Test Setup and Test Methodology

Intel Test Setup
CPU	Intel Core 2 E6400 @ 2.8Ghz (from CSMSA)
Cooling	Coolermaster Hyper TX
Mainboard	Intel 975X Bad Axe (Modded by Piotke)
Memory	2 * 1Gb PC6400 OCZ
Other	XFX Geforce 8800 GTX Antec TruePower Trio! 650W Western Digital 74Gb Raptor SATA HDD Maxtor 200gb SATA HDD

Room temperature was 20°C during testing, ambient noise clocked in at 37.8dBA. Noise measurements were taken at 50cm from the front of the case.

Realtime HDR and Orthos were used to stress the Dual Core system; Core 2 Temp was used to monitor Core temperature (duh) and Speedfan to check the temperature of HDD and Motherboard. Rivatuner’s temp monitor checked the G80 GPU at regular intervals. Maximum values were recorded.

The Intel Bax Axe motherboard features several thermal sensors, the “mobo” values are those recorded by the sensor which can be found between the DDR2 memory banks, marked A in the overview:



Cable routing & Fitting larger video cards

The CM 690 is fitted with some features to reduce cable clutter, the Antec PSU we are using is known for long cables and it has been a challenge in past reviews to find a place to hide all cables. In this case the preinstalled cable guiders do come in handy and succeed in removing cables from vital areas like CPU/VGA; the rear connection of the HDDs also helps of course as you will see in the photos below.

It’s unfortunate this Intel motherboard requires a 4-pin power connection right in the middle and that the Antec 8-pin EATX power cable is not long enough to have it follow another route; when using a different motherboard and PSU you will find the CM 690 to be a case to easily hide the cables in.



This case is large enough to accommodate the largest of VGA cards: 8800 GTX, without issue, there is room to spare!




Onto the stress testing ->