Gadgetory

the BitFenix and so people so this case we have sort of challenged since we first saw it at Computex we assigned to this case the award of something along the lines of needs work maybe not as much of a hoard as the others but we said it needed work we liked a lot of things about the case at the time it was pitched to us as 60 to 70 US dollars for tempered glass on the side and addressable RGB LEDs on the front at 60 to 70 dollars that's absurdly competitive but we had a problem with it we said to the BitFenix folks do you have air flow and they said don't worry we'll fix that for launch so here we are launched before getting to that this coverage is brought to you by EVGA and on video with the destiny to 1080 TI bundle a 1080i SC to comes with a synchronous fan control for its dual fans and nine thermal sensors and again includes destiny to learn more at the link in the description below so the conversation that comedy zags basically went something along the lines of this is great 60 to 70 dollars for addressable RGB LEDs tempered glass you get all the trends in your cheaper than everyone else at the time and it looks not bad either so the problem was we basically said you need some ventilation somewhere in the case because if you look at this case I'm not talking h 500 P here I'm talking like straight straight up hotbox the front panel does not have ventilation at all zero it's got RGB LEDs in it now where would you then go to resolve this you would put ventilation on the side of the front panel you might put ventilation on the top and then move back your i/o you could put bigger ventilation on the very bottom down here you'll notice that this panel extends to the table and the only place there's ventilation literally using that word in the most literal sense the literal only place there ventilation is there that's where it gets air I can't even see it from where I'm standing that's the ventilation for the case now this is all without even mentioning the fact that the price has gone up it's now I think $90 I think it's gone up to 90 so it's no longer 60 to 70 yeah you had $60 I probably ignore that and say you know what for a cheap case maybe you buy it you buy another fan with it offset the cost is offset any way by the cheapness of the case and no big deal we we deal with it you can cut a hole somewhere and that's it at $90 that stuff should be done for you so yeah that's what we're dealing with here today the case still does the RGB LED stuff still has a tempered glass the price is higher the ventilation is still non-existent but Phoenix did not follow through with what they told me they would do and you've got some stuff like this thing just just to add insult to injury you know so once again ventilations on the bottom front of that there's a single fan in the front middle here there's another fan in the back rear and then there's top just sort of mesh ventilation whatever with no fans on it so you get sort of passive wafting of air through there or you could put this on it and just turn your computer into a toaster which we actually tested this thing versus this one and if you buy this case do not use this it has a significant impact in some scenarios so yeah there are ways to make this case work a lot better than it does stock and we've tested them and found them and there's hope yet if you really want it you can make it work just you need to be aware that you basically have to buy a fan or relocate the fans in here because they've done a very poor job on anything to do with air so yeah let's let's go through some of it features RGB addressable has aura sync it's compatible with basically everything and they've got the strips that terminate and the four plug end that you can plug into other strips if you wanted to super Universal on LED compatibility it has dust filters that come out of the sides which is much appreciated this coming out of the back from the power supply makes very little sense from an ease of use standpoint so doing it like BitFenix is doing here is a great move and that's something they've done well it'd be nice if they had thought through some of the other stuff that well I mean even though you look at the bottom and the feet are so long that even the inch on the bottom where air can kind of get in and out it's kind of blocked off there two filters exists on the front this one is what is in front of the only fan in the case funny thing about dust filters in order to collect dust there needs dust test like actually go through it so this is in front of a fan which has no front access to air and that fan is in the center of the case right there pulling air from remind me down here so it's this fan which is not not a special static pressure optimized fan or anything is pulling air from way down here all the way down here and trying to get it up here it's got a filter that the air will presumably go through at some point and you know what ended up happening is as we'll talk about in a moment is the fan ends up recirculating more heat from all of this that sort of drafts forward it recirculates that more so than pulling clean cool air in and then you've got there's this filter down here which isn't in front of a fan that I'm stalling there that you could and it would help with GPU thermals there is no filter up here in front of this top option which is kind of curious because they've already got the other two there's a spot