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	Geforce 7900 GT + Zalman VF900 @ 5v Coolermaster Real Power M520 520W PSU 2x Western Digital 74Gb Raptor SATA HDD

Room temperature was 20°C during testing, ambient noise clocked in at 36dBA. 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 & Automatic Door

Without special features to hide or help your route cables the B2 case does an average job at keeping the cables outside the ideal airflow path. Nevertheless if you don’t fill up all the drive bays you should be able to hide those extra cables there.



With the bottom plastic panel closed it does look less messy:



When powered on the button next to the power buttons becomes sensitive to the touch, triggering the automatic door. A blue LED sits at the top of the case drive bays and lights everything below. When the front door is closed you can only see a small blue light escaping.



There’s no better to illustrate how it works/sounds, then with a small movie. In the clip below you’ll see how the door functions; and how to override the automatic system by disengaging the small motor with the switch at the left side.



Onto the stress tests ->