Cases with mesh fronts better than sound blocking fronts?

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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nomoon
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Cases with mesh fronts better than sound blocking fronts?

Post by nomoon » Sat Mar 20, 2021 10:42 am

It’s been conventional wisdom that sound-blocking front doors (with solid fronts and side inlets) would result in lower sound levels. However, various studies at GamersNexus show that cases with mesh fronts tend to result in reduced temperatures when fans are adjusted for constant noise (36dBA) across all cases. The non-mesh doors require higher fan speeds in order to get the same amount of cooling so that you are better off with a mesh front. 36 dBA is louder than what I’d want for a system, but I think that it’s reasonable to believe that the rankings would largely correlate to lower decibel levels.

FYI: Examples of non-mesh vs mesh
  • Fractal Define 7 vs Fractal Meshify 2
  • Lian Li Lanncool II vs Lian Li Lanncool II Mesh
I think that both the old SPCR conventional wisdom and the new pro-mesh wisdom may not be entirely in conflict. The GamersNexus systems tend to have high wattage CPUs as well as very high wattage GPUs (~200W), while the older SPCR systems tend to have low power components where the primary noise source might be from spinning hard drives. If you are pushing +200 watts in a GPU, inadequate intake care can really cause the tiny GPU fans to spin up significantly.

My current system has a 2008’s era Intel dual core CPU in an original version Antec P180 case. I’m looking at building a high end system with an AMD 5950x CPU and 3080 GPU (if I can ever get the parts). It's been a while since I've shopped for a case and I thought that this was interesting.

Source: https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3 ... ase-review
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Japanese Capacitor
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Re: Cases with mesh fronts better than sound blocking fronts?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Sat Mar 20, 2021 12:10 pm

If you buy computer to run Prime and Furmark one time - probably. But check, how much scores of the same cases differ in Steve's real life tests - 3D Mark Firestrike as gaming-like scenario or Blender as CPU/GPU heavy programs. I also know, that Steve's CPU and GPU coolers during Case Torture are blocked on constant speeds, but to my knowledge, he've never shared what speeds. If he's able to bring the case noise to 32,8 dBA, they are low. And if they are irrationaly low, they unrealistically increase diffrences between cases during his procedures. And when the speeds are blocked, he don't really test, how the case balance cooling and noise supression, what is the most important thing - if we try to define objectively the best case, forget that everyone has different needs and preferences, that's the case with the best such balance.

Let's start with one to me really important detail - closed cases with sound dampening material don't only make computer quieter, but also make its sound dampened - more pleasant to the ears. Sound deadening materials also consume annoying noises like coil whine, fan bearing/motor sounds or help with HDDs noise. No non-dampened case will give you that.

I thought about Steve's studies in this matter, so let's take a look on his famous article: https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3391 ... t-base-601

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Silverstone just kills SB 601. But we have to remember about shitty MSI CPU cooler Steve uses. Also calculate stress-tested GPU below warming this garbage Core Frozr. Change cooler for something decent and differences between both cases will much dicrease.

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Here differences are... dissapointing. And where is the score of Silverstone with be quiet! fans equalized to SB601 maximum noise of 36 dBA? That was the one I was interested the most!

What whole test generally lacks are the same tests executed during Steve's real-life procedures I mentioned above. But I suspect, it would make point of the video less impressive. To me this video would do better named ,,How to use heavy stress tests to cook shitty CPU cooler".

What more I don't like about Steve's methodology is him keeping this damn outdated testing setup with 6700K and 1080. It should be i9 with 3090 - worse possible scenario. Plus generally with every other configurations scores on his graphs would be different - all you know is, some case cools better than other, but not how much. That makes his awesome graphs, few year-collection of test results, pointless - they are not comparable in the way, he present it.

To be honest, I find Gamers Nexus as one of the worst addresses, if we talk about case testing. As I explained above, it's just too much wrong and too much unreal.

BTW there's one active member of this forum, who (I know) transferred from sound dampened cases to airflow focused - Abula. Maybe he will share with us his impressions.

nomoon
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Re: Cases with mesh fronts better than sound blocking fronts?

Post by nomoon » Sat Mar 20, 2021 2:38 pm

Thanks for sharing your input. I think that we agree on a lot. I care zero about a case's maximum cooling ability with stock fans, but I understand this is a legitimate concern for some. The only chart in his review that I find relevant is the noise-normalized chart. I expect to spend some time replacing and tweaking fans.

I'm currently planning a high end system to do lots of rendering and number crunching (not crypto work). The new NVidia 3080 cards peak at over 200 watts, which is about twice the CPU. Getting GPU heat out of the case without heating the CPU seems to be a weak spot in current case designs. Current designs seem to still be centered around getting CPU heat out, and getting GPU heat out is just an afterthought. I'm considering getting an XL case and blowing air out the back of the case in custom openings at or near the unused expansion slots. I'm not afraid to use a dremel to open a hole so that another exhaust fan can be mounted there.

Japanese Capacitor
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Re: Cases with mesh fronts better than sound blocking fronts?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Sat Mar 20, 2021 3:41 pm

I add few things worth mentioning about this 601 and Silverstone duel, which will help you understand, how things worked:

- 601 has solid top and Silverstone mesh one. So convection vs heat cumulating in the upper parts of the case and waiting for back fan to exhaust it. 601 has some little holes on the back of top panel plus tiny ones on the sides of it, but it can't compete.

- 601 has only one intake fan located on the lower part of the front. It doesn't blow on CPU cooler or pushes hot air from the upper parts of the case to rear exhaust fan, so it also affected the results.

Both points are main reasons of such a differences between CPU and GPU charts.

- 601 has fairly restrictive front panel thanks to - according to bq! - ,,sound-proofing vents", which, as we can see, sacrifice airflow for maybe decreasing the noise of intaking air - you can see it on official site. bq! silently removed them in newest Silent Base 802 and if bq! removes something providing lower noise - it must be damn bad.

- 601's 1cm thick foam keeps heat inside and distrub passive transfer thru walls. I've suspected, that's the reason, why other quiet cases producers don't use such foam, but I'm sure after I saw OverclockersClub review of Silent Base 802 - he showed it with termovision.

Overall impression from reviews of 601 online is one - when trying to keep things quiet, it sacrifices too much airflow and ends being noisy. That's an example of something I mentioned above - bad balance. So this is not serious competitor for GN's material. Because there are and were on the market better ventilated quiet cases and some of them are even quieter.
nomoon wrote:
Sat Mar 20, 2021 2:38 pm
The only chart in his review that I find relevant is the noise-normalized chart.
Noise-Normalized chart doesn't tell you much - it's still unrealistic Case Torture combined with flawed GN's procedure and config.

If you want your build cool and quiet, you care about cooling systems of individual components. If it's good, you won't have problems with temps or noise. Just don't buy some no-airlfow case from the bottom of every chart - not only GN's. If you value more quiet operation, you buy decent closed, sound dampened case. If you plan to overclock hard, airflow case can give you bigger headroom, but for the price of dust and noise. Don't try to hit something between, because you won't have any.

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