I recently upgraded to an Asus Strix OC 3080TI and the temperatures on these gddr6x vram chips are through the roof. In my old Meshify C case, I was pretty dismayed to see temperatures close to 100C (!!!), though with some undervolting with afterburner, managed to bring it down to the high 80Cs.
The rest of the week was spent trying to cool it down, and I got a bunch of Noctua A15s and A12s to add into the case but it only helped drop the temperature by a degree or two. Annoying. Leaving the side of the case open though, worked marvelously, dropping the temperatures into the mid 70s (!!!). It was around here I decided to get a new case as what airflow there was in the case was not suitable for the amount of heat put out by this gpu (350w?!)
Some quick research on Gamer's Nexus gave me a few cases with max airflow, and decided to go with the Lian Li Lancool II Mesh Pro, purely as I liked the aesthetics best even though it was not the top contender. It comes in another variant with rgb fans if that's something that picks your fancy.
With the new case, temperatures dropped significantly - at full load, the gpu's vram is running in the mid 70s (woooot) and the gpu itself in the low 50s. Pretty sweet!
Between the two cases, I have a few things to observe:
- Airflow: It is night and day, a 20 degrees drop in temperature is solid. On the flip side, the Lancool case is going to have a lot more dust buildup as it does not have a filter on the front of the casing, especially since I installed an additional 120mm fan on top of the two existing 140mm intake fans, and another 140mm exhaust fan on the top. That's the price to pay for having a case keep its innards much cooler.
- Quality: I would say these two cases are very similar, with the Meshify C being slightly in the lead. The edges of the metal are smooth to the touch, and everything pretty much fit perfectly together. I do prefer Fractal's thumbscrews, the screws on the lancool II have this soft padding that should help protect the contact surfaces from any scratches, but those on my case tore apart really easy.
- Attention to detail: I would have to say Fractal has the edge here. For example, the screws provided with the Meshify C to secure the motherboard are chunky and easy to use. The ones included with the lancool case look like some generic m3 screw that looked really easy to have the head stripped. If I'm being nitpicky, I'd say Fractal has a better box, better manual etc.
- Ease of build: Lancool II easy. But it's also a much larger case. For example, the power supply has lots of empty area around it for airflow, and with the longer case, lots more space to route wires around. The right side of the case is also mesh, to aid airflow. There is even space available to mount two 120mm fans on top of the psu should I desire. Cable management, once again it being a bigger case, was superb, with lots of well placed openings as well as loops for zipties, velcro straps etc to hold the cables in place.
- Looks: For me, definitely Fractal Design. Those are cool cases, and their new Torrent case looks like a scaled down piece of modern architecture. Sadly, I couldn't find any Torrents in stock where I live else I'd likely have that.
No comments:
Post a Comment