Acoustics and cooling performance
Our test system is built around an AMD 790FX-powered Asus M3A32 MVP Deluxe motherboard with a Phenom X4 9350e processor running at 2GHz. Rather than using AMD's stock processor cooler, we've opted for a popular tower heatsink from Kingwin—the Revolution RVT 9225 HDT, which has a 92 mm fan rated for 28 dBa @ 2,800 RPM. XFX's GeForce 8800 GTS 512 graphics takes care of pixel-pushing, and we've thrown a couple of 1GB sticks of Corsair CM2X1024 DDR2 memory alongside a single hard drive and a DVD burner.
In working with the Asus board's BIOS, I found that its 'Optimal' processor fan speed setting worked well with the Kingwin cooler. With the X500, we also have the luxury of selecting different voltages for all four case fans. We've tested the case with its low, medium, and high fan speed settings to see how they compare.
To give the X500 some competition, we've included results from our reviews of Gigabyte's 3D Mars and Thermaltake's Spedo enclosures. For the Spedo, which has multiple fan and cooling zone configurations, we included results with the case's top two thermal dividers removed and its side fan disconnected—the quietest configuration for this case, and our favorite.
Even at its medium fan speed setting, the X500 gives the very quiet 3D Mars a run for its money. Once set to low, the X500 is just barely audible, easily the quietest of the lot. Heck, even with its fans running at full blast, the Lian Li isn't loud enough to be bothersome for most people. In fact, it's neck and neck with the Spedo, whose noise levels are hardly unacceptable.
Low noise levels aren't particularly meaningful if system components are running too hot, so we let the test system idle for a while and probed temperatures with a combination of SpeedFan, GPU-Z, AMD's Overdrive Utility, and the motherboard's own PC Probe software.
The Lian Li's component temperatures look good at idle—I can't imagine anyone being disappointed with results like this from a nearly silent system. Even with an extra fan on the Spedo dedicated to keeping the back of the CPU area cool, the X500's motherboard temperature is two degrees cooler at its lowest fan speed setting. The Thermaltake's extra airflow does yield slightly lower CPU temperatures, though.
Next, we start to turn up the heat with a graphics stress test fueled by the rthdribl HDR lighting demo.
This looks like another victory for the X500, whose graphics card temperatures are lower than those of the Spedo and 3D Mars, even with the lowest fan speed setting. Again, while the Spedo manages lower CPU temperatures, the Lian Li still keeps the processor at acceptable levels.
Last, but not least, we fired up a combined CPU and GPU load, adding a multi-core Prime95 stress test to our rthdribl graphics card workout.
I'd call this a clean sweep for anyone who appreciates a quiet machine. Sure, the 11-degree gap in processor core temperatures between the X500 and Spedo is wide, but it shrinks to just six degrees if you turn up the Lian Li's fan speed to match the Thermaltake's noise levels. 42° Celsius is still a healthy temperature for a modern quad-core processor operating at full utilization. Meanwhile, the X500 boasts lower graphics card and motherboard temperatures than the Spedo and 3D Mars even when its fans are running at the lowest speed.
