Raijintek Ophion Case Review: Mini-ITX Hotbox with Potential
Raijintek Ophion Case Review: Mini-ITX Hotbox with Potential
2018-10-15
the rise in tech affion is quite a bit
smaller in comparison to the sea 700m
that we just worked at the moment ago so
this is the opposite end of the scale as
cooler masters $440 seat 700 M this is
Rajan Tech's Mini ITX case the Oh fee on
that we saw it copy tax earlier this
year actually in a bit of a different
state they've improved in some ways and
they've not improved it in others before
that this video is brought to you by it
the NZXT e-series power supplies the
e-series PS use our high end power
supplies with real-time digital voltage
and temperature monitoring per rail
wattage measurements and data logging
functionality for power usage the e
series PSU is also come with a 10 year
warranty all the way down to the 500
watt unit and they run fully modular and
with silent fan operating modes learn
more at the link below just looking at
the case yes it's a bit of a hot box
that is kind of what mini ITX cases do
though but some of them do it less bad
than others Silverstone's SG 13 for
instance is one of the best cases we've
worked with we can highly recommend it
for ITX builds and it's small and it's
still cools really well
so it's absolutely possible to make a an
ITF case that is still very good at
cooling this case takes more of a
traditional mid tower approach to
closing off the front panel and adding
glass to the sides and then they do have
a bit of a gap here that was not present
at Computex when we first saw it so
originally this panel was flush against
the side and to Rajan Tax Credit they
have added in a plastic standoff in
there to give some spacing for
breathability and this will ultimately
just follow whatever pressure system you
create because it comes with no fans so
you can solve fans on the top and kind
of in the bottom though clearance is a
bit of an issue in most cases we
wouldn't have been able to fit one with
our build but with a low profile 120 fan
you can squeeze that into the bottom
just barely just keep the cables out of
it the case though so even though
they've added standoff so it's not flush
against the case there's also an
optional foam included and we did leave
that in the box for all the testing but
if you wanted to incinerate the part
in favor of noise you could do that the
tools are given to you for that purpose
so this small box is interesting because
what happens is the way they've built it
you end up routing a PCIe riser cable
around the entire case and either you
squeeze it behind the motherboard or you
route it over a downdraft cooler so it
would be sitting over the fan in that
instance and obstructing everything so
those are the two ways to route the
cable the video card sits a bit at an
angle as a result we have footage of it
will talk about more how its installed
later there's a built-in standoff in
there as well and extender for PCIe so
very interesting orientation which has
interesting thermal implications as well
for fans we ended up testing with one
fan for all the baseline tests normally
our baseline test we generally do
however it ships and that's it but for
this case we couldn't even make it
through tests without it crashing just
how it ships so you should absolutely be
budgeting for a fan no matter what in
this case and we'll show you why as we
get through the thermal numbers and
through Patrick's build notes and that's
where we'll go to next nuisance coffee
tax is a kit of adhesive foam filter
strips to be packed around the edges of
the new panels which entirely defeats
the purpose of leaving a gap the strips
are only useful in a negative pressure
system anyway and in a negative pressure
system every gap would need to be
covered in order for dust to be filtered
effectively at that point it would just
be easier to remove the standoffs and
install the glass panels flush which is
possible the filter strips are optional
so we left them in the box where they
belong the GPO riser cable is the cases
biggest weak point the card must be
oriented pins down while the motherboard
must be oriented slot up there's no good
diagram showing how to actually install
the cable so we'll do our best to show
it on screen and describe it the cable
connects to the GPU goes down through
the slot underneath the motherboard
bends 180 degrees and travels upwards
through the gap between the motherboard
and the motherboard tray and finally
curls 270 degrees over the top of the
motherboard and into the PCIe slot there
isn't much slack and it has to make some
unpleasantly sharp turns
in addition since our cryo egg c7 cooler
has a chunky bracket already using most
of the gap behind the motherboard there
was barely any space for the cable even
with a normal backplate the arrangement
means that the PCIe cable is tightly
