Testing

Testing the LQ1000 was a little different to our usual testing techniques, not least because we couldn’t use our normal Asus Silent Square Pro heatsink – it’d hardly be fair to test a case with inbuilt watercooling with an air cooler. However, other than the CPU cooler we still used the identical hardware that we’ve used in the past, so here’s a reminder of the full hardware we use.

• CPU: Lapped Intel Pentium XE 955 (dual-core, 3.46GHz)
  
• Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 Ultimate passive cooled
  
• Motherboard: MSