Thermal performance
System specification
| HEXUS chassis test equipment specification | |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | EVGA 780i SLI FTW |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3.00GHz, 1333MHz FSB |
| Memory | 4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DDR2 PC8500 |
| Memory timings and speed | 5-5-5-18 2T @ 1,066MHz |
| Graphics card | BFG GeForce GTX 260 OCX MaxCore |
| Power supply | Dark Power PRO 850W |
| Hard drive | Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB |
| Optical drive | Sony SATA DVD-RW |
To get an all-round feel for a chassis' cooling ability, we record the chassis' ambient internal temperature, along with the temperatures of the CPU, GPU and motherboard (MCP). To get an idea of how the Corsair Obsidian Series 800D compares, we also housed our test equipment in a Cooler Master HAF 922 and a SilverStone Fortress - both of which underwent identical tests. The Corsair Obsidian 800D was equipped with its three default fans, no additional cooling was installed.
Readers should be aware that ambient room temperature is susceptible to change, and was recorded for each chassis as follows prior to testing:
Corsair Obsidian Series 800D - ambient room temperature 25.3°C
Cooler Master HAF 922 - ambient room temperature 25.3°C
SilverStone Fortress - ambient room temperature 21.3°C
The SilverStone Fortress was tested on a notably cooler day, so please bear that in mind when looking at results.
Readers should also note that the SilverStone Fortress and Cooler Master HAF 922 are both mid-tower chassis, and consequently not immediately comparable to the full-tower Corsair Obsidian 800D. We would, of course, like to show how the Corsair chassis fares against similar-sized alternatives, and we will endeavour to do so when other full-tower chassis go through our test procedure in the near future.
Thermal results
To get started, we booted the systems and let them idle for 15 minutes before taking the following readings:
[graph 2279]
There's really nothing in it, and the Corsair Obsidian Series 800D performs well considering the higher ambient temperature.
To make things a little more interesting, we stress the system by running three instances of Prime95 along with 3DMark06 at 1,920x1,200 4xAA 16xAF. After a minute, we observe the following readings:
[graph 2280]
After a short spell of activity, temperatures remain well within acceptable limits.
Making the systems beg for mercy, we continue to run Prime95 and 3DMark06 for an hour. Here's what we see after the stress test:
[graph 2281]
After an hour of stress-testing, temperatures rise dramatically. Although the gulf in size between the three chassis makes it an impossible comparison, Corsair's Obsidian Series 800D gets surprisingly warm. Ambient chassis, CPU and GPU temperatures aren't the best we've ever seen, and we'd have expected better. Of course, the chassis does provide room for ample cooling expansion, but we'd have predicted better out-the-box performance.
Let the system idle for a minute, and we see how well each chassis manages to cool down.
[graph 2282]
After returning to idle, the Obsidian Series 800D does a decent job of cooling the CPU and GPU. Ambient case temperature remains a little warm, though.
A word on noise. The triumvirate of fans are quiet enough and move plentiful air, but such is the ventilation of the chassis - grilles and cutouts - that noise leakage from the installed components is a little loud for our liking. We appreciate it's difficult to get the balance of ventilation vs. noise-deadening right.