Kingwin KT-436-WM Case: The Mod Dream

Benchmark

We have a few heat and sound intensive tests lined up for the Kingwin 436-WM.  The Heatsink reading is actually the temperature inside the heatsink.  CPU temperature is also recorded.  All temperature is recorded in degrees Celsius.  The heat tests were each performed inside the closed case with the external temperature of 23.0 degrees Celsius, during a full system load.  Our testbed consists of:

The thermal readings for the different components during operation were as followed:

Kingwin KT-436-WM

ThermalTake A6000B

While the Kingwin case generally performed a few degrees cooler than the Chenming chassis variation we reviewed a few weeks ago, the real pay off seemed to be in the hard drive bay.  Unlike the A6000B, the Kingwin has both intake fans flowing over the main 5 x 3.5” drive bay. The cooling advantage speaks for itself.

From our thermal tests, we see two temperatures of importance.  First of all the hard drive temp is extremely low.  We can directly credit this to the ~60 cubic feet of air per minute passing directly over the one hard drive we had in the bay.  Placing more drives in the bay would slow airflow to the rest of the components in the case.  We also noticed a low video card temperature.  By looking at the orientation of the fans in the case, we see that both fans are at exactly the same height as the AGP slot.  Clearly, the video card is getting optimal airflow.

Sound is recorded in decibels from 12” away from the closed case to most accurately replicate a production system.

The KW 436 clearly has an audible advantage over the Xaser II we reviewed a few weeks ago.  It appears as though the nameless included fans have a low noise level but perform well enough in the configuration to provide adequate cooling.