there for a fan but to be fair it's almost like admitting that there's no point in putting a fan here but then putting the mounts there anyway so you can take the box on this back sheet so you put a fan there that fan if you install a fan here it is now pulling air more than a foot from the bottom of the case so you've got air that's coming in here doing a 90 degree turn losing 30% of its pressure just turning and then it's getting pulled by two fans that are installed serially and if any air gets past the first one and up here it does its next 90 degree turn and comes into the case so why did Phoenix come on man we talked about there's like six months ago numerous times even let's let's go over the rest of the features of the case I'm gonna read some of the stuff that Patrick wrote for the review he did the most building in it so he's got the most notes on the rest of this and then we'll go through the thermals and noise and everything else so our review sample is nearly pure white obviously it includes filters and PCIe covers it's got four LED strips that form a ring on the front panel matched by an RGB fan and the rear LEDs are connected to a tiny but admittedly versatile controller behind the motherboard with a few baked in colors and rainbow patterns the rear fan is translucent and fully changes colors with different lighting but it's most effective with static colors like rippling rainbow effects work better on the front panel for instance adapters are also included so that the controller can be bypassed and all LEDs can be controlled with standard four pin RGB cables or you go into the motherboard overall the RGB illumination is handled better and seems much less tacked on that it did in the BitFenix Shogun but again the case has new problems to battle the front panel is a mess of filters LEDs or wires plastic reinforcements and steel it's surprisingly heavy for an otherwise lightweight case and the front panel is certainly sturdy it borders on overbuilt even there's even a thick reinforcing the frame of plastic behind the steel for really not much reason it as of now but the tooling could be reused and the front panel looks like it's had a lot of design work and money put into it but somehow nobody thought to put a vent in it or cut a hole somewhere on the sides where most people do we'll elaborate more on that in the thermal section though the exterior is simple and symmetrical with the exception of three filter handles jutting out from the sides and to be incredibly nitpicky the front IO ports aren't quite in a straight line so they'll fit the curve of the front panel for example would be ideal and the power and hard drive LEDs don't completely line up with their respective holes the top of the case can optionally be covered with that magnetic mesh filter or solid cover already shown similar to the defined see but the cover isn't precisely color matched and the filter looks better it also works better these are minor points on an otherwise good looking case externally and it's clear that BitFenix really put some effort into making the various fittings all white that we used to except for the grommets that again no effort into anything regarding cooling there's no special hinge or mechanism holding the glass on just four screws at the corners as expected for a budget case or what was supposed to be about the case our glass was slightly chipped at one corner but that could probably be blamed partly on shipping in the very least installing the motherboard was easy enough but the power supply presented some difficulties the Enzo is a 3.5 inch drive cage is an increasingly common style it hides beneath the front of the power supply shroud it fits two drives and it can be moved forward for additional power supply cable clearance or taken out or well it could be if it weren't riveted into place the screw holes for shifting the cage forward are still there but the cage itself is permanently stuck in a position that bent our power supply cables sharply enough to require disconnecting them and then reconnecting that once the power supply was installed in the case and anyone here who's done that before it knows just how fun it is the small cutouts in the shroud are a poorly placed to provide any relief for this and a large cutout at the front is permanently open without the removable cover seen in other cases like the defined C or some of Silverstone's cases the power supply has to be inserted from the side not the back which is somewhat common but because of the hard drive positioning it made the cages placement even more and can be if Phoenix hasn't already they undoubtedly have plans to use the chassis as the basis for more enclosures in the future which is perfectly fine and normal but it's frustrating to see evidence of missing features like this kala man's rental was acceptable outside of the shroud but there sure are a lot of cables to manage the RGB controller is small but it has a confusing array of adapters plugged into it despite being connected to just two items but it does a good job of ensuring that everyone who uses this case will be able to make use of the RGB features in some capacity moving into the thermal section again you can check the article linked to the description below for the full testing methodology and all the other information we put the ENSO na needs a work category when we saw it at Computex this year specifically because it