which is better at cooling? 900 or PC-7?

dr_shoe · 14 Nov 2006 at 02:20

looking to buy a new case, gonna be overclocking a bit and want it to be as quiet as possible while still managing good overclocks, which would be better?

the antec 900 is a bit overthetopfanboyish in my opinion, not too sure about the LEDs and side pannel, but the cooling does seem to be awesome, i mean, is there any part of it you cant put a fan to?

i prefer the looks of the lian-li PC-7, but will 2 120mm fans cut it? and does alluminium conduct heat much better or is it unnoticable?

thanks

Hades · 14 Nov 2006 at 02:26

I don't have either case. Gut feeling is the 900 would be better but that's not based on any actual experience of either. But airflow will be far more important than metal/plastic/aluminium.

Looked at the Silverstone TJ09 which is getting good cooling reviews?

dr_shoe · 14 Nov 2006 at 02:35

the only one i could find in my quick search came too 200 quid, waaaay too much

Hades · 14 Nov 2006 at 02:38

Fair point about price.

Well if you don't like the look of the 900 then you'll never really be completely happy with it. The PC7 should be fine. Go with that.

Yewen · 14 Nov 2006 at 02:54

Dual 120/120 fans will be able to cool anything you could make, easily.

THe PC7+ can cool any system you can put in it without exception.

The difference between the two will be from very low to exceptionally low, neither of which will be more than bragging rights for the low temperature thats 1/2 deg lower.

The only area the 900 would be obviously better at is if you put hard drives in Silenmaxx enclosures, but its such a small point that the superior quality of the Lian Li would get my money.

I would take the PC7+ over any non Lian Li case right up to the Silverstone TJ09.

The Eclipse is on a par with it, better cooling aswell but its value for money is soundly beaten in my eyes by the PC7+.

No better way to spend £60 on your computer, last for years and offers a taste of the £200 cases.

WJA96 · 14 Nov 2006 at 06:14

Which is better for cooling? I'd have to say PC7. We bought one of these and we installed out stock sytem in it. 2 Optical drives, 5 HDD in RAID5 off a Revo card, a Core2Duo 6600 on an ASUS P5B, two optical drives and a passively cooled Nvidia 6200 graphics card. We use Akasa power supplies that are famous for their long leads so we had no issues cabling everything up (it's a long way from the top of an Eclipse to the bottom!). Fair enough it ran OK. The HDD were very cool, but everything was running warm.

Then we tried it with a pair of X1900XT's installed and the machine shut down from overtheating. I haven't had that since I put a Dual Core P4 in a Lian Li V600. We couldn't use the internal VGA fan because we had installed 5 Hard Drives. When we put the side blower fan in it rattled the side window, so we took that out again.

The power supply was also warmer than usual although I don't think it would come to any harm, but I do think it was fighting for air with all the other exhaust fans.

We disconnected the exhaust 120mm fan and it worked much better. We disconnected the two front fans and although the HDD temperature went up, the computer itself was cooler and quieter with just the big top fan running. We got the best results by removing the two front fans and just drawing air into the case through the front, which is completely the opposite of what I thought should have happened.

Now, I'll be honest. I don't like the way these look. I think it's noisy too. Anyone claiming this is silent should check the word 'silent' in a dictionary.

But what I really don't like the imbalanced cooling of the standard system. Something in the cooling has been sacrificed for the look. Something just doesn't seem work very well in a high temperature loading scenario. Most people will never get to that situation though. 1 HDD and 2 optical drives is more usual I think and I don't think most users would notice it. We won't really know until next summer

The cooling can easily be fixed by taking out a couple of fans though, so all is not lost. And I actually prefer the look without the blue LEDs at the front.

WJA96 · 14 Nov 2006 at 06:28

Yewen said:
The only area the 900 would be obviously better at is if you put hard drives in Silenmaxx enclosures

The Silentmaxx would have to replace a floppy or optical drive though as the triple-HDD cages are a single unit with the fan although the drive covers looked separately removable. So if you want the fan, you have to have the HDD cages if you understand me. It didn't look like you could install a Silentmaxx and have the fan at the same time, which is actually no bad thing in my opinion. (see above)

I also think Anterc missed a trick by not stealthing the 5.25" drives. The two exposed drives totally ruin the mesh-fronted look. You don't have that with a stealthed Lian-Li.

Yewen · 14 Nov 2006 at 12:52

Do the fans are built into the cages like in a Dragon?

Wow thats quite bad!

Seems as though another case with lots of fans completely misses the idea of good airflow then. Not had chance to use one and do not fancy spending my own money on one.