When discussing cooling for my video cards in the Video forum, I took the thread and forum somewhat off-topic by bringing up the computer case that I had ordered. I'm coming here to follow-up to try to be more on-topic.
So...my
XClio Windtunnel arrived today and is up and functioning.
When I carried the box in (advertised shipping weight: 31lbs) it didn't seem that heavy -is it really steel? According to the kitchen magnet I plopped onto it after taking it out of the box, yes. While I still would have preferred aluminum over steel, I was pleasantly surprised that it isn't as heavy as I thought it was going to be. With everything installed, it is plenty heavy tho.
Dimensions: It is only about an inch taller than my old case. Good. I was worried about the power cables being able to reach from the PSU to the bottom vid card - no problem there. Front to back, it's about 4" longer. Also good. The 8800GTX cards were a cinch to install.
As I suspected, the side fans still don't blow directly onto the bottom vid card.
However, the vid cards are now idling at 3-4C lower than they were before. After playing UT2004 for about 2 continuous hours, their max temp was 4-5C lower than before. ...and I am comparing the temps in the old case when the CPU was running at default clocking (2.4GHz) with temps in the new case with the CPU O/C'd to 3.0GHz. The CPU temps at idle? 39-41C in the old case, 32-34C in the new one. I don't remember what the CPU temp was after we finished playing 2K4.
As I said in the other thread, the front panel fan and the rear panel fan (120mm each) are not included. I have not yet gone shopping so all this temp info is without them. I'll put them in tomorrow. So far, with the 2x250mm fans and without the 2x120mm fans, the case is noticably quieter than the old one (with 6x80mm fans). The vents in the various places around the case all have positive airflow out, none of which is noticably warm. Air removal from the case does not seem to be a problem. Not surprisingly, the warmest air coming out of the case is from the vid card exhausts.
The case is all toolless, except for the mobo screws. The inside of the case is roomy enough that the lack of a removable mobo tray is almost immaterial. Most of the reviews that I read about cases that used a screwless solution for expansion slot cards (cases other than this one) complained that it didn't work for 8800 cards and they had to use screws anyway. No problems in that regard here. My old case had a spring loaded latch on the side panel, grasp and pull, for securing the panel to the case - I
really liked that. This one uses thumb screws - for both side panels - a plus over cases that only has them for one side panel and screws for the other but I still like the side panel latch...no screws at all. The toolless rails for the CD/DVD/HDD/floppy drives are quick and simple.
The one serious negative is the positioning of the internal HDD drive bay. For working in the box having the HDDs pull straight out the side rather than having the bay rotated 90 degrees so the HDDs go in and out over the mobo is great...but the bay restricts airflow from the front panel fan back to the mobo. For a super duper "keep it cool" case this a flaw and not a minor one. I was aware of this before I bought it so I cannot complain too loudly...but it is still a design flaw. A personnel flaw in the engineering dept at XClio is the idiot who put the power wire for the side panel fans over the left fan rather than the right fan.
Conclusion: I am a happy camper.