will act front intake well they've added a fan so it's got front something but it's not taking air in from the outside it's taking air in a little bit from the bottom air is intended to flow between the front legs of the case up through the front panel about several inches anyway or one full foot if you install the fan at the top and then there's theoretical possibility of adding additional 120 many fans above and below the center one though they would all be installed somewhat serially in a line the filter only partially covers the intake path once again and we criticize the H 500 P pretty heavily for some of the same reasons that we're now criticizing the answer or but it did at least have some mass over each of the intended intake vents and had some kind of breathability there more so than this thing does and that included a little mesh apron under the H 500 PE that was added post Computex to resolve some dust concerns the answer doesn't even get that far one potential problem with the stock configuration is that it's easier for the intake fan to pull hot air from the inside of the case than the poll cool air from the outside there are big empty fan Bay's immediately above and below it while the quote real vent is relatively small and far away and partially obstructed by superfluous and lower filters the filters and their slots are completely removable but doing so leaves holes in the case normally the solution to these problems would be put more fans in but the top slot has no filter for additional tests this time we tried five different ways forcing some air into the Enzo with the stock configuration we tried with the front panel off as usual we tried with the top fan base sealed and the top and bottom fan base sealed simultaneously and then we tried adding an additional 120 millimeter intake fans first in the front of the case then in the top front of the case and we also finally tested in the stock configuration with the solid cover on top of the case than the magnetic mesh filter in all the other tests this testing we're starting with the torture testing initiates only with the end so we'll add comparative data in a moment our standard torture test raised the CPU to 64 point two degrees above ambient with the CPU temperature peaking 10 degree Celsius away from t.j.maxx so 90 degrees if you're getting rid of the whole delta T over ambient pain CPU temperature usually doesn't matter much in our testing but it does here putting the non mesh cover on top of the case cause the CPU to hit TJ max 100 degrees Celsius during peak load and begin throttling which is certainly an achievement in its own right and the pure base 600 another warm case that we tested opening the top vent didn't contribute much to CV cooling as the air actively blows from front to back with the end so the heat builds up so much in the case that it can be felt rising passively from the CPU cooler and just sort of naturally drafting out of the top vent the solid cover resulted in a 71 point 1 degree final score so to speak but that would have continued to climb had throttling not occurred taking the front panel completely off dramatically swung the results in the other direction with one of the largest temperature drops we've seen so far we went down fourteen point one degree is from stock to fifty point one to Crees Celsius over ambient we tried to claw back some of that fourteen point one degree gap with the front panel actually installed first by sealing the fan bays and then by adding fat sealing the top bay caused no improvement and may have made air less available to the intake fan recycling hot air though is still better than nothing sealing both empty fan bays didn't hurt performance but improvement still wasn't outside of range of variants even adding a 120 millimeter not to a fan to the front pointed directly at the heatsink no less normally a surefire way of dropping see temperatures score at a paltry 2.5 degrees lower than stock temperature that's because it simply cannot breathe there's zero air access in that top slot the only truly effective configuration we tested was adding an intake fan to the top of the case pointing downwards which scored 51 point 8 degrees Celsius over ambient just slightly warmer than removing the front panel and if nothing else CPU thermals benefit tremendously from top intake with this case like we've said before heat may rise but cold air can pretty much go wherever you want when you blast it through a fan comparatively despite all that talk about the answers front panel it's still not the worst case for CPU temperatures that we've tested the n1 805 infinity Corsair speck of four and be quiet pure bass 638 G 21 all I had pretty poor CPU cooling and higher deltas as well the tragedy of the end so however is that it really can't be improved that well not even by sticking extra fans into the front of it top intake does fix the CPU temperature is actually impressively and that puts it in the coarser 570 X range but that only really benefits the CPU we need to check the GPU section next to see if there's any negative impact from pushing that warmed air into the GPU backside with the answer only on the screen now GPU delta T over ambient was 61 point nine degrees stock warm enough to lock the clock speed down to 1708 megahertz with another dramatic drop from the front panel removal 10.1 degrees this time again any positive effects from taping off the fan