Test Bed

• AOpen i945Ga-PHS

• Intel Pentium4 640 (3.2GHz)

• (2) 1GB DIMM Mushkin PC4300 DDR2

• HIS Radeon X850 IceQ-II

• 250GB WD 7200RPM SATA

• Windows XP Pro with all patches and Service Pack 2 installed

Testing

I'm going to test the Kandalf's Liquid Cooling System against the top Air Cooled solution that I have available, the Thermaltake Blue Orb II.

The Blue Orb II was tested first.  These tests were done with the system in the Sunbeam Tech Tuniq2 Case.  The CPU was allowed to idle for 20 minutes.  At the end of this interval, an Idle reading was taken.  The CPU was then brought to full load using Stanford's Folding@Home client, and remained at 100% load for 20 minutes.  The Load reading was taken.  The CPU was then allowed to idle for another 20 minutes, and the Idle temperature was taken again.  This was repeated five times.  The top and bottom readings were discarded, and the remaining three were averaged.  The system was installed into the Kandalf, and the test was performed again.

As you can see, the Kandalf LCS provided temperatures that were consistently substantially lower.  With the Blue Orb II, the Idle temperatures were around 38C, while the CPU reached an average of 54C at load.  After installing in the Kandalf, the idle temperature averaged only 32.3C, and the load temperature averaged 44.3C  I never saw this break the 46C mark, which is excellent performance, in my opinion.

Conclusion

Having had the opportunity to work with several excellent cases, I have to say this one was by far, the most fun.  Not only does the Thermaltake Kandalf LCS provide heaps of functionality, it also comes with a built in liquid cooling system and it's a very well performing one at that.  This solves the problem of where to put all those parts that are needed to keep your system running cool and quiet, while eliminating the mess of hoses running all over the room.

The only thing I would have liked to see in addition to this excellent case would be an included PSU.  Not all of today's PSU's can support all of the parts required to run such a robust cooling system in addition to the standard PC components.  Beyond this, if you're looking for a fully functional liquid cooling system in a stylin pre-modded case, the Thermaltake Kandalf LCS just may be the case for you.  I have no problem whatsoever recommending the Thermaltake Kandalf LCS to anyone looking for a sleek and functional case.

Pros

• Roomy case design

• Aluminum chassis

• Upgradeable to BTX form factor

• Plenty of drive bays

• Toolless device bays

• Toolless PCI slot covers

• Included liquid cooling system

• Excellent cooling performance