Rosewill Thor v2: The God of Cooling and Silence?
by Dustin Sklavos on August 24, 2011 2:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Full-Tower
- Rosewill
Testing Methodology
For testing ATX cases, we use the following standardized testbed in stock and overclocked configurations to get a feel for how well the case handles heat and noise.
| Full ATX Test Configuration | |
| CPU |
Intel Core i7-875K (95W TDP, tested at stock speed and overclocked to 3.8GHz @ 1.38V) |
| Motherboard | ASUS P7P55D-E Pro |
| Graphics Card | Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 (244W TDP) |
| Memory | 2x2GB Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer DDR3-1600 |
| Drives |
Kingston SSDNow V+ 100 64GB SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gbps Samsung 5.25" BD-ROM/DVDRW Drive |
| CPU Cooler | Zalman CNPS9900 MAX with Cooler Master ThermalFusion 400 |
| Power Supply | SilverStone Strider Gold 750W 80 Plus Gold |
A refresher on how we test:
Acoustic testing is standardized on a foot from the front of the case, using the Extech SL10 with an ambient noise floor of ~32dB. For reference, that's what my silent apartment measures with nothing running, testing acoustics in the dead of night (usually between 1am and 3am). A lot of us sit about a foot away from our computers, so this should be a fairly accurate representation of the kind of noise the case generates, and it's close enough to get noise levels that should register above ambient.
Thermal testing is run with the computer having idled at the desktop for fifteen minutes, and again with the computer running both Furmark (where applicable) and Prime95 (less one thread when a GPU is being used) for fifteen minutes. I've found that leaving one thread open in Prime95 allows the processor to heat up enough while making sure Furmark isn't CPU-limited. We're using the thermal diodes included with the hardware to keep everything standardized, and ambient testing temperature is always between 71F and 74F. Processor temperatures reported are the average of the CPU cores.
For more details on how we arrived at this testbed, you can check out our introductory passage in the review for the IN-WIN BUC.
Last but not least, we'd also like to thank the vendors who made our testbed possible:
Thank You!
We have some thanks in order before we press on:
- Thank you to Crucial for providing us with the Ballistix Smart Tracer memory we used to add memory thermals to our testing.
- Thank you to Zalman for providing us with the CNPS9900 MAX heatsink and fan unit we used.
- Thank you to Kingston for providing us with the SSDNow V+ 100 SSD.
- Thank you to CyberPower for providing us with the Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive, Intel Core i7-875K processor, ASUS P7P55D-E Pro motherboard, and Samsung BD-ROM/DVD+/-RW drive.
- And thank you to SilverStone for providing us with the power supply.
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PA Systems1 - Sunday, June 23, 2013 - link
Considering the cooling, kitty would freeze his little butt off curled on top.geniekid - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
I want an FT02 for my upcoming build, but I may have to settle for this case instead. The FT02 looks so much nicer, but not $100 nicer.realjetavenger - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
Anyone else notice how similar this case is to the HAF X? The Thor has the moving top vents and a bottom mounted fan but otherwise in specs and appearance it is Rosewill's version of a HAF X.Onus - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
I have no doubt that the Rosewill case is superior to the HAF X. Almost every Coolermaster case I ever bought had untapped screw holes and poor tool-free mounts; most had minor panel misalignment and/or other QA issues. I've switched to Rosewill cases, and have not found any of these (admittedly trivial) issues with any of them.I'm not a fan of huge cases (I'm not a madd overclocker, and don't run 1kW of GPUs), but if I were, this Thor v2 would be on my short list. There would be no Coolermaster cases on it; as nice as their designs can look, they are not well executed.
f4phantom2500 - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
Maybe Cooler Master's quality has gone down since I bought my Centurion 5, but I haven't had any issues with it. Admittedly, I haven't used a Rosewill case, and every case I've used prior to the C5 was off-brand and ranged from acceptable-but-not-too-good to just bad. But in the review here he states that the 5.25" drive bay locks in this Rosewill case aren't very good; I actually really like the locks in my C5. Then again my standards are probably substantially lower than Dustin's. The only toolless element of the C5 that could use improvement, imo, is the expansion card clip holder things. They're not completely useless but I wouldn't trust them if I was putting in a robust (read: heavy and expensive) GPU and/or moving the computer around a lot.Khronikos - Sunday, August 28, 2011 - link
I disagree. In fact, I think CM has went up in quality more than down. I use a 690 ll advanced, admittedly not a top end, and I have no issues whatsoever. Sure, you might run into problems with any case but there are zero alignment issues or anything of the sort. I haven't run into tap problems but that could be an issue on any case and is remedied pretty easily. I like my minimalist case look better than the HAF as well. The Thor looks okay but really not my kind of case and way beyond my needs lol.Metaluna - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
I'm not in the market for a case like this, but I do like the top-mounted ports. I currently have a P182, which I keep on the floor. It has the USB ports sticking out at a right angle on the lower half of the front bezel, and when cables are plugged in, it's just way too easy to trip over them and pull out the cables or damage the ports. I actually broke one of the ports once this way. Fortunately Antec sells replacements, but I'd rather have the front ports up off the floor in a more protected position.ajlueke - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
I saw at the beginning of the review that you stated this arena was typically the forte of brands such as Antec, Silverstone, Corsair and Lian-Li. All those brands are represented as comparisons in your review, save for Lian Li. I was curious how this case compared to the lian Li offerings, particularily the TYR-X2000, or X2000F (USB 3.0 version.) I have been using the stateside version of the TYR-X2000 in the form of the ABD Canyon 695 for some time now, and was wondering how this case compared to the far more expensive Lian Li cases. Perhaps we'll see that in subsequent reviews?pandemonium - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
Just like Ferrari's and Lamborghini's don't like being smashed up just for an action scene, Lian-Li's don't like being subjected to pokes and prods by reviewers. >.<matt3D - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
I saw this case at school today... lol, I got a free t shirt from newegg.