Gadgetory

lynly's 11 air is one of the most awaited cases this year first shown at CES in January the O 11 air is advertised as an airflow focus case the counterpart to the O 11 dynamic this is done by removing the tempered glass on the O 11 dynamic and instead of opting for two intake fans in the front and a grill our performance test results for the o 11 air might surprise you though as you'll see in today's review before that this video is brought to you by the EVGA CLC 280 liquid cooler people ask me how I keep cool during the summer with all this hair well I've tried a lot of different products and if you do exactly what I need many of them cause tangles or worse EVGA CLC 280 helps keep my core temperatures low they're in hot benchmarking sessions the CLC 280 is price competitive and focuses on performance for value offering a 280 liquid cooler at an affordable price get yours at the link in the description below hair mounting kit sold separately so we'll have an air next to me is the same internal tooling as the oil evan dynamic we like the O 11 dynamic pretty good amount you can find our review on that one for the full details on the internal layout the build quality and all that stuff it's more or less the same here except for differences in the stock fan configuration and clearly differences in the ventilation setup so the front panel has changed the top panel has changed and they're going for more airflow focused push the O 11 dynamic I also shipped at a price of about a hundred bucks on pre-order I think it's like 130 these days whereas this case ships at 120 to 130 give or take with two fans included and then there's also a model that's an extra thirty or so dollars that comes with three additional fans there should be five total as we understand it but to check the spec pages when it all goes live because that's been kind of in flux since we first saw the cases so that's the setup I think the more expensive one is called the Leon leo 11 air RGB and this one's just 11 air so for the set up stock it comes with two fans in the front they're 120 s and for the most part this should be a pretty decent performer but as you'll see later on there's some interesting play going on with the dust filter on the case something we've seen in the past other chord changes include the front end now can support three 120s or two 140s the nature of getting rid of the glass you can put two eighty millimeters or 192 millimeter in the back over here because Leeanne Lee added in new threaded holes for just holes to drive a screw through that were not there before there are two included 120 s at 1500 max rpm for the base version and the RGB version comes with these three Bora light fans which also max out at around 1500 rpm give or take 10% that's for build quality overall and build features the vertical GPU amount has been more or less gotten rid of I mean it makes sense with an air-cooled version of the case it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to put an air-cooled dual axial card up against the glass the 11 dynamic as we showed you is capable of actually doing pretty decent GPU temperatures even one vertical because it seats it back so far but for this case we just tested it in the standard horizontal configuration and then the top of the case one of the things we liked about this setup was how easy the panels are to remove that's all the same as the dynamic it's two thumb screws in the back the top slides off the rail and then there are there's exposure to the side panels which we've removed here but for the side panels you just push it up like this one no screws or anything and it just pops up so that was something we actually really liked with the dynamic and we still like it with the air if you missed the original review comes with a dust filter in the top no fans on the top stock and the dust filters something we'll talk about a whole lot and a little bit the front panel has two screws in it we've pre removed them and then I just socked the top as well the front panel problem I've had with this is it is a little bit annoying to put it back on so it's difficult to line it up because there are two notches down here you line it up with the front and sort of just socket it into place not the biggest deal in the world but it does take a few tries to really get it right and make sure it's flush on all sides can definitely be improved but doesn't necessarily need to be improved if you follow there the front panel there's your dust filter there that causes issues we'll be talking about and then also the front panel actual plastic panel has a large amount of plastic in it I mean it's it's probably 50% plastic and 50% of holes so not a ton of ventilation through the panel despite being called air however we tested it without the panel and the thermal difference is insignificant that's because of the dust filter and again give me a moment to get to that couple quick notes on building and kala management things like that for taller graphics cards like this one for the extra height cards FTW 3d gaming acts some of the ACE use cards like the Strix ROG cards those taller cards are just tall enough that with cables plugging into the top of the card rather than the side it does actually bump up against the glass this is a weird instance where the EVGA power link might actually be useful we typically don't really find a whole lot of use for it but you could use it in this one so that pushes against the glass not a deal breaker because you can still close it but very close to being a deal breaker there are a couple maybe like an extra millimeter it would have been nice just for that security on the upside tail management is really easy in the back the case