sandwiched between the hottest part of
the GPU back blade and the hottest part
of the CPU bracket since the front of
the case is completely devoid of fans
the empty real estate inside the front
panel is used for a 2.5 inch drive mount
it isn't the easiest drive mount to
access but it is tucked neatly out of
the way and it doesn't cover any vent
holes which the other two do space for
either one at 3.5 or 12.5 inch drive or
three 2.5 inch drives is adequate for
most users and there are only two USB
ports but one is type see the OFI on is
looks focused which is why it has two
tempered glass panels with the GPU on
one side and the motherboard on the
other get into the thermal section as
always check the link in the description
below for the article where we have the
testing methodology laid out if you want
to read through this section or read how
we did the testing we're planning to
stick to the stock fan configuration for
our baseline testing which is no fans at
all that isn't how the case should be
used and we found it resulted in instant
thermal throttling and even thermal
shutdowns under our normal non torture
workloads like blender the cooling
section on the opion product page
suggests filling fan slots with one
bottom intake fan which is tough to fit
in there and to top exhaust but we try
to test cases the way they ship given
the reassuringly large air gaps along
the side panels it's easy to imagine
someone deciding that finding space for
a case fan is more trouble than it's
worth
however our test bench was unable to
complete the torture or the blender CPU
test without additional cooling so we
added a single NZXT RF AP 120 fan as top
exhaust with the top filter removed for
a new baseline that model is $13 minimum
direct from NZXT east side so we are now
considering the case cost to be an
additional 13 dollars higher or more
depending on the pen you buy we also
tried top intake using the same fan with
a filter installed and we didn't use the
included adhesive foam strips in any
tests see via torture testing as first
the average peak CPU temperature and
torture testing was seventy two point
three degrees Celsius over ambiens but
that's lowball in it since the
crashed before full completion and
reality the score is more of a DNF did
not finish the test the CPU is at 97
degrees Celsius when going strictly by
the readout and ignoring ambient and
that was at the time of the crash when
it was still climbing a filtered top
intake fan reduced the average peak DT
to a much more manageable and UNCHR a
she's sixty seven point two degrees
Celsius delta T but that's still one of
the warmer results on the chart and with
an extra fan the Oh Fionna ends up
around the Taku and stock level 20 V T
ultimately the unfiltered top exhaust
fan brought temperatures down another
huge step to fifty eight point nine
degrees Celsius DT which is actually a
good result and comparable to the in
when a one with three K's fans the top
fan slots are directly above the
nightmare heat sandwich of the GPU and
CPU coolers so an intake fan has to
first fight the filter and then push air
around both sides of the case in other
words the top intake fan is pushing air
from a small vent towards a smaller
hotspot while the top exhaust fan is
pulling air from many different gaps and
vents towards the same hotspot the top
exhaust test is also certainly benefited
from removing the top filter moving on
to GV torture testing the GPU is average
peak temperature during the incomplete
no fan torture test was fifty nine point
one degrees Celsius delta T over ambient
the non delta temperature if you prefer
is 84 degrees which is where NVIDIA
Pascal cards throttle hard and start
dropping clocks to try and maintain that
temperature so thermals were drifting
out of control from here as well the cry
rig talk you approached this temperature
but we also managed to actually complete
the benchmark in the Taku Top intake
reduced temperatures several degrees to
respectable 51 point four degrees and
top exhausted pretty much the same at
fifty one point seven around the 280
acts with no top filter the 3dmark
stress test results are especially
interesting here in contrast to the
torture test with both the GPU and CPU
under load they heated each other up to
a point of crashing the system with just
the GPU stress it successfully limited
itself to 82 degrees Celsius non delta
temperature so it's still throttled
territory and our average peak was a 60
degree Celsius delta T over ambient
that's almost the same as the crying
Tokyo which also
thermal throttled by the way but the Oh
Fionna maintained a considerably lower
average clock of 1709 megahertz to the
Taku 1761 megahertz this impacts
framerate not a ton but enough we can
show that in this clock comparison chart
versus time that with a top exhaust fan
the average peak delta-t cooled to the
level of the 280 acts at fifty three
point three degrees Celsius resulted in
a healthier clock average of 1776
megahertz we rarely see clock speed
deviate from about 1775 megahertz so
anything significantly above or below
that indicates exceptionally bad or good
cooling moving on to blender we did run
the blender CPU benchmark without any
fans but it crashed the system again and
incomplete benchmarks are of limited use
the OFI on is impressive in its
propensity to crash we typically can
pass a blender run even with
exceptionally bad cooling but no such
luck here the case is a hot box with a
single exhaust fan average peak CPU
temperature was forty four point five
degrees delta T over ambiens Jeff
slightly warmer than the stock age 200 i
if it wasn't clear before now the OFI on
requires purchasing at least one case
ban passive cooling doesn't cut it here
it does okay once adding more fans but
we wanted to highlight the importance of
buying at least one and something at
least half-decent at that don't go too
cheap on the fan the blender GPU test
with no fans raised GPU temperature to
an average peak of forty two point two
degrees celsius over ambience above any
of the other cases in the chart
thermally although the Taku does come
close with an exhaust fan this was
lowered to thirty two point six degrees
a significant drop of about ten degrees
Celsius and it's one of our cooler
results and on par with the SG thirteen
a case that we heavily recommended so by
a fan is the result here ultimately for
the price on this case you have to add
about maybe 13 bucks for a decent fan
something like that so it's not really a
$100 KS or 9d or whatever they end up
selling it for its that plus 13 bucks
for decent fan because this case without
a fan it's no good but if you add a fan
it does decently so that's the good news
it's a bit on the high side for price
rise and tax a smaller company they make
fewer products overall they don't make
as many a
time so their costs are gonna be higher
than their competitors so if you want
like a smaller brands product that's a
very specific look and kind of competes
in the damn case category of looks but
not in price rise in tax trying to fill
that market they are very much targeting
the Dan case style of many ITX case but
at a significantly lower price there are
reasons the price is lower of course but
if you're willing to make those
sacrifices it might be worth it to you
still for cooling purposes we do favor
the SG 13 it's kind of a leader right
now in a lot of ways and the old
thermaltake core v1 is another very good
case that is a bit on the larger size
it's just in terms of volume it's much
bigger than most the other cases but
it's still a small cube and does well
for cooling if you don't care about
cooling maybe you're gonna use a small
CLC or something if you can manage to
cram one in here or you're just okay
with having a lot of fans and creating
some noise as a result then it's okay
this isn't our favorite case at all for
ITX there are a lot of things that can
be done better it does so sometimes it
feels like we're just going after the
performance angle constantly and
although we are performance oriented
there are times when we can look at a
case and appreciate that's trying to do
something else like maybe noise
performance still performance but it's
acoustics now or maybe just build
quality and looks like some of the
thousand plus dollar in wind cases for
example that age tower that was never
meant to be performing to anything it's
just for looks so we can appreciate that
this case though it gets even if you
kind of watch our stuff and you go man
these guys care way too much about their
own performance the thing is with this
case it is actually genuinely a problem
and it is going to throttle clocks and
it is going to make it an issue for
longevity of components so it's okay
just add fans and check your
temperatures and be a bit more cautious
about it than you might be otherwise and
you can work with it the case is it just
requires some more effort on your end to
make it really work thermally and
acoustically for everything that it
wants to be so that's the rise in tech
OFI on
we are not a hundred percent sure what
the the market is right now for this
kind of case there's absolutely a market
for cases like this but we're curious
what kind of build you're putting in
things like this so if you are looking
at building in a case about this size
let's know the parts you're picking
because it'll help us know for future
testing what we should be looking at so
that's over this one subscribe for more
as always go to stored on cameras axis
net to pick up some of our products like
our shirts or mod mats to helps out
directly or go to patreon.com/scishow
sexist helps out directly there as well
thank you for watching I'll see you all
next time
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.