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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
35 Comments
View All Comments
black44dog - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
I know this is an old article.. But i wanted to let everyone know the updates this Case has gotten since the article has been written.I just put together my Rosewill Thor v2 case with these parts:
Asus Sabertooth Z77 mobo
Intel Core i5 3570k
g-skill 16mb ram x2 8gig chips
CM Hyper Evo 212 CPU Cooler
LG Blu-ray burner
OCZ Vertex 4 128gig SSD
EVGA GeForce GTX660 TI 2GB
I purchased the case for 103.99 on newegg last week. It was on sale for 129.99 plus had a 20% off promo code.
The USB 3.0 pass through no longer exists. They replaced it with an ACTUAL USB3.0 Connector to the motherboard header. HUGE upgrade there..
The grommets are still flaky.. not a big deal.
Everything fit perfectly and looks amazing with the Sabertooth's Thermal Armor.
Hope this helps others looking into reviews for this case.
Horrabin - Saturday, January 12, 2013 - link
with the original V2 I've had for close to a year has been entirely positive. I consider this to be the best case I've ever used for a build in its price range (and one or two more "upscale" in the past). I really like all the the ports for cable management (aside from the grommets, as has been mentioned). I have 2 graphics cards, 6 HD, a DVD burner, a card reader, and an add-on 3.5 USB3 front panel that came with my motherboard, and still have plenty of room unimpeded by the usual cable spaghetti if I want to add anything else, although I'm pretty maxed out of stuff I'd want to put in. Since this fits (barely) under my table I keep the top grille open so the cat's not a problem... I actually like the back-routed USB3 setup. The onboard header is used for the add-on unit, which gives me 4 front USB3 ports. I did notice from the beginning that the fan control system didn't seem to do much about noise levels, but I'm not that bothered by fan noise anyway. The stock fans included with the case provide enough cooling and airflow, with the cables all tucked away behind the motherboard, to keep all my temps generally in the low 30's at idle and about 15 degrees higher when I'm running games (Crysis, Rage, FC3, Borderlands 1 & 2,etc). The CoolerMaster Hyper 212 cpu cooler fits with room to spare. Asrock 990FX Extreme 4 with Vishera 6-core, 16GB GSkill 1866, and dual AMD 5775 cards (those are somewhat dated, but enough in CrossFire for me on my budget). I would buy this case again for any other full-tower system I'd want to build.jlpurvis - Monday, March 11, 2013 - link
I just received y Thor V2 in the mail last week, and it is a very solid, good case. Just a heads up, they did replace the USB 3.0 connector with an internal motherboard header, so I don't have to hook it up in the back, but directly onto the motherboard. Also, the rubber grommets feel very secure, and the fan knobs don't feel clunky, or loose. I believe they fixed your biggest complaints about the case.PA Systems1 - Sunday, June 23, 2013 - link
I've just purchased this case from Newegg. Bought it for its size and cooling capabilities. I do have one question that the article doesn't seem to answer. If the front USB cables do not connect to the USB 3.0 headers on the mobo how are they connected to the system and powered? Before reading this article mentioning that I thought I would absolutely need a mobo with USB 3.0 internal headers. To be honest I haven't looked inside it YET because the other parts to my new build are waiting on price drops from Newegg. It could be a slow process but this case and some other components came on Newegg as deals first.frostshoxx - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Where exactly is the reset button? I can only find the power button.