NZXT Tempest 410 Elite: Jack of All Trades
by Dustin Sklavos on September 1, 2011 3:20 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- mid-tower
- NZXT
Noise and Thermal Testing, Stock
Going in to testing the NZXT Tempest 410 Elite, I'll admit I was concerned. While the cooling system certainly seems adequate enough (two 120mm front intakes and a single 120mm rear exhaust), the massive opening at the top for mounting a 240mm water-cooling system just screams "noise problems" to me. The Tempest 410 Elite seems to be engineered for airflow first and foremost, with acoustics a distant second.
Thermals aren't great but they're not awful either, and at least the idle temperature on the CPU ranks among the lowest we've seen. For its price range, the Tempest 410 Elite is posting some of the best performance we've seen, though, with only the In-Win BUC really competing with it. Everything else that beats it is north of $100.
Yet there's the price you pay for those thermals: noise. While a fan controller could probably clean up this situation (and NZXT's recently released Sentry Mix certainly fits the bill, able to support an impressive six fans from a single 5.25" bay), you'll undoubtedly sacrifice some of the Tempest 410 Elite's thermal performance in the process, and a fan controller still doesn't really address what I think the major issue of the case is: the gaping holes in the top for mounting that 240mm water-cooling kit.
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Zak - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
This is so ugly, yuck :/stanwood - Monday, September 5, 2011 - link
I think it would be cool if Dustin designed a case and 1) dared a vendor to replicate it, and (2) rated cases by how close they adhered to his design. I'm thinking, not of the exterior looks, but functional choices like top/bottom power supply, orientation of drives, positive/negative air pressure, fan placement, and front/top ports.romany8806 - Tuesday, September 6, 2011 - link
Hey Dustin, I feel like I'm following the shepherd a bit here (given one of the earlier comments) but I just wanted to say that I look forward to your case reviews immensely. I remember the beating you took over the Grandia GD04 review - I didn't think those comments were justified at the time and you've just gone from strength to strength since then. Have a good one.ehume - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
DustinIt's been some time since the review> You should now be able to tell us what case you have that blows this one away -- and costs only $10 more.