I will talk about two system case models from MGE Company (if you don't know, this humble abbreviation unrolls as ?Manufacturer of Great Electronics?. The company was founded in 1990 and at first focused on producing system cases. Today MGE is engaged in manufacture of PC components, cases, power supplies, CPU coolers, and cooling systems for high-end computers.
Testbed and Methods
The system cases covered in this review were tested according to the following rules: 1) the exterior and interior of the case are described and 2) a computer system of the following configuration is assembled in it:
- ASUS P4C800-E rev.2.0 mainboard (BIOS 1016);
- Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz CPU;
- Intel box cooler;
- 2x256MB OCZ OCZ433512ELDCPE-K;
- Sapphire ATI RADEON X800 PRO 256MB graphics card;
- Maxtor MaXLine Plus II 250GB hard disk drive;
- 3.5?Sony MPF920-E floppy drive;
- LG GCR-8523B CD-ROM.
To avoid interrupting the airflows, all the cables in the case are neatly twisted into plaits and fastened to the walls, if possible. Having assembled the computer, I write a report on all the positive and negative aspects of the internal design of the case and the quality of manufacture, accompanying the report with photos.
To ensure a stable ambient temperature, I place the assembled computer into the chamber of a Sanyo MIR-253 incubator that maintains a constant temperature of 25 degrees centigrade inside.
Our tests proper are carried out two modes: Idle (the OS is booted up, and the computer is idle) and Burn (the system is running a demo record in Far Cry, at 1024x768 resolution and with the maximum graphics quality settings, in a cycle). We have determined experimentally that the temperature of all system components stabilizes after 40 minutes of being in a particular test mode. So, after these 40 minutes have passed, I read temperature data from the following sensors:
- thermal diode integrated onto the mainboard
- thermal diode integrated into the CPU
- HDD (through S.M.A.R.T.)
- thermal diode built into the GPU
- thermal diode integrated onto the graphics card
Having tested the case with its standard cooling system, I install additional fans at the rear panel and run the tests once again.
I use the following software:
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2;
- Crytek Far Cry;
- Motherboard Monitor 5.3.6.0;
- RivaTuner 2.0 RC15.2.