bays were cancelled out by the lower overall volume of air moves even if it was warmer air and the oddest result was the GPU temperature with an additional front fan instead of lowering the GPU temperature went up several degrees to 67.7 and if you think about it this isn't impossible the extra fan changed the air flow pattern enough that it negatively affected the GPU this was repeatable and verified with other log data and adding a fan to the top of the case had even less effect on the GPU than taping the fan base resulting in functionally the same GPU temperature as the stock configure a so we're still locked down to 1708 megahertz again we've tested worse cases with stock deltas but even the antec p8 looking at comparative data now was capable of showing improvement with extra fans the answer doesn't have this Headroom and as a result it's stuck performing little better than these stock course respect Oh for a GPU cooling especially and that's a case that came with only one fan and retails for $50 both cases try to use a single intake fan to direct airflow at the GPU and also above it to the CPU and both fail GPU temperature during looping up fire strike extreme tests had it at fifty nine point eight degrees Celsius just above the spec oh four and again on par with other mediocre results like the define see the stock match fic without the extra fans and the anti p8 all of these have shrouds limiting airflow at the bottom of the case and increasing GPU temperatures this is a real world gaming workload and temperatures this high can definitely cause dropped clock speeds on the GPUs adding ambient back in gets us to around 82 degrees Celsius or throttle points on Pascal cards and you can solve for this technically you could configure a custom fan curve on the GPU increase it to maybe 60 70 percent something like that and you basically end up a little bit below throttle point it's not the best solution because then you increase your noise and that was BitFenix as argument for this close off front panel and we asked about it so not really ideal but it can be done our blender test is a realistic production workload that avoids some of the potential pitfalls of torture tests like runaway thermals were throttling to stay under 100 C in this scenario the M says forty two point two degrees Celsius Nelson C over ambient is right between the anti pH and Coursera spec for GPU temperature and blender testing was actually below the PA and effectively tied with a defined C but still at the high end of the scale without the heat caused by an intense workload like firm article firestrike GPU clock speed remained to just under 2,000 megahertz for the duration of the render proving just how much you lose when doing anything like gaming where we were dropping to 1700 megahertz or so the Enzo isn't the noise suppressing case by any means but it's noise output is just about average the one benefit of completely sealing the front panel as that very little sound reaches our DB meter 35.9 DBA is a coolant to the Shogun or ROS well : n' both of which have three 120 millimeter stock fans cool better and have the same noise level put in the magnetic cover on the top of the case instead of the breathable filter it causes only imperceptible improvement and we'd recommend against doing it at all we've had concerns about the answer for as long as we've been aware of it we've made those concerns very clear since the beginning and we're told even at Computex that it wasn't the final version and that the final version would have better ventilation we were also told that it would be something like twenty to thirty dollars cheaper than it is so this is another story of a case that shipped at a higher price than it was ever meant to and it's paying for that obviously the case also even competing against bit Phoenix's own options the portal looks pretty good it has some thermal concerns but it is a good looking case the Shogun is visually polarizing but does have pretty decent thermals and acoustics so BitFenix knows how to make a case that performs well the Aurora case doesn't look bad either so we look forward to seeing BitFenix apply some of this knowledge and experience they obviously have to a case like this a budget case but for now if you're looking for something in a similar price range that's way better we'd recommend the mesh if I see as a tempered glass alternative it's not as flashy it doesn't have the RGB LEDs so if you want those things then probably look elsewhere but ideally look elsewhere other than this and maybe just buy the RGB LED strip separately or something like that otherwise buy this thing and make sure you buy an extra fan for it in your configuration set the fan of stop intake that'll help the CPU for the GPU set the fan curve such that it exceeds the stock curve most stock bankers for GPUs top out at around 55 percent you'll want to go past that and make sure the GPU is staying under ATC now Pascal different content really here but Pascal performs the best under 6dc but good luck getting that in this case at all so that's it for this one patreon.com slash gamers and axis if you want to helps out directly we'll put a link to the article written review version in the description below if you prefer that layout subscribe for more store doc gamers Nexus dotnet typical shit like this one or one of our stickers to also swear this directly and I'll see you all next time