so this is something we talked about with dynamic but as a refresher because it is sort of double wide in the back it has to accommodate the power supply in the left chamber so because it has to accommodate a full PSU width that gives you that same amount of width for managing cables there are plenty of cable tie points there is a kill management bar back there which also supports drives and that means it's very easy to do it clean build if you want it to be neurotic about your cabling you can do it with this case and be pretty happy with how it looks and how it's all managed you can also very uniquely remove the drive cage on the back and instead do dual power splice probably not something you're going to use it's a single system case but for someone who did want to use it like maybe their Bauer who helped design the case because he does high-end overclocking for someone like him it does actually provide a useful feature that you can't really get many other places so that's kind of interesting other than that all the other stuff it's the same as the 11 dynamic check that review for more information on those there's great attention to detail overall it just comes down to how well does this thing cool because we still like the build quality a lot we still like the layout and the size the form factor this thing is like really not that much different from the 280 accents high switch is a micro ATX case and this is ATX it's not that different from the H 200 in size so if you're buying on the larger ITX cases we really think you should consider the Oh 11 series because it's not that different in size and it's way better overall in build quality but let's let's get through the thermals here so as always thermals and noise test and you can find the test methodology in the description below and our test bench is in that article as well we'll start with torture testing we have a whole lot of extra tests for this one with the filters removed panels removed and things like that started with just the Lian the 11 air torture testing places CPU performance at an overall unimpressive 50 degrees Celsius over ambient as you'll see in our comparative chart in a moment there's nothing particularly special about this result it's okay but not great for a case marketed at air flow removing the plastic front panel didn't change a whole lot despite being so heavily filled with plastic it dropped us from 50 degrees to 49 degrees within reasonable margin of error we next remove the magnetic dust filter running with no filter and no front panel this is where we saw a big change the new result plotted 40 1.5 degrees Celsius over ambient a steep 9 degree reduction from the stock test we've seen this before in other cases like the thermal take G 21 where the dust filter is responsible for significant airflow restrictions we had two final tests here one with a single exhaust fan added one of the bore light fans which dropped us to forty seven point seven degrees over ambient not really impressive again the last test was with three fans added one top exhaust one side intake and three front intake in this setup CPU performance didn't improve in any measurable way so we'll have to look at GPU performance for a comparison comparatively for CPU thermals CPU performance is impressive when the filter is removed but only then removing the huge impedance of the filter brings us to 41 point five degrees Celsius over ambient which is superior even to the long-standing leader that is the silverstone raven our v02 unfortunately because this performance isn't achieved with stock setting we can't give the Oh 11 ere our best of bench award Silverstone retains that the leading performance is derived from close proximity between the CPU fan and the intake fan good exhaust avenues overall and good intake positioning performance is exceptionally competitive and impressive once the filter is removed it's good enough that the 11 air does become the best performer on our bench which is a high bar to clear with the filter installed the O 11 air falls 250 degrees over ambient between the half X and 570 X at 1550 rpm the O 11 dynamic with three side intake fans also performs about equally to this degree GPU tortured temperatures for only the 11 series are now on the screen the O 11 dynamic with 3 side intake fans and a vertical GPU positioned far back performed the best a phenomenon that we explained in our 11 dynamic review this result is within a margin of error of the O 11 dynamic with three side intake fans in a horizontal mount the 11 air the new one performs equivalently without any front filter as it does when keeping the filter and installing extra intake fans and an exhaust fan the stock 11 air is again not impressive at 50 to 7 degrees over ambient but it does look pretty good once you remove that filter comparatively 4gb torture the O 11 air lands toward the bottom of the GBO torture performance tests when in stock configuration the case is comparable to the define are 6 and 805 infinity and isn't all that far from the absolute bottom it's getting embarrassed really removing the filter changes everything and propels the 11 air to the top 10 right behind the venerable rv0 - a good place to be fortunately this is an easy change for the end user to make all you have to do is remove the panels and then take the filter off moving on to the other test will just be testing the stock 11 air like we do for everything else this means that the filter stays on in firestrike testing a stand-in for game benchmarks the o 11 air gets embarrassed by the G 21 and dark base pro 900 respectively a $60 case and a silenced focused case if we look at the 11 dynamics performance at 53 degrees it's clear that there's plenty of room for the O 11 air it's a chart top but that filter needs to be removed as a small aside the 11 air does manage to hold one of the better CB temperatures in this test but that hardly means much blender CPU testing places the eleven air again toward the bottom of the charge close to the G 21 and Silverstone's p.m. o - which is the worst of the two primary cases on this chart blender GPU rendering establishes the 11 air just below the halfway point right around where the H 500m mesh npm of a to perform for noise testing first note that the filter changes the fan pitch to a higher whine than when the filter is removed the DBA measurement is the same at 48 point 3 DBA with fans at max speed but the pitch worsens despite being loud to keep in mind that you can lower the fan rpm in position this closer to 40 DBA which is our acceptable target if lower in fan RPMs reduce noise we'd strongly recommend removing the dust filter to keep competitive performance this noise output is why the 11th error does so well when unconstrained it's brute force but it's still well designed to brute force the case overall is still really good value at the price and it's still exceptional build quality it's just that stock filter really chokes the performance in ways that seem almost impossible for a case that's branded as an air case for airflow and has grills and holes in it and all that stop so what we'd recommend is if you do get the case it's a fine case and if you don't care too much about dust or you can manage it through other means just pull the panels off and then get rid of this thing here because this is ultimately what's causing all the problems and the reason it is causing those problems if you look at this filter it's not particularly a fine mesh and the problem with any dust filter like this Silverstone is a good example of a company that they make a lot of weird stuff they make stuff that probably very few people ever buy might not be the best business decisions in some cases but one thing they do really well is invest in filters so what Silverstone has showed us over the years what they've really improved on and focused on for like the last Computex even is getting these metal sort of just everything surrounding the hole everything but the hole they've focus I'm reducing the size of that metal so there's less and less metal that means there's less rigidity so it's not quite as durable you could push a hole in it much easier but there's way less impedance there is a lot less material blocking the flow through the filter in this filter it's actually a pretty good amount of obstructing material in the filter itself so there's not as much room for that air to go through it requires higher static pressure and overall it's a lot of impedance and obstruction to air flow and it's all just from this 10 degree reduction on the CPU thermals by getting rid of this thing it's a cat here near me so that's really pretty impressive overall for performance just by removing a filter and it's the upside here is that this is not a fundamental flaw it is not an inherent flaw to the design of the case so you can just remove the filter if it's a concern of yours when that filter is in there performance is you might be disillusioned by it would be the best way to put it because it just it is not super competitive for an airflow targeted case removing it it does great though and if you do want a filter there are other filters again silverstone makes some really good ones they make 120 millimeter size filters some of them are most of them are magnetic you could buy two of those if you're concerned about dust and just slap them right over those two fans and more air will get through those then through this thing so that's an option but overall just to be clear here we still like the 11 dynamic we like the 11 air as a case just in terms of straight steel the metal the chassis all that stuff it's well designed it's just that one thing that's a potential flaw and it happens to be related to the core marketing strategy of the case but you can really easily fix it so not a deal breaker doesn't nuke the quality of the case because it doesn't require you to cut things apart and do custom mods you just pull the panel off and remove it if you care that much so yeah that's that's our feelings over all of it there's really no point in getting the five fans in this thing honestly for our test platform if your build is gonna be similar to this you're gonna have a tower cooler and a dual axial cooler for your GPU so pretty similar in that way then just going with the original two fans removing the filter that's all you need to do don't bother getting the version with more fans unless you really want the RGB effect in the aluminum frame but if you're doing it for airflow don't bother remove the filter you'll get basically the same airflow performance as you would with the filter and with five fans and it'll be quieter than with five fans too so overall there's plenty of room to work with here as an end user just be prepared to do that work not really a deal-breaker either way price is still good it is extremely competitive once the filters removed to a point of being the best even on our CPU torture chart so that's it for this one has always go to patreon.com/scishow and axis if you like our content and would like to help us out directly or go to store my camera's nexus net to pick a point of our mod mats or our limited edition foil shirt we are going to be closing pre-orders and about a week on the shirt because we've sold almost all of them to a point of we need to close pre-orders so get your order in this week if you want it thank you for watching subscribe for more I'll see you all next time