In-Win GT1 Case Review: Fighting an Uphill Battle
by Dustin Sklavos on March 8, 2013 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- In-Win
- ATX
Testing Methodology
For testing full ATX cases, we use the following standardized testbed in stock and overclocked configurations to get a feel for how well the case handles heat and noise.
ATX Test Configuration | |
CPU |
Intel Core i7-2700K (95W TDP, tested at stock speed and overclocked to 4.3GHz @ 1.38V) |
Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD4H |
Graphics Card |
ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti DCII TOP (tested at stock speed and overclocked to 1GHz/overvolted to 1.13V) 2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 in SLI (full fat testing only) |
Memory | 2x2GB Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer DDR3-1600 |
Drives |
Kingston SSDNow V+ 100 64GB SSD Samsung 5.25" BD-ROM/DVDRW Drive 3x HGST DeskStar 3TB 7200-RPM HDD |
CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo with Cooler Master ThermalFusion 400 |
Power Supply | SilverStone Strider Plus 750W 80 Plus Silver |
Each case is tested in a stock configuration and an overclocked configuration that generates substantially more heat (and thus may produce more noise). The system is powered on and left idle for fifteen minutes, the thermal and acoustic results recorded, and then stressed by running seven threads in Prime95 (in-place large FFTs) on the CPU and OC Scanner (maximum load) on the GPU. At the end of fiteen minutes, thermal and acoustic results are recorded. This is done for the stock settings and for the overclock, and if the enclosure has a fan controller, these tests are repeated for each setting. Ambient temperature is also measured after the fifteen idle minutes but before the stress test and used to calculate the final reported results.
For the "full fat" testbed, the GTX 560 Ti is swapped out for a pair of GTX 580s, and three hard disks are added to fill out the case.
Thank You!
Before moving on, we'd like to thank the following vendors for providing us with the hardware used in our testbed.
- Thank you to Puget Systems for providing us with the Intel Core i7-2700K.
- Thank you to Gigabyte for providing us with the GA-Z77X-UD4H motherboard.
- Thank you to Crucial for providing us with the Ballistix Smart Tracer memory.
- Thank you to Cooler Master for providing us with the Hyper 212 Evo heatsink and fan unit.
- Thank you to Kingston for providing us with the SSDNow V+ 100 SSD.
- Thank you to CyberPower for providing us with the Samsung BD-ROM/DVD+/-RW drive.
- Thank you to HGST for providing us with the trio of hard drives.
- And thank you to SilverStone for providing us with the power supply.
67 Comments
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piroroadkill - Friday, March 8, 2013 - link
My system has 9 drives in it, in a Fractal Design Define R3:1x Intel 320 120GB
1x Samsung 830 256GB
1x Seagate Momentus XT 750GB
2x Seagate Barracuda 3TB
3x Western Digital Green 2TB
1x Seagate Barracuda 500GB (to be replaced with an RMA'd 2TB WD Green)
Still had space for an LG Blu-ray/HD DVD drive left in the top bay!
piroroadkill - Friday, March 8, 2013 - link
Disregarding this comment of mine, good work on changing an ATX board and testing SLI.This case is fairly ugly, but as you say, it's far from the worst looking. I don't even want to click the link to the cougar challenger again.
Skidmarks - Friday, March 8, 2013 - link
Do you have a fetish for storage or do you just like to hoard?CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link
It's a fetish and rather common amongst the lesser minds of America.Omega215D - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link
Anand please banned this troll.CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link
How about we ban you the cussing troll.random2 - Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - link
Some just aren't up on the idea of having a High def movie catalog of 500-600 movies with high bitrate DTS sound along with a couple hundred music CDs in FLAK streaming to your media PC or media player and your homes flat panels and surround sound systems. Let them play with their netbooks and NZXT Phantom Star Wars Storm Trooper cases. Eventually they all grow up.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 14, 2013 - link
Into a couch potato with stolen movies... ROFL That's growing up ? What you're a bigger thief now instead of a corner candy store thief ? Yes, they will grow up, and hopefully not follow the criminals path.lwatcdr - Friday, March 8, 2013 - link
You really should build a NAS.DanNeely - Friday, March 8, 2013 - link
Filling every other bay improves airflow around the drives and keeps them cooler than putting them in adjacent bays. It's also a very cheap feature checklist item.