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
Assembling the Rosewill Thor v2
Do you remember when I said the Rosewill Thor v2's internals reminded me of the insides of Corsair's cases? That's a good thing and a compliment: Corsair's cases are still the easiest ones to build in I've ever seen, and thankfully the Thor v2 was just as easy to work with.
Installing the motherboard was easy and painless, though Rosewill doesn't include stand-offs built straight into the board, a convenience I do miss. Where Rosewill does run afoul of Corsair is in the rubber grommets used to line the holes in the motherboard tray, which as I said before are held in largely by wishful thinking. Honestly they're just not strong enough to stay in and for most of my cable routing I wound up either accidentally or deliberately popping them out, and this was going on pretty much from the get go.
Unfortunately, while the drive trays are still back-facing and thus awesome, they aren't tool-less. The trays support both 2.5" and 3.5" drives, though only the 3.5" drives use rubber standoffs to dampen vibration (presumably anyone using 2.5" drives would have SSDs), and drives are always mounted from the bottom instead of the sides. Still, the trays work well enough and routing the cables behind them was a breeze.
The same can't be said for the tool-less mechanism Rosewill uses for installing 5.25" drives. To remove the bay covers, you actually slide the right part of the case's front bezel off and then lever out the covers. Honestly, the old school "squeeze-and-pop" bay shields would've been perfectly fine here. My main problem is that the tool-less mechanism used to lock the drives into place is flimsy and loose. Optical drives are often among the loudest components in a good build, and with very little really securing them, they're free to vibrate in the bay. I would have been happier with just openings for screwing them in, and thankfully, you can forego using the case's locks and just use screws to mount them.
Getting the power supply in and everything else wired up was delightfully painless, as you'd expect from a chassis this size. While the case's cables are a mess of tiny wires, they're ultimately still fairly easy to actually sift through, and there's plenty of space behind the motherboard tray to keep the installation clean. The only issue I really ran into was routing the USB 3.0 cables out the back of the case: the rubber grommets in the back are just as loose as the ones inside, and shoving the cables through them invariably caused them to pop out. You'll also have to route a fan controller cable to the inside so you can connect the side intake fan, something you'll definitely want to do.
All told my chief complaints remain the iffy build quality. The rubber grommets are no big deal (NZXT's H2 had the same problem), but just about everything about the 5.25" drive bays rubbed me the wrong way. They aren't a huge issue and you can work around the problems, but even the material that lines the inside of the bay shields to filter dust is barely held in place. The fan controllers in my first review unit were also problematic: if I didn't tape the knob down, eventually fan speed would just ramp back up to full. I don't want to have to choose between having a tower that runs silent and cool with a piece of shipping tape on the top of it or a tower that runs very cool but with some noise, and I shouldn't have to. Judging from reviews on NewEgg, though, my problem seems to be isolated.
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flong777 - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
This review lists temperatures for the 650D which are not anywhere near what I am experiencing in my build. I own the 650D and following are my temps:1. CPU , Less than 40C under load
2. GPU, Less than 60C under load
3. Mobo - less than 40C under load
4. HDD - less than 35C under load
5. RAM - less than 40C under load
6. Ambient temperature is 82F
Note that these are MAX temps under load. My build is as follows:
2600K CPU
XFX 6950 GPU
Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler
Corsair 650D case
AsRock Extreme 4 Gen 3 motherboard
Gskill DDR3 1600 2 x 4GB
For the life of me, I cannot imagine how Anandtech's temps are so high for the 650D. My builds is a full 20C- 40C cooler than the Anandtech build in the same case.
Also, THIS IS IMPORTANT, if you remove the top HDD cage the front 200 mm fan blows directly on the motherboard, GPU and CPU unimpeded. This makes a huge difference in cooling and most people don't need more than three HDDS/SSDs. I am guessing that if Anandtech took out the top HDD cage in their build that temps would drop at least 3C - 5C over all components.
Also, the case is very quiet on low fan and reasonably quiet on high fan. On low fan the case is almost inaudible (I hear the Noctua coolers fans as much as the case's fans). According to reviews, the case cools almost as well on low fan as on high fan.
randinspace - Monday, August 29, 2011 - link
I was tempted to say something snarky because you're really comparing apples and oranges (mid-range AMD GPU vs. upper tier NVIDIA GPU) and didn't give your full parameters (ie, whether you used the same testing procedures and measuring programs/equipment that Dustin did) and it's been a lousy day, but to be honest you've (put together an envious build) really exposed the essential flaw of case reviews in general and AT's in particular, at least when it comes to temps and noise: Sandy Bridge chips are just that much better in the categories you'd measure when reviewing an enthusiast case than anything else on the market that you'd stick into a case like this (no one is going to buy a chassis like this and stick one of AMD's Bobcat chips into it, right?), and even though those are what's selling and in demand it's absent from the testbed.Of course it could be worse, AT could be doing reviews with a Phenom II X6 for truly misleading results compared to the way it's almost impossible to find an article on here that doesn't praise SB's virtues (particularly their buying guides). Then again people were probably more likely to build a brand new rig (as opposed to cobbling together parts left over from other people's upgrades to SB) with that in it this year than the i7-875k.
The other factor that contributes to the high thermals in their reviews is the near reference model NVIDIA GPU, but I'm sure there are plenty of enthusiasts who savor the extra FPS in Crysis 2 (patched) compared to a 6970 so even though you can get lower profile versions of the 580 than that particular Zotac model I'm not going to quibble about it (though again the AT buying guides usually say something about the price to performance ratio being in favor of AMD cards). Hell if anything people who do buy cards like that are probably the ones who really need to worry about whether or not the case they buy can keep the card running below spec.
So that said, I can appreciate the "worst case scenario" that these reviews usually represent, but I just can't help but wonder how much differently they might have played out with components more representative of what people who follow sites like this and actually research their components to get the best fit for their needs (like the OP must have, and frankly I'd also rather save $250-300 and get a free game [Deus Ex ATM, Shogun 2 earlier in the year] by going with a 6950 than having the extra performance of a 580) would actually order.
hoyanf - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
I have yet to see a review of cases that supports E-ATX or XL-ATX to have these kind of boards installed instead of using common ATX or M-ATX boards.I don't see the reason why not to use a bigger board on a case that supports it. For those using dual cpu boards would for sure like to see the capability of the case reviewed.
ggathagan - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
Everything that Dustin discussed regarding case features is equally applicable, regardless of the size of the motherboard.If they were to use one of the larger motherboards, the only change to the review would be something like:
"When we used an E-ATX motherboard, fitment was a bit tighter."
You can look at the pictures in the gallery on page 3 and visualize how a board that is 90mm wider would fit. That would be true of any site that includes build pictures in their articles.
Since XL-ATX is not an industry standard, I wouldn't expect anyone to use it in reviews, but the same process applies.
Unfortunately, sites that are slanted more towards workstation/server systems, like 2cpu.com, are few and far between. They don't seem to review anything but finished systems.
Hrel - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
Rosewill is still Rosewill. I like the idea, and seems like it's layed out well. I want to go smaller with my next build though, not bigger. I want a quality case, Mid-Tower or smaller that is primally solid black. HEAVY focus on silent running. Built in handle would be really nice. As light as you can make it, Thermaltake used to have one that was "feather" light; I liked that one. USB 3.0 all the way around, no 2.0. No side vents or fans or lights or anything. Just front intake and rear exhaust, as large as you can make them. (for silence) Probably just gonna do one front fan, might not even need a rear fan with the PSU acting as an exhaust.I like the idea of a top vent you can open and close. Open for better cooling close for more silence. Tooless everything. If I can get all this for about 100 bucks from newegg I'd be pretty happy.
etamin - Friday, August 26, 2011 - link
Newegg is having a promo for the Thor v2 right now. It's only 129.99 with free shipping.killerclick - Saturday, August 27, 2011 - link
Why not mention that Rosewill is owned by Newegg? It's not a secretLeyawiin - Saturday, August 27, 2011 - link
I like this comparison reviews to alert me to brands/models I didn't even know about. IN WIN BUC is mid tower, only slightly less good in most categories and better in a few. $65 at Newegg.randinspace - Monday, August 29, 2011 - link
Now that you mention it the only thing missing from this review is Dustin's ubiquitous mention of how the BUC is a better proposition, so he must have really liked this case after all... Or maybe I just failed to read closely enough?Shadowmaster625 - Saturday, August 27, 2011 - link
The guys on the forums will have a conniption.