Cases

[ChemicalWarrior]

And that wasnt the point I was trying to make! Jesus, stop putting words in my mouth. It runs cooler, end of story, I didnt say it would cause a miracle and make your processor and hard drive run 5c cooler.

[Capt. Insane]

now now, no need to get in a tizzy. chem's right, the aluminum will make a slight difference in cooling, but you'll prolly notice the difference more with weight than anything else

[{OF}DMW]

Originally Posted by {OF}Blong

im not argueing that its lighter and aluminum dissipates heat 100x better than steal just saying I dont see that I can get more than a couple degrees difference and I just cant see that as mattering when playing games or doing other high cpu intensive proggies.

Your joking here right blong?

[{OF}DMW]

Originally Posted by Capt. Insane

now now, no need to get in a tizzy. chem's right, the aluminum will make a slight difference in cooling, but you'll prolly notice the difference more with weight than anything else

I believe that I mentioned the aluminum box first.....

If you read any review on cases which obviously some haven't done... aluminum is the way to go as far as running a cooler case temperature. Now. logic would seem that if your case is cooled properly, made out of a light cool METAL such as aluminum which dissapates heat faster than say, oh, STEEL this should help in keeping the other componets cooler such as your cpu, your vid card and oh, memory.......... HARD DRIVE! This stuff is just like a motor engine, the hotter the engine gets the more of your power is lost in the heat. Same thing happens with your computer.

[{OF}Blong]

Originally Posted by {OF}DMW

Your joking here right blong?

about what????? I highly doubt an aluminum case is going to make my cpu run much cooler than 32 C and my hard drive run much cooler than 28 (sometimes 27) C. now thats not under load under load its 38c and 30-31c for hard drive. I have both aluminum and steel cases and I dont see much of any difference in temps between the 2 cases. Is aluminum lighter? yes. Does aluminum dissipate heat better? Yes because it disippates heat through the whole sheet of metal rather than in a pinpoint spot like steel does. Which one gets hotter quicker? Aluminum does.

Lets put it this way (working with welding metals etc) aluminum takes next to nothing to get hot but it also takes next to nothing for it to cool down. Steel (on the other hand) takes a while to get hot and a while to cool down. To weld aluminum you need a much higher voltage (I usually run 140-150) to weld than you do steel (usually around 120) because of the properties mentioned above.

I am not trying to make a point of an aluminum case is better than steel or vice versa. I am trying to point out that it will not make that much of a difference unless you are doing some major cpu intensive stuff 24hrs/day 7days/week etc. Or your house is 100 degrees (thats an exageration) . Weight wise I will def go aluminum next time because it is lighter. Heck while we are at it why not go with acrylic? can get almost as hot as aluminum and distributes heat like aluminum (although not as efficient).

dmw your analogy of a car makes sense for a car because of METAL that rubs on METAL what metal is rubbing together in a computer????? I am talking physically rubbing together. metal rubbing together gets much hotter but even then 1 or 2 degrees NORMALLY wont affect anything.

Soul sorry to hijack your thread with this stuff . I am just trying to understand where some of these people are coming from and well they just arent making me understand very well .

[{OF}Flying_Dutchman]

A few quick facts:

Thermal conductivity of aluminum : 237 W/m-K

Thermal conductivity of mild (carbon) steel: 45 W/m-K

Don't confuse thermal conductivity (i.e. how the material conducts heat) with melting temperature of a material (when you're welding a material you're basically doing that, melting it).

So aluminum conducts heat about 5 times better then steel.

However: thermal conductivity refers to how the heat moves in conductive heat transfer (material to material or within a material type movement of heat)

BUT heat exchange by convection (i.e. moving air) can be described as:
Q=hA(T1-T2) where Q is the heat transfer, h is the thermal coefficient (not the same as thermal conductivity) A is the area being cooler and T1 and T2 the difference in temperature between the air and the material surface.
The thermal heat transfer coefficient in convection heat transfer is basically a function of the fluid used for cooler (air) and the speed of that fluid.

But the heat is coming from the internal components, such a hard drives, graphics cards, chips on the mobo, etc.

So for the heat to get to the case material (the "hotly" debated subject here) it first has to pass through the surrounding air and then to the metal of the case (though yes, some of the componenents are darn close to the metal casing and touch at some points).

But really, what is much more important in keeping your case cool is the air flow moving. (and obviously what temperature that air is coming into the case to begin with). using a fan to blow through the case (forced convection) is much more efficient then just letting the heat dissipate through holes in the case and letting it create it's own draft (natural convection).

This heat in the (moving) air will then heat up the case material which in turn conducts it from the inside of the case to the outside (which the aluminum does much better then mild steel) and then the outside of the case cools through natural convection with the ambient air.

So yes, an aluminum case does a better job, but only marginally since air is really a pretty bad conductor of heat. You have to keep it moving, and that's what does the bulk of the cooling.


Hope this helps.

Overal conclusion: steel is heavier then aluminum

Sorry for hijacking the thread......

[{OF}RKT]

Get this one, I absolutely love it.

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/produc.../va8000bws.asp

I brought it to last springs LAN party. It even has aluminum shields to protect it during transport.



Working with this case is awesome and if you have the desire or need, you can drop over 10 harddrives and still have room for a DVD RW, CDRW, Floppy Drive and more....

The price has dropped and you can get a great deal on it at newegg.com[/img]

with whisper fans, the only way you know it's on is with the blue led's and cathode tubes I threw in it.

[{OF}Blong]

thank you fd for that informative post .

[LoPo]

Originally Posted by Soul

where from Lopo?

Sorry Soul, I found it on one of those "Pimp my case" sites and it was the only non-flamer looking one I could find.

My point really was, unless you can justify the need to spend excess amount of money, find one that has 'looks' that you can deal with sitting on/near/under your desk. Use the extra $100 and upgrade your mem/hd/proc/video/sound - something that would actually benefit your performance.

[Capt. Insane]

Originally Posted by {OF}DMW

I believe that I mentioned the aluminum box first..... :)

If you read any review on cases which obviously some haven't done... aluminum is the way to go as far as running a cooler case temperature. Now. logic would seem that if your case is cooled properly, made out of a light cool METAL such as aluminum which dissapates heat faster than say, oh, STEEL this should help in keeping the other componets cooler such as your cpu, your vid card and oh, memory.......... HARD DRIVE! This stuff is just like a motor engine, the hotter the engine gets the more of your power is lost in the heat. Same thing happens with your computer.

that's right you did; i just got confused when you failed to mention that aluminum is metal too.

RKT, that's a sweet looking case. it might even be good without using all those expansion slots: you get more room to work and would probably help with airflow