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Installation
The dreaded system installation step. For a lot of cases, this is one of the most annoying and painful experiences you can have, especially when you don't have enough room to work inside of the case, and your tools don't fit right. The Blizzard doesn't have that problem. I pulled the tray out of the case and built it all right on my lap. No space issues, no sharp edges to run into, no nothing, just a tray with your system on it. I installed everything onto the board, all the way down to the Heat Sink and Fan onto my Tbird. Then I slid the tray back into the case and was ready to plug everything in! My Inwin A500 was a lot like this, which is the only reason its still around my house today. The drives were easy to install as I pulled out the caddies and screwed them in, and then slid the drives into place. It was REALLY close to idiot proof. There wasn't any part of the install that was remotely difficult (compared to normal towers.) The wires that reach from the switches up front to the motherboard were plenty long, and were also tucked discretely out of the way as well. I found no fault with the case for installs.
Installation: 2/2
Cooling Stuff
Well, the Blizzard is a nice and friendly case to work with, which is all well and good, but the point of the case is to cool your system better than a normal setup (or even modded setup.) So I tried it out on my spare system (my main system didn't have good cooling.)
The Combatants
Blizzard 280 from FrozenCPU 2x 92mm side intakes, 1x 92mm top exhaust
Modded Enlight 7237; 120mm front Intake 2x 80mm rear exhaust
(This is a case I've been working on for a bit, I redid some of the design to make it better cooled with a larger intake and additional exhaust fan. I would have taken pictures, but the case is in 8 pieces right now getting painted.)
The System
Intel SE 440 BX2 mobo
P2 350 Retail CPU, Intel heat sink, with back of the coffin removed.
PCI S3 Virge 2MB video
Other stuff that's less important, too.
The Test
Measure the temperature of the back of the CPU and the video card processor while the system is idling and under full load in 3Dmark 2K. Swap cases and run tests again.
| Idle |
| |
Room |
CPU |
Video |
| Enlight 7237 |
26.4 C |
33.1 C |
36.5 C |
| Blizzard 280 |
26.9 C |
30.8 C |
33.4 C |
|
| Load |
| |
Room |
CPU |
Video |
| Enlight 7237 |
26.3 C |
38.1 C |
39.7 C |
| Blizzard 280 |
26.7 C |
36.5 C |
36.9 C |
|
(All internal temps were taken with Compunurse probes taped onto the components, and room temps were taken with a radio shack temperature thermometer.)
Well, the blizzard case did win the fight, although it is somewhat loud about it, as the 3 92mm fans are not the slow models. They're a higher CFM model designed for better cooling, but they're notably noisier than a lot of stock models.
Cooling: 3.5/4
>> Pros & Cons/Conclusion
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