Deepcool Steam Castle Review

Performance Analysis

The CPU delta T of 52°C is reasonable considering just how quiet the chassis is, even at full speed, where we struggled to hear the fan noise. This result is a 4°C improvement on that of the Dead Silence as well, likely because the slightly more ventilated front panel makes the 200mm fan more effective. The full speed GPU delta T result of 56°C, on the other hand, is very much on the warm side, and in a turn of events is 4°C worse than the Dead Silence's best result, which was using its ventilated mesh roof fitting. In fact, we found that having this roof really helped the graphics card's cooling, improving its result by 6°C compared to the solid, vent-free one. As such, the Steam Castle's poorer performance here is almost certainly a result of its roof not being as ventilated as that of the Dead Silence.


Switching to minimum speed, the CPU only increases by 2°C, but the GPU suffers more and increases by 6°C to a delta T of 62°C, which is the warmest we've seen it get in any micro-ATX chassis. We also noticed that there was really no audible difference between the highest and lowest fan speeds, so really there isn't a reason to use the low setting unless you're already in a very quiet room and using very quiet hardware that doesn't require much in the way of airflow to stay cool enough. While the Steam Castle is evidently designed to be a quiet chassis, Deepcool could easily have gotten away with using faster fans, as this would have given the case a better range of cooling performance, much like the Deep Silence 4 has.

We should also point out that there was a quiet but irritating hum coming from the fan/LED controller when the LEDs were switched to pulsing mode, so we'd avoid using this setting.

Conclusion

While externally the Dead Silence and Steam Castle are very different, the shared internal design means that they are natural points of comparison to each other, and also that most of what actually matters (at least from a review standpoint) is the same or very similar. The out-of-box cooling from the Steam Castle is adequate but far from amazing, and if you're running one or even two mid-range or high-end graphics cards then an extra quiet fan or two fitted to the roof would make an appreciable difference. On the plus side, the noise levels of the case are very low, so for a discrete build the Steam Castle is a good contender.

The addition of fan and LED control is, on paper at least, a good thing, but it's not as effective as it could be and it makes cable management that little bit harder as well. Nevertheless, the spacious interior and multiple removable drive cages makes the Steam Castle flexible and capable of housing a powerful rig, even if you're inclined towards water-cooling (the PSU limitation will need to be remembered, however). The Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 and Nanoxia Deep Silence 4 can both be had for similar prices and are ultimately better cases (the former being great for cooling, the latter for low noise), but if you're seeking a cuboid design then the Steam Castle has plenty going for it.