Thermal performance
System specification
| HEXUS chassis test equipment specification | |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | EVGA 780i SLI FTW |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3.00GHz, 1333MHz FSB |
| Memory | 4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DDR2 PC8500 |
| Memory timings and speed | 5-5-5-18 2T @ 1,066MHz |
| Graphics card | BFG GeForce GTX 260 OCX MaxCore |
| Power supply | Dark Power PRO 850W |
| Hard drive | Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB |
| Optical drive | Sony SATA DVD-RW |
To get an all-round feel for a chassis' cooling ability, we record the chassis' ambient internal temperature, along with the temperatures of the CPU, GPU and MCP. To get an idea of how the Zaria A20 SIM compares, we also housed our test equipment in a Cooler Master Sniper and a SilverStone Fortress - both of which underwent identical tests.
Readers should be aware that ambient room temperature is susceptible to change, and was recorded for each chassis as follows prior to testing:
Ikonik Zaria A20 SIM - ambient room temperature 22.5°C
Cooler Master Sniper - ambient room temperature 23.8°C
SilverStone Fortress - ambient room temperature 21.3°C
During testing, the Zaria A20 SIM's three bundled fans were all active with SIM set to performance mode, and the chassis was fitted with the default mesh side window. The CPU fan is set to automatic (controlled by the motherboard).
Thermal results
To get started, we booted the systems and let them idle for 15 minutes before taking the following readings.
[graph 1866]
The Zaria A20 SIM, then, is able to hold its own against some of the industry's bigger names. Taking ambient room temperature variances into consideration, all three chassis keep all the above-mentioned components adequately cool.
To make things a little more interesting, we stress the system by running three instances of Prime95 along with 3DMark06 at 1,920x1,200 4xAA 16xAF. After a minute, we observe the following readings:
[graph 1868]
As expected, CPU and GPU temperatures rise, but there are no problems yet, all three enclosures are managing well and taking ambient room temperature variances into consideration, the Zaria A20 SIM manages to keep CPU temperature slightly lower than the competition.
Making the systems beg for mercy, we continue to run Prime95 and 3DMark06 for an hour. Here's what we see after the stress test:
[graph 1869]
No surprises here, as GPU temperature has skyrocketed following a lengthy session of 3DMark06. What is impressive, however, is that Ikonik's Zaria A20 SIM is able to keep the GPU notably cooler than SilverStone's Fortress and Cooler Master's Sniper. As far as cooling is concerned, Ikonik's chassis is providing a strong showing.
Let the system idle for a minute, and we see how well each chassis manages to cool down.
[graph 1867]
SilverStone's Fortress does a grand job of lowering GPU temperature - bringing it down quickly from 70°C to 48°C. Let's not miss the point, though, and that's that Ikonik's Zaria A20 SIM is able to stand fan-to-fan with the big guns.
Eagle-eyed readers may wonder why MCP temperature hasn't increased - we wondered, too, and we're putting it down to the auto-fan-control for the MCP keeping it around the same temperature.
