A case with water cooling for less
than $90
All-in-one liquid coolers are all the rage
at the moment, although the potential difficulty of installing them, or not
knowing whether your case is compatible, are issues that many less technical
enthusiasts are still trying to overcome. We reached a point some time ago
where models such as Corsair's H80 could perform better than high-end air
coolers, but cost a lot less than a custom water-cooling kit. There's plenty on
offer too, with prices ranging from $60 to over $151, making it harder to
justify opting for a custom CPU water-cooling loop
WCUK
starter cavalier mesh 120
This presents a challenge for water-cooling
etailers; although the big-spending enthusiast will stop at nothing to achieve
the looks and performance they desire, those with less money will undoubtedly
look at the new all-in-one coolers. However, one etailer, Water cooling UK, is
muscling in on the all-in-one cooler market by offering sealed units from
Corsair already mounted in various cases.
These sit alongside cases with custom
water-cooling gear pre-installed and, at the last count, Water cooling UK had
over 30 ready-made case and cooler combos from which to choose. They range from
the $90,66 WCUK Starter Cavalier Mesh 120 that we're reviewing here, all the
way up to Corsair's Obsidian 880D with separate pumps, water blocks and
radiators.
The Cavalier Mesh 120 uses Corsair's H60
cooler with a single 120mm fan installed as an intake at the rear of the case.
Meanwhile, the case itself is a Trendsonic Cavalier an ATX-sized case that
usually retails for around $30. Thankfully, its build quality isn't terrible,
and it doesn't look too cheap and tacky either, although it's devoid of
features you'd typically expect, such as USB 3, fan control and cable-routing
holes. However, when you consider that you're getting the case and
pre-installed cooler for less than the price of a Corsair H80 on its own, it
seemingly isn't bad value if you can live without modern creature comforts.
It's a small case too, measuring just 18cm
wide and 40cm high. Despite this, though, there's plenty of room for the
longest graphics cards, as there are no 3.5in drive cages in this area,
although there are three 3.5in bays elsewhere, one of which can also be used to
house a 2.5in SSD. Meanwhile, there's an additional 120mm fan at the front, and
the front panel offers four USB 2 ports plus the usual mini-jacks.
It's
a small case too, measuring just 18cm wide and 40cm high
Most of the drive bays feature tool-free
fittings, but that's it as far as extra features are concerned. Building a tidy
system will prove quite tricky; the severe lack of decent-sized cable-routing
holes means that you'll have to tuck spare cables into the drive cage. We also
spotted a potentially crippling flaw with the cooling. Both the rear and front
fans were acting as intakes, meaning that the system would be relying purely on
the graphics card to vent hot air from the case.
Performance
We fired up our usual case benchmarks - Prime
95 and Unigine’s Heaven graphics test to load the CPU and graphics card, and
waited for the temperatures to rise. They certainly did, and the graphics card
in particular struggled severely, reaching a delta T of 69°C with the absolute
temperature (the temperature reported by the software before we subtract the
ambient temperature) being over90°C.This is one of the worst results we’ve
recorded. The CPU wasn’t quite as bad, however, mainly because the Corsair H60
was drawing in cool air through its radiator. It recorded a peak delta T of 58°C
- still far from spectacular and way off the pace of some of the budget cases
we looked at in Issue 113, despite only using air coolers.
We then decided to see what happened if we
switched the rear fan to an exhaust, providing some relief to the graphics card
by helping to dispose of the hot air inside the case. This resulted in the GPU
delta T falling a remarkable 18°C from 69°C to 51 °C. The CPU delta T rose as a
result, but only by 2°C. While the thermal results were a bit of a disaster,
the case proved to be quiet for the most part, although that isn't really any
compensation for the poor graphics card, which was close to cooking itself,
with its fan ramping up to noisy levels during our benchmarks.
The
WCUK Starter Cavalier Mesh 120 is in dire need of more fans and an overhaul of
its cooling arrangement
Conclusion
Relying on your graphics card and/or PSU to
exhaust hot air from your case is always a recipe for disaster, even with a
low-end system. While we see better results from Corsair's all-in-one liquid
coolers with the fans acting as intakes, we only recommend this setup if you
have at least one case fan acting as an exhaust. Not doing so results in the
situation we have here; the hot air builds up and the graphics card simply
can't expel the heat fast enough. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that
there's no roof fan or even a vent.
The WCUK Starter Cavalier Mesh 120 is in
dire need of more fans and an overhaul of its cooling arrangement. As it
stands, it probably performs worse than if it contained a cheap tower air
cooler with the case fans in the usual intake and exhaust configuration. Even
when we switched the rear fan, this still meant that it was worse than many
budget air-cooled cases we've seen.
While the Starter Cavalier Mesh 120 might
have a temptingly cheap price, you'll actually get better results using a
Xigmatek's Midgard II and an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro, and you'll gain many useful
features in the process too. If you want to take your first, easy step into
liquid cooling, you'll be better off buying one of WCUK's pricier bundles
instead.
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Info
§ Price:
$89
§ SKU
number: WC-CAS-885
In Detail
§ Dimensions
(mm): 180 x 430 x 405(WxDxH)
§ Material:
Steel, plastic
§ Available
colors: Black
§ Weight:
4.8kg
§ Front
panel: Power, reset, 4xUSB2,stereo, mic
§ Drive
bays: 3x external 5.25in drive bays, 3 x internal, 3.5in drive bays, 1 x
internal 3.5in drive bay, 1 x internal 2.5in bay
§ Form
actor(s): ATX, micro-ATX, mini-ITX
§ Cooling:
1 x 120mm front mount (fan supplied), 1 x 120mm rear fan mount (fan
supplied), 1 x 120mmside fan mount (no fan supplied)
§ CPU
cooler clearance: (CPU cooler already installed)
§ Maximum
graphics card length: 350mm
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