thermaltake level 10

[cordis]

Now here's a different concept for a pc case:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/e ... is_unboxed

In theory, with each compartment separated, you should be able to use slower fans for each individual part, although it might be more fans than you'd want. It's funny, it looks all solid in the shots where it's put together, but when they open it up it seems like there are vents all over the place. I'm not sure how they're dealing with hard drives there, it says something about a heat sink for them. Definitely big and expensive. Sure creates a compelling look, though.

[mark314]

Pretty bogus, in my opinion.



That heatsink that they go on and on about, next to the hard drives? Useless. One hard drive will cool by natural convection, and the dissipated heat will go where...? Into the hard drive above it. Meaning the only drive that will actually be cooled is the bottom one.

Also, it's 66 pounds and they try to call it portable.

Innovative, yes...useful, not really...

[dhanson865]

Pretty bogus, in my opinion.

That heatsink that they go on and on about, next to the hard drives? Useless. One hard drive will cool by natural convection, and the dissipated heat will go where...? Into the hard drive above it. Meaning the only drive that will actually be cooled is the bottom one.

1. You don't have to populate all 6 drive positions. One hard drive for every 2 or 3 slots evenly spaced would give more heat sink mass per drive. How much travels by air vs through the metal is a question to ask.

2. Do you care much about drive cooling on a NEW design? SSDs are taking over and don't seem to be as much of an issue dealing with heat or generating it in the first place.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdo ... =3631&p=26

Given those sort of power numbers you could fill the top or bottom drive slot with a traditional hard drive and fill the remaining slots with SSDs and not worry about heat of the drives.

[dhanson865]

Also, it's 66 pounds and they try to call it portable.

One thing that might not come across in the pictures: the Level 10 is huge. It's 12.5 inches wide, two feet deep, and 26.2 inches high, and weighs over 47 pounds.

Who is right on the weight? Is it you or Maximum PC?

[dg100]

I applaud their guts and originality. Whether or not this one works, it's time to get out of the square box design prison.

[xan_user]

Completely pointle$$.

I cant see a single reason to buy this. I wouldn't want it, even if I was paid to use it.

K.I.S.S.

[cordis]

Well, like I said, with everything in separate compartments, your cooling is somewhat simplified. This may represent the whole 'separate chambers for better thermal management with less airflow' concept, pioneered by the Antec P180, taken to it's logical extreme. With a case arranged like this, the one thing it absolutely has to have is good cable management, and it looks like that whole back side is dedicated to that. This is also definitely not a case where you have to take out half the components to switch out one component. I like the size of little micro ATX cube cases, but having the remove the power supply to swap out a video card can wear you down after a while. The design is also pretty striking. So those are positives, I'd think.

The obvious down sides here are the size and the expense, but there could be more subtle issues as well. With the separate chambers, there could be an issue with cavity resonance, multiple chambers like this could give different resonant tones and possibly create complex harmonics. I'm also a little worried about the hard drives, they mention having a heatsink in there, but that would make it hard to suspend drives.

At this point, I'm intrigued. I'll be looking out for a full review when it comes out, it'd be interesting to hear about any other problems the case may have. It's definitely an enthusiast case, almost as bad as the Skeleton in it's own way, but it is an interesting concept.

[EsaT]

One hard drive for every 2 or 3 slots evenly spaced would give more heat sink mass per drive.

SSDs are taking over and don't seem to be as much of an issue dealing with heat or generating it in the first place.

Heatsink is something which must be solidly attached to component to be cooled, not something which can be separately somewhere nearby.
And as its slide drive in system I doubt there's anykind good solid contact.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9HGfGicpFk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngVllWoRBug

While at idle SSDs don't consume much anything but per volume their active state power draw can be at level with 3.5" HDD so in disk intensive use they still need some cooling.
http://download.intel.com/design/flash/ ... 319984.pdf

This is also definitely not a case where you have to take out half the components to switch out one component. I like the size of little micro ATX cube cases, but having the remove the power supply to swap out a video card can wear you down after a while.

Need to dismantle half of the case comes in no way from "one box"-design but that's trade off for cramped size.

[dhanson865]

While at idle SSDs don't consume much anything but per volume their active state power draw can be at level with 3.5" HDD so in disk intensive use they still need some cooling.
http://download.intel.com/design/flash/ ... 319984.pdf

I'm not sure why you linked to the Intel PDF. Are you wanting me to notice that it can hit almost 3 watts during activity? If so that pales in comparison to a traditional hard drive, for comparison we have the WD6400AAKS at roughly 8 watts idle and in use. Besides the link I posted to Anandtech showed the same basic wattage the Intel PDF shows so why bother with the new link?

Comparison per the two manufacturers specs

Code: Select all

Drive     Active   Idle
X25-E      2.6     0.06
WD6400AAKS 8.3     7.7

I don't see how 1/3 the active power draw and 1/100th the idle power draw is any great concern and I didn't pick worst case examples for traditional hard drives (4 platter drives, higher RPM drives, etcetera)

Further you picked a higher power draw SSD. The X-25M is more representative of a common SSD and draws less. Heck if you go by http://download.intel.com/design/flash/ ... 322296.pdf they claim 0.150 Watts in Mobilemark 2007 workloads but we both know that is marketing fluff and it will draw a couple watts more during heavy use.

It's also worth noting that the x-25M is rated to 70C during use so it puts out less heat and can handle more heat than a traditional hard drive.