Thermal Performance
For all our reviews we have a preset component list that's designed to push any chassis to the limit. This is intentional and is to show just how capable any chassis is when fitted with the hottest hardware out there.We fitted the Cooler Master Stacker 830 up with the following components:
| HEXUS Chassis test equipment specification | |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | Intel 955XBK |
| Processor | Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840 (3.2GHz, Smithfield core) |
| Memory | 2GiB (2 x 1GiB) OCZ DDR2 PC4200 Value Pro Dual-Channel |
| Graphic Card | ASUSTek GeForce 6800 256MiB Ultra PCIe |
| Power Supply | Antec Neo HE 430W |
| Hard Drive | Seagate Barracuda 160GB SATA |
| Optical Drive | Pioneer 110 DVD Re-Writer |
In order to put the system under the maximum load a double run of 3D Mark ’06 was executed and followed up by 3 consecutive burn-in tests using SiSoft’s Sandra Pro 2007.
With the system booted up we took some idle temperature readings. The Stacker 830 produced fairly average results here although the GPU was a few degrees higher than we expected, yet nothing to really worry about.
Under load the Stacker 830 started to produce some impressive results. The hardware readings were a little high, but, in most circumstances, a buyer would fit a few extra fans to the chassis which would overcome this issue.
The ambient readings are the ones to watch here though, with the internal case temperature increasing by a single degree, testament to the sheer space inside. It will take a lot more hardware than we fitted to have any real effect on internal temperatures.
Likewise, the external fan readings were surprisingly indifferent. There's no doubt that with the right additional fans the Stacker 830 really would perform well.