AntonyLeatherputssixofthelatestmid-range cases through
theirpaces.Withpricesrangingfrom £90 to 150Mid-range
bargains
LABS TEST
Howwe test
O
ur case testing method is simple; use real, overclocked
hardware in a standard system to see how cases perform in
terms of cooling, noise levels, ease of use and build quality.
We also take into account styling, any extra features and of course
value. We score each case using weighted calculations for their cooling,
design, features and value to give an overall score.
We’ve updated our test gear to use more modern hardware
including an Asus TUF B450M-Plus Gaming motherboard along with
a Ryzen 5 1600, overclocked to 3.8GHz using a vcore of 1.365V. We’re
also using a Palit GeForce GTX 1660 StormX with an open-air GPU
cooler to better represent the majority of modern graphics cards. Its
fan speed is limited to 60 per cent in order to keep the test environment
as consistent as possible. Our CPU cooler of choice is Thermaltake’s
Riing Silent 12 Sync 120mm, but we've limited its fan speed using a 7V
resistor cable to put more emphasis on a case’s cooling.
We leave each case to warm up for 15 minutes, using Prime95’s
smallestFFT test with AVX disabled (mersenneforum.org) to load the
CPU and Unigine’s Valley benchmark (unigine.com/products/heaven)
to load the GPU.
Temperature results were taken from Ryzen Master (amd.com)
and GPU-Z (techpowerup.com/gpuz) and we subtract the ambient
temperature from the results to give a delta T reading that ensures
temperature readings can be taken across several days and varying
ambient temperatures.
We test cases in their standard configuration with any included fans
or fanless, if the case doesn’t include any by default. Adding more fans
will obviously improve airflow but cost you more.
Where fan controllers are included, we test at the highest and lowest
fan speed levels to see what impact the different fan speeds on offer
have on cooling.Contents
be quiet! 500DX / p39
Corsair iCUE 465X / p40
Lian Li PC-011D / p41
NZXT 510 Elite / p42
Phanteks Eclipse P600S / p44
Thermaltake H550 TG ARGB / p46
Results graphs / p47LABS TEST / AT X C A S E S