NZXT Tempest - It's Here!

Optix

Yay! My Tempest finally came!

As promised, here is some geek pr0n along with temperatures in my current case versus temperatures in the Tempest.

The CPU temperature tests were run in both cases at stock and overclocked speeds (3Ghz/1.42 vcore) with all fans (92mm rear exhaust, 92mm front intake, 92mm upper front intake in the empty ODD bays, 80mm intake on the window in the old case all at around 2000 RPM) running at 100% since they are either connected via 3-pin or 4-pin molex. Also, memory was allowed to run at the stock frequency, timings and voltage since they have never been the warm to the touch.

The GPU temperature tests were run in both cases at the stock and overclocked speeds (808 core/1905 shader/1190 memory) with the fan left at auto.

As for sound, my old rig is loud. Loud enough that I can hear it down the hall at night if I leave it on. While I do not have any sound measuring equipment I can vouche that the Tempest is quiet by comparison but not much. It's a different kind of noise. It's a "Hey, I'm cooling your stuff and working properly" kind of noise rather than the "Hey, I'm making a bunch of noise and not really doing anything. Oh, and there's a good chance I could go POOF!" that I'm used to.

The only mods I plan on doing as of now are stealthing the ODD and changing the HDD activity LED to blue. Any cutting or painting will have to wait until I upgrade to AM3 or LGA1156.

Please excuse the dust. Everything was cleaned before any benchmarks were run so it wouldn't throw them off. Also I have a ton of cable management to do...so cluttered.

Enjoy and again, thanks DH and NZXT!

Old and busted...











New hotness...sorry for the blurriness.









Ok, temperatures. Unfortunately my screen shots were resized when they were uploaded and you can't read the numbers so since I'm pressed for time I'll just type them out.

CPU stock (old) = 45 degrees / CPU stock (new) = 43

CPU overclocked (old) = 59 / CPU overclocked (new) = 57

GPU stock (old) = 65 / GPU stock (new) = 63

GPU overclocked (old) = 63 / GPU overclocked (new) = 62

This may not seem like much but it's good enough for me. 2 degrees is 2 degrees, especially when overclocking.

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Zardon

glad it arrived. hope you enjoy it

Chaos

holy shit dude your cpu heatsink is so dirty

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Neshi

Is there no filter on the bottom of the case, so you can turn the PSU to suck air from beneath?
I had it once like that, and when I mounted a pci-card in (don't remember if it was the videocard or soundcard) the screw accidentally fell in the PSU.
It didn't ruin anything at first, but apparently it made contact at one time, and it gave a short circuit ruining my motherboard. Luckily nothing else was damaged in the process..

Just a heads-up to be careful mounting stuff this way!

Other than that, nice case!

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kris23

congrats man!

and uhh..... wow i thought my heatsink was dirty with a small layer of dust on it...... thats like a used central air filter...........

u cleaned it right? right.....? lmao

enjoy thew case man... it looks beautiful

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Tyrsonswood

Cool new case man, congrats.......



Yes! That is the most clogged heatsink I've ever seen.......... ever

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Optix

That's nothing. You should have seen the first time I took my first computer a part. 8 years, no cleaning. Ick.

There is no filter on the underside of this case to mount the PSU facing down however that is one of my modding ideas thanks to someone on another forum. They suggested popping the rivets on the brace and moving it forward by drilling new mounting holes. There's enough cool air coming in thanks to the bottom, front fan so I would not need to cut a hole for the grill and filter.

I can't wait until a few weeks when we get to see what the P55's look like performance wise. Then I get to pull the trigger on my upgrade and get modding!

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YnHDaRkMaN

nice... i wanted to enter that competition too, but that one wasn't worldwide open sadly =(

anyways, congrats and enjoy

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isaak

The blue light on the tempest does a brilliant job in that night shot...

looks good buddy and good job!

blasted_sound

I'm surprised that you managed to mount the HSF onto the CPU without getting dust in the thermal compound. Due to past bad experiences I always clean every part with my antistatic vacuum on reverse (blow), before assembly.

Of course I have forgotten to plug my CPU fan back in once. I'll never forget that again

That case gives me flashbacks of the old Alienware case that had vents in the place were the lights are.

Optix

The heatsink stayed on the mobo. I just shot a truck load of air through it to clean things out. The same with my PSU and video card. Really, the whole thing is dusty and I can see the Tempest not being much better in that regard although the two front intakes do have filters on them so we will see in a month.

Oh, and I think 50% of us have forgotten to plug in the CPU fan. POST - BEEP, BEEP! AHHHHH!

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Earthmonger

I'd just take your Dremel to those front grills and cut them out. The case comes with two mesh filters-- you don't need the extra steel grills behind it (which actually impedes airflow when combined with the filters).

And buy one of these kits from Newegg.ca: Newegg.ca - VIZO VIZO-AVK-120 Anti-Vibration Kit for 120mm Fan - Case Accessories

A Desire to Game

I'm running an Asus Arctic Square and that baby is silent. Temps run okay but ASUS coolers seem to be alot more on the silent yet showy side, that could be why you're temps aren't going to improve a whole lot. Still...nice cooler, and sweeet case!

Did you change your thermal compound while you were making the swap, just askin?

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