Alpine EZ-Cool Case Thoughts..

meansizzler

meansizzler

meansizzler

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known about this for a while, a friend has it, seems the best bang for buck case, not the best constructed case, but looks like it provides good cooling, front 80mm fan, rear 120MM fan, mount for top 80mm fan, and side panel allows for 3* 80MM fans, or 1* 80 MM fan for expansion cards and 1*120 MM fan for memory cooing, great for bringing cool air into case for CPU, has pretty much all I need...looks nice, although kinda cheap, certainly no Lian Li...but has lots of ventialtion holes, seems like a cheaper option over the Stacker 830...

The Stacker would cost me around £200 with extra fans, this shold cost me £45 case, plus £30 for fans, so £75 all together is pretty good..Quite hard to find Info on this case, there are three models which are pretty much identical, EZ-Cool 7103H, 7104H, 7105H...Available in Black or Silver or Blue

AC-view.jpg


Review
 
Not going by first hand experience on this one, but I know a PC shop who had one of these in for use in someones build ages back.

It did not cool as well as the Eclipse and was built worse.

PC7+ is a better option, and the lanboy also would cool better going on what they said.

Same sort of pricing are, but come with some fans as stock.

Someone on OcUK in the cases gallery had one and replaced it with a PC7+, could try getting hold of them.

You don't need the side blowhole fans, if you have proper airflow in the case.
 
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Lots of fans don't always make for a cool case.

You could probably get better cooling with that if the side was actually solid because it would improve air-flow.
 
Nix said:
Lots of fans don't always make for a cool case.

You could probably get better cooling with that if the side was actually solid because it would improve air-flow.
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ok, so for £30 it's better going for a Lian Li, I like the PC-60 PLus 2, but can someoen recommend a heatsink to work with it, it sucks air in form the back and to the heatsink so I take it a Zalman 9500AT would not work as the fan blows in the opposite direction..that's hteo nly thing stopped me from gettign a lian li, thoe whoel cpu cooling thing ,can i ot make the rear fan exhaust air instead then put in a zlaman 9500at, but then where woudl it get cool air from?...
 
The PC60 is not as good as the PC7+, avoid it.

The PC7+ is in at the front, out at the back. The only case to have an alternative refiend cooling system are the larger V series cases.

The S80 is in at the front, out at the back, although the intake vents do not relate very well as they are at the rear.
 
Well S80 out of the question, to expensive, PC-7 looks to cheap, I'd go for the V1000 Plus 2 but is the cooling good? for hard drives and expanasion cards i should not have a problem, but what about the CPU?, what CPU cooler woudl oyu recomend for a Pentium D 830, I was just thinking of sticking a Zalman 9500AT in there, and reversing the rear fan to blow air out, would that work?...
 
meansizzler said:
ok, so for £30 it's better going for a Lian Li, I like the PC-60 PLus 2, but can someoen recommend a heatsink to work with it, it sucks air in form the back and to the heatsink so I take it a Zalman 9500AT would not work as the fan blows in the opposite direction..that's hteo nly thing stopped me from gettign a lian li, thoe whoel cpu cooling thing ,can i ot make the rear fan exhaust air instead then put in a zlaman 9500at, but then where woudl it get cool air from?...
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What are you talking about?

The Lian-Li PC-7+ sucks air in from the front and blows it out the back, the higher model cases do it the opposite way. If you wanted to, you could even swap the fans around and have the air flow in the opposite direction.
 
meansizzler said:
Well S80 out of the question, to expensive, PC-7 looks to cheap, I'd go for the V1000 Plus 2 but is the cooling good? for hard drives and expanasion cards i should not have a problem, but what about the CPU?, what CPU cooler woudl oyu recomend for a Pentium D 830, I was just thinking of sticking a Zalman 9500AT in there, and reversing the rear fan to blow air out, would that work?...
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Scythe ninja, best cooler about, or a Thermaltake Big Typhoon, in a v1000+ would reduce your temperatures considerably.

The PC7+ is considerably more expensive in the build quality than the case you have posted!

http://www.yewen.co.uk/overclockers/pc7/
 
meansizzler said:
Well S80 out of the question, to expensive, PC-7 looks to cheap, I'd go for the V1000 Plus 2 but is the cooling good? for hard drives and expanasion cards i should not have a problem, but what about the CPU?, what CPU cooler woudl oyu recomend for a Pentium D 830, I was just thinking of sticking a Zalman 9500AT in there, and reversing the rear fan to blow air out, would that work?...
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In all fairness the PC-7+ is cheap, but it's worth every penny and I'm personally surprised it's not worth much more, it's a cracking case. More money does not always equal better cases. Why would you want to swap the fan on the cooler? It's designed the way it is for a reason.

The V1000+ is very good for cooling, better than most cases, but it's not the top of the market. If I recall, Yewen used to run his CPU passive in his V1000+ and have very reasonable temperatures.
 
I ran a dothan passive on the v1000 (not plus) using a purpose built passive heatsink.

Ran my 3700sd and 4400 x2 of a Zalman Reserator 1+ as it is the easiest way to achieve silence. :)
 
Nix said:
What are you talking about?

the higher model cases do it the opposite way.
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Exaclty what i'm talking about the air is sucked in from the back but i fail to see how it would get exhuasted, take for example a pentium d 830 with stock intel fan, air comes from in form rear cpu cooler blows this air around the case and the air in the case is all hot, how will it get exhausted?...there is a 120MM fan at the top side on the plus 2 will that exhaust both hot air from expansion cards and cpu?, can that handle the heat output from a 130Watt cpu that's the only thing i'm sceptical about.., I will be running a radeon X1800XT in there to....
 
Yewen said:
I ran a dothan passive on the v1000 (not plus) using a purpose built passive heatsink.

Ran my 3700sd and 4400 x2 of a Zalman Reserator 1+ as it is the easiest way to achieve silence. :)
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what's with you and your low powered cpu's? take a gamble and chuck in a Dual core pentium, things will soon start to heat up... :D
 
Yes they can handle it.

They wont give stunning temperatures, but will easily be below the point where a system crashes.

I have ran a LOT of rigs in v1000 and v2000's and the + versions, and also one +II. Lot of users on these forums aswell.

All think the temperatures are ok. 1 person telling me the case is ok is worth 1000000000 reviews to me. No other motives influencing them usually.

meansizzler said:
what's with you and your low powered cpu's? take a gamble and chuck in a Dual core pentium, things will soon start to heat up... :D
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I choose the best CPU for what I want, I am after silence, so I go for the easiest CPU's to cool, and also the x2 performs better than the P-D's do in the applications I want, no reason for me to buy inferior hardware for it.

I have a Smithfield P-D like I said, that is outputting a lot more heat than your current processor does at stock. It has sat in a Antec 1650 case with no case fans all day perfectly fine, 65deg full load with a Big Typhoon.

Not my rig, but not hard to cool a CPU if you use a decent HS and Fan.
 
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No they wont, air goes in then straight out.

100's of users temps will tell you this, hard drives dont heat up the air instantly, if they heat it up by 2deg I would be amazed, then it gets exhausted out the back.

The In- Out fan configuration has been the best since ATX was introduced, it still is.

Blowholes are only useful for dual graphics cards applications.
 
meansizzler said:
Exaclty what i'm talking about the air is sucked in from the back but i fail to see how it would get exhuasted, take for example a pentium d 830 with stock intel fan, air comes from in form rear cpu cooler blows this air around the case and the air in the case is all hot, how will it get exhausted?...there is a 120MM fan at the top side on the plus 2 will that exhaust both hot air from expansion cards and cpu?, can that handle the heat output from a 130Watt cpu that's the only thing i'm sceptical about.., I will be running a radeon X1800XT in there to....
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My super lanboy with 7v fans handles my pentium D which is running at 3.75ghz (2.66 stock, 160w CPU atm) and the v1000+ has better cooling so it won't be a problem at all. Also the PC7 is a far far superior case to the one you posted and is in no way 'cheap', it is just very good value.

meansizzler said:
what's with you and your low powered cpu's? take a gamble and chuck in a Dual core pentium, things will soon start to heat up... :D
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Why would you want things to heat yp when the AMDs use less power, create less heat, can be cooled silently and are faster? Only reason I have a pentium D was that it only cost me £80, considering the recent price drops of AMD X2s they arent that good value now either. Plus conroe is out...

meansizzler said:
Where would it get it's fresh supply of cool air from?, no blow hole?...it would be circulating warm air...front fan will blow cool air in but hard drives will soon warm it up...
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Blow holes are to remove air not bring more in, and it does have one. It will also work by negative pressure. If you ahve more air going out then coo air will be sucked into every gap because it tries to reach an equal pressure both inside and outside of the case.


edit @ \/
Erm, under £100 you would go for the the Akasa eclipse if you want cooling, more fans doesnt always = better cooling.
 
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Still don't know what case to get, both have there good and bad points...if i would get a Lian Li it would be the V1000 Plus 2..., revers the rear fna to blow out, cut a blow whole in it to supply fresh air to the Zalman 9500AT Cooler..that should work a treat..., , but hey why do that when you can buy a stacker with it done already...if your going to spend £100+ on a case then for cooling wise the only case to go for is a stacker, under £100 range then would prolly be a coolermaster ammo, if only it was aluminium...
 
meansizzler said:
Where would it get it's fresh supply of cool air from?, no blow hole?...it would be circulating warm air...front fan will blow cool air in but hard drives will soon warm it up...
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You've got an 120mm at the front and back.

You've got an 80mm at the top.

What are you talking about?
 
meansizzler said:
Still don't know what case to get, both have there good and bad points...if i would get a Lian Li it would be the V1000 Plus 2..., revers the rear fna to blow out, cut a blow whole in it to supply fresh air to the Zalman 9500AT Cooler..that should work a treat..., , but hey why do that when you can buy a stacker with it done already...if your going to spend £100+ on a case then for cooling wise the only case to go for is a stacker, under £100 range then would prolly be a coolermaster ammo, if only it was aluminium...
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The best cooling case is a Akasa Eclipse 62, why would you get something else.

As I have said before, blowholes are not everything. The Thermaltake Armour cools better than the Stacker, not to mention the TJ07!

If you drill a blowhole in the v1000+ the odds are you will increase temperatures.

In at the back, out at the top, a top exhaust fan is the only worthwhile mod to do to the case, anything else will have a neggative result.
 
meansizzler said:
Still don't know what case to get, both have there good and bad points...if i would get a Lian Li it would be the V1000 Plus 2..., revers the rear fna to blow out, cut a blow whole in it to supply fresh air to the Zalman 9500AT Cooler..that should work a treat..., , but hey why do that when you can buy a stacker with it done already...if your going to spend £100+ on a case then for cooling wise the only case to go for is a stacker, under £100 range then would prolly be a coolermaster ammo, if only it was aluminium...
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Why do you want that stacker? It's a terrible case! Save your money and get the PC-7+.

EDIT:

If you have to spend a lot of money to satisfy your needs, then get the Akasa Eclipse 62, at least then you'll be sure of a fantastic case.
 
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