BitFenix Prodigy Review: The Affordable Performable Mini-ITX
by Dustin Sklavos on June 1, 2012 1:55 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Mini ITX
- bitfenix
Noise and Thermal Testing
At the risk of spoiling the results (much like Anand loves to do), let me just say the BitFenix Prodigy performed well. Really well. Going into testing I wasn't entirely sure how it would handle given the substantial ventilation, but the Prodigy's performance, at least with our integrated GPU testbed, was pretty stellar. Testing was done with an ambient temperature of ~22C.
While the SSD's temperature isn't best in class, it's not bad by any stretch of the imagination. The CPU's thermals are quite good, though, especially considering the Prodigy is competing with the more expensive SilverStone FT03 Mini. The FT03 Mini's cooling design centered around a single 140mm fan is brutally efficient.
Notice that the heatsink fan isn't working as hard in the Prodigy, though. This could arguably be chalked up to the difference in ambient temperatures at testing, and certainly the FT03 Mini is no slouch, but there's much more ventilation around the CPU in the Prodigy than there is in the FT03 Mini and our results on the next page will show that it produces a measurable effect.
Most impressively, the Prodigy is incredibly quiet even under load, hitting the noise floor of our sound meter. To my ears I could detect a minor difference in fan noise between idle and load, but the Prodigy is really a remarkably good citizen when it comes to noise.
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xbournex - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Yes. It can fit 330mm cards.7amood - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
I would love to see anandtech review of silverstone SG08Termie - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
My problem right off the bat with this case is that its dimensions (9.84" x 15.9" x 14.1") are almost identical to the Temjin: 15.16" x 8.27" x 14.72". Sure, the handles make it taller than it really is, but ultimately, the case is just too big. It is both wider and deeper than the Temjin. I just can't see a reason for going with this case if you're trying to be compact.Termie - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Sorry - upon looking at the pictures again, it seems it's not deeper than the Temjin, but actually taller (hard to match up those dimensions). Either way, it sure is wide!Olaf van der Spek - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
How well is the Prodigy doing with the 560 Ti vs a regular mATX case?You just say: "Thermals for the Prodigy are still quite good, but the 560 Ti does push it a little." but some more words wouldn't hurt. The cooling in the Prodigy shouldn't be worse than in a mATX case IMO.
Taft12 - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
On the contrary, I think the short depth with front/back 120mm fans and "tunnel" for air to travel through front-to-back will provide BETTER cooling than most mATX cases.A terrific design worthy of the Editor's Choice award!
MichaelD - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Case is great except for the feet. They let the designer people overrule the engineering people, which is usually not a good idea. Yes; the top handles are symmetrical with the bottom feet. And the case will tip over if you try to set it down on carpet. The "feet" have rounded edges which will just encourage the case to fall on it's side should you accidentally bump it. I can work around every other "negative" or shortcoming this nice case has, except the feet. That makes it a failure in my book. Side note: All that mesh ventilation looks nice on paper. Two weeks after building your system you'll be vacuuming dust out of that mesh on a weekly basis if you want the thing to run cool.snajk138 - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
It looks like you can take them off.http://i46.tinypic.com/2h8b9lv.jpg
zcat - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
This BitFenix is a nice case that certainly would've been on my shortlist a few weeks ago, but I think I still would have gone with the slightly more expensive ($99) Lian Li PC-Q11A case that I did choose, as it's much prettier (all alluminum) and more minimal-looking.CPU: i7-3770S (65W)
MB: Asus P8H77-I
PSU: SeaSonic SS-300ET 300W 80+
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600
SSD: 256GB Samsung 830
HDDs: 2x 2TB 5900rpm in RAID1
HSF: Xigmatek CAC-D9HH4-U02 PRAETON (one of the few that would fit, and quieter than stock)
It went together quite easily, except for a few minor problems:
1) Lian-li still uses a 3-pin connector for the power-led, so you have to re-pin it for 2.
2) Had to order the rarer "left-angle" sata cables in order to connect the HDD sitting directly above the SSD on the drive cage.
3) The side panel is attached with 8 tiny screws instead of 2 quick thumb screws like my previous full-ATX and micro-ATX LianLi's, but mini-itx cases are rarely opened anyway.
Without the 2 HDDs, the system idles at just ~29W, and with at ~41W. Under full load it sucks ~118W so there's still headroom for me to add a 75W PCIe-powered card down the road (waiting on nvidia's more efficient mid/low-end kepler cards).
If I had no plans to upgrade from intel's integrated HD4000 to a full-length/full-height/double-width card, I probably would've chosen the MUCH SMALLER Antec ISK110 case instead (same case used in pugetsystems 'overpriced' builds).
Anyway... I guess this turned into a mini-itx mini-review of my own. Thanks Anandtech - looking forward to more mini & micro-ATX reviews as full-ATX fades to the fringes.
mars2k - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Enter the poster child for Chinese plagiarism. All the positives aside, I would never buy a product that was a cheap copy of an iconic industrial design like a Mac Pro…and it’s blue.Take all the careful design in the world and wrap it in a blatant counterfeit skin..voila…worthless.