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 & Larger VGA Cards

Seeing as LanCool boasts on the packaging that video cards up to 290mm fit without issue, we didn’t expect any troubles with the 8800 GTX. Cable routing was quite good, you can pass the 8-pin EATX and large 24-pin ATX power behind the motherboard panel, with the cable guiders you can put those cables out of the way which would otherwise be hanging around, blocking the airflow path. For those really neat freaks maybe a collection of zip-ties inside the goodies bag would be a good idea.



Granted that there’s not a lot of room left, but if it fits, it fits!



Onto the stress tests ->