ClearPC, C3 and BeanTech: The Clear Chassis Comparison

Performance

We have several intensive benchmarks set up for these three cases.  We plan on attempting our usual battery of audible and thermal tests on the cases.

Since the ClearPC case came with 5 ‘ColorFul’ 2500RPM LED fans and the C3 case came with none, we disabled 2 fans (one side and the top exhaust) on the ClearPC case, and then used the same 3 fans on the C3 case for the benchmark.  The BeanTech case came with different fans (non-LED), so we used the same ColorFul fans in the BeanTech case as well during testing.  Hopefully, we can determine a better thermal makeup of each case. 

We should take note that we changed our setup slightly since our last enclosure review.  We noticed that our heatsink/fan and power supply actually composed of the majority of the noise levels in our reviews.  Zalman was nice enough to send us a new power supply and HSF (which we both saw at COMEX).  Since the 7000Cu HSF is actually designed for a K8 or P4 setup, we modified our GA-7VRX by drilling a few holes in the motherboard.  We do not recommend drilling holes in your motherboard.

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The thermal readings for the different components during operation were as followed:

ClearPC (3 Fans)

	CPU	Video	Heatsink	Mobo 1	Mobo 2	HD
After 10 minutes	42.2	34.2	33.6	26.7	27.9	28.2
After 30 minutes	43.0	34.8	35.5	27.3	30.4	29.9

ClearPC (5 Fans)

	CPU	Video	Heatsink	Mobo 1	Mobo 2	HD
After 10 minutes	41.5	33.7	32.0	25.7	27.6	28.4
After 30 minutes	42.3	34.4	35.1	26.2	29.4	29.8

BeanTech BT82

	CPU	Video	Heatsink	Mobo 1	Mobo 2	HD
After 10 minutes	43.2	35.9	32.9	26.8	28.1	28.0
After 30 minutes	44.1	36.5	35.8	28.3	30.9	29.4

C3 Crystal

	CPU	Video	Heatsink	Mobo 1	Mobo 2	HD
After 10 minutes	43.7	36.0	33.1	26.4	29.7	28.1
After 30 minutes	44.9	36.4	35.9	28.4	32.6	29.4

Kingwin KT-436-WM (new configuration)

	CPU	Video	Heatsink	Mobo 1	Mobo 2	HD
After 10 minutes	42.5	34.0	35.4	25.9	27.4	27.5
After 30 minutes	44.4	34.3	36.8	27.4	30.1	28.4

Kingwin KT-436-WM (old configuration)

	CPU	Video	Heatsink	Mobo 1	Mobo 2	HD
After 10 minutes	54.0	32.5	38.0	25.0	28.5	27.2
After 30 minutes	54.5	33.3	38.9	26.1	29.0	28.6

As we can see, there are no benefits from acrylic cases as far as thermodynamics, but there are no liabilities either.  The fans we used were only 82mm fans, and the C3 case was designed to use a 120mm for intake and a 90mm fan for exhaust.  The ClearPC was able to keep reasonably cool, but competed about evenly with the Kingwin 463-WM even though the Kingwin had no side fans. The ClearPC with 5 fans performed well in the thermal test, but horribly in the sound test.  Furthermore, had we used 120mm and 90mm fans on the C3 case (like specified) we would have gotten a much larger boost in performance.

Sound was recorded in decibels from 12” away from the closed case to most accurately replicate a production system.

	dBA
BeanTech BT82	44
ClearPC.ca ClearPC (3 fans)	47
ClearPC.ca ClearPC (5 fans)	52
C3 Crystal Clear	48
Kingwin 436-B-WM Aluminum (new config)	43
Kingwin 436-B-WM Aluminum (old config)	50
ThermalTake Xaser II Aluminum Fan Low	54

There were several things we concluded from our heat test.  First of all, we should note that the cases, on average, are slightly quieter than the Xaser II and Kingwin cases previously reviewed.  Now that we have switched to slightly quieter Zalman HSF and power supplies, we can get a much better reading on the true noise levels of the other components.  The 5 fan Kingwin 463-WM outperforms and stays quieter than our best performing acrylic case.  In fact, it stays almost 10dBA quieter than the 5 fanned ClearPC.  We attribute this to slower, better placed fans on the Kingwin enclosure.