TR Forums

After reading the TR article on the Obsidian ( http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/17852 ), I decided it was exactly what I was looking for. I just wish Joshua could of ran 1 more test on temp, with 3 120mm fans added to the top of the case, since most people will not leave the top open like that, and the included 140mm fans are very low rpm maxed out (900rpm), I may replace them soon, not many good newegg 140mm choices.

I also removed the bottom 140mm fan, that separates the bottom chamber with the upper, since I have 1-140 and 3-120s exhausting, and the single 140 would be a restriction and cause more negative pressure. Temps are the exact same as my P182 (with all fans replaced with scythe 1900rpm 110cfm fans, +1 in the optional front mount), except video card temp was a little warmer (2c) but I fixed that by adjust riva tuner to 2c lower target temp, fan runs about 50-55% idle for 55c target temp, max fan is set to 60c (default is like 70c, which is way too high imo).

The rear fan is controlled by system temp, which is really pwm (on at 40, full at 48), front-top radiator fan is controlled by NB temp (more or less water temp, on at 32, full at 38). The hard drive fan (max all the time, but is still inaudible), and other 2 radiator fans are controlled by the zalman controller on the front (set to about half, which is around 800rpms).

With this setup, while idle/gaming/prime, cpu = 32/38/45, system 40/45/48, NB = 32/36/38. Hard drives stay cool to the touch in the hot swap bay, and the computer is near silent at idle, and while gaming the loudest fan is the GPU.

The computer hardware specs:
DFI LP LT X48-T2R
Xeon X3350 (Q9450 equivalent)
GSkill 4x2gb DDR1066 (F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK)
OCZ GameXstream 700w (OCZ700GXSSLI)
Geforce 9800GX2 OC (bought from my roommate last year for $100)
2x Western Digital 640 Black edition (raid 0)
LightOn SATA DVD burner
Dtek Fusion waterblock
Swiftech MCW30 Chipset Cooler
Swiftech MCR320-QP radiator
Swiftech MCRES-Micro Reservoir
Petra DDCT Pump

440x8= 3.52ghz
CPUv= 1.18125 (undervolted due to 440/1760mhz is the max stable bus/fsb speed I could run)
VTTv= 1.335
NBv= 1.543 (I know this is high, but it runs cold and needed to run 440mhz bus)

Been running at with this hardware in the P182 since April 08.

Overall I am very happy with the build, its nice having a case without a backpack radiator on it, and should help keep the radiator clean. I do wish the filter came out of the front of the bottom of the case, not the back.

















I forgot to take a picture of the P182 before I gutted, so I will throw in a crappy pic from a few months ago:

Man I really want that case.......

Wow, and i thought my P180 was huge, the Corsair is an absolute monster.

Wow that's a large case... Didn't realize it until you put her next to the P182. That thing is a titan. Although it's beautiful, I could never imagine lugging it around for lans.

Yeah, I thought my P182 was rather large (on the outside, it's cramped inside) but wow what a monster!

Looks like a great case for water cooling. How much does it weigh all said and done?

Thanks for the comments guys.

Fastfreak39 wrote:

Looks like a great case for water cooling. How much does it weigh all said and done?

I don't have an exact answer for that, yet. I have some new fans coming in this week, center rad fan is making a growling noise, so I am replacing all 3 of them since they are all sleeve bearing and will all be going out soon, when I do this, I will weight it. Even though it is heavy, not having that radiator on the outside makes it easy to carry around, when it was on the p182, it was just begging you to use it for a handle when carrying around, but the "radbox" is made of plastic and will snap easily.


Also, from the 2nd picture it looks like the radiator is covering all my expansion ports/IO panel, while this is not the case, it did make hooking up the hdmi cable on my video card very difficult. It was one of those situations where you had to bend the cable 90 degrees, contort your hand, hope it lines up right, and plug it in, while laying on the floor beneath they desk.


Its been awesome to be able to stand over the case, lean it forward and hook up all the cables, instead of getting on the floor. I am slightly OCD with my stuff, I unhook my computer and blow it out with my compressor every 30-60 days, so it was an issue with the P182.

It's an awesome case, but it really is just for the watercooling freaks. And while I wish I could count myself as one of them, my income says otherwise .

Airmantharp wrote:

It's an awesome case, but it really is just for the watercooling freaks. And while I wish I could count myself as one of them, my income says otherwise .

Agreed, although I am not hurting for money by any means, I am a stingy person, it was very hard to justify a $280 case. I sold my P182 to a friend for $100, so that helped some.

nice case! I like the cable management system.

I just picked up a new case as well but I went with the CoolerMaster ATCS 840.
I'll post pics of the build sometime when I have a chance to get through them.

It was between cooler master and corsair for me but the coolermaster is over $100 less, aluminum and has a motherboard tray.
There are nice things about the Corsair as well though.

Sold my board/cpu/ram to a friend, he asked me to build him a pc, so all in all cost me $180 to upgrade to an I7 950 ($300), 6gb g.skill PI, corsair 950 ($110), and evga x58 SLI (bstock $100). Also replaced all the hoses and went to compression fittings.
4.186ghz @ 1.425v (all other voltages stock), ddr3 @1456, uncore 3.094. Under prime it maxes around 72/71/68/67c.







Again, thanks to techreport for the review on this case a while back, I love it.