BitFenix Ronin Case Review
by Dustin Sklavos on July 22, 2013 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- bitfenix
- ATX
Noise and Thermal Testing
The BitFenix Ronin unfortunately enters noise and thermal testing a bit hobbled. While I would've appreciated a fan controller, it's not strictly necessary. BitFenix is using two of their Spectre fans in the Ronin, and these fans are incredibly quiet. That's the upshot.
The downside is that there are only two quiet 120mm fans tasked with keeping the Ronin cool, and that plays hell on performance. You'll see Ronin fall into the same trap that a lot of silent cases do: without adequate airflow, internal cooling has to pick up the slack and runs louder as a result. Silent computing is a difficult balancing act and one that the Ronin is unable to get a good handle on.
Ambient temperatures were between 23C and 24C for testing.
You can see stock cooling performance is pretty poor and easily bested by other, less expensive cases.
The poor thermal performance could at least be justified if the Ronin did a better job with noise, but it's just not there in any capacity and it only gets worse when you overclock the testbed.
Overclock the testbed and suddenly the Ronin is finishing dead last. The two Spectre fans just aren't up to the task of keeping the system cool. Low case volume and low airflow are a deadly combination.
Noise levels are unfortunately unsurprising. The Ronin just runs hot and loud under load.
It's hard not to feel at least a little disheartened by these results, and I went into full fat testing with some trepidation.
Note that the CPU runs hotter under load in our basic overclocked testbed than in our full fat despite the fact that it's running at the same voltage and speed in both. The GTX 580 blower-style coolers are able to pull much more weight than the GTX 560 Ti's open air cooler, keeping the Ronin from cooking the CPU. Unfortunately, the GPUs are running toasty in the process, hitting the 90s under load and actually maxing out their fan speeds.
It's "quieter" than the other cases in its class, but that's not saying much. The fact remains that airflow is a serious issue in the Ronin.
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kmmatney - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
I agree. I have a factory overclocked video card, and a "reasonably" overclocked i5, and I get plenty of cooling with a single, slow 120mm fan. While my case just has 2 120mm fans, I only use one, and keep the other unused for a spare (and to keep the system extremely quiet). I will say the price is a little high for this case, though. I think anyone buying this case would be using a single video card, so it would be more useful to test with that.twtech - Monday, July 22, 2013 - link
As soon as I saw what the inside of it looked like, I knew the cooling was going to suffer. There's no room for airflow. I wonder what the thermals would be like with just one graphics card.DanNeely - Monday, July 22, 2013 - link
The standard test is done with a single 560. Only the full fat has dual GPUs (580s).GprophetB - Monday, July 22, 2013 - link
THE BOWL IS BACKHisDivineOrder - Monday, July 22, 2013 - link
This is them creating a slightly more expensive case to sell the other cases. They make this product to hit those people who look at $99 or greater cases. Then anyone who reads a review sees they should go back to the more prevalent, cheaper cases, which they do.It's like advertisement for the entire brand because everytime someone goes to read about this product as it's in the running, they're going to see someone saying, "Hey, go check out Shinobi instead."
Bam, Shinobi sells. It's savvy.
fluxtatic - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Reminds me of some of the Dell Optiplexes at work. That's not a good thing.ShieTar - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Can anybody explain to me why Bitfenix would not include 2 140mm fans for the top slots? They do include them for the Shinobi XXL, and they do a great job of moving alot of air through the case, especially when combined with both front and bottom intakes. So why skip the 5 bucks on fan cost, and cripple the case in the process? Do they just expect everybody to buy their own fans anyways?Minion4Hire - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Dustin, I'm very confused. You're recommending the Shinobi over the Ronin solely because it's cheaper? But the Shinobi's thermal performance isn't really much better. It's only advantage is a 120mm side mount. If someone intends on installing two beefy graphics cards as you've done here (which you did not do in the Shinobi review) I can't imagine they're going to have a much better time in the default configuration which is otherwise identical to the Ronin.The Ronin looks like a prettier Shinobi. I just don't feel it's a fair performance comparison to make when you tested the Shinobi with only a single GPU. If anything I would think - assuming only one GPU - that the Ronin would perfom similarly to its spiritual predecessor.
samsp99 - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
Looking at the photo above, I thought it was of smoke showing the airflow in the case. Which makes me think - hey how about doing photo's of the airflow, particularly for cases with a window.werver - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
I was very suprised about the difference in test results of the Ronin between Anandtech.com and Computerbase.de. They write: "Bitfenix succeeded to get a very good balance between noise levels and temperature". How is such a difference possible?