The functionality of the Bat can be summed up by using this quote: ”Close but no cigar”.

The HDD rack is well thought out and easy to remove. The optical drive installation system works quite well, to my surprise, and is a definite plus.

However the PCI easy lock system is flawed in two ways: you need to put an awful lot of pressure on the clip to get it secured and the uninstall is even harder. The second issue with the clips is that they were not designed to be used with PCIe/AGP/PCI cards who’s PCB surpasses the mounting bracket. The clip can simply not be used in that case.

PRO
Nifty themed front design
Strong and easy removable HDD racks
Easy optical drive installation

CON
Rear panel has sharp edges
PCI “easy” lock is flawed

I like to thank Neilson Wu from SANSUN INDUSTRIES for providing us the sample.

Question/Comments: forum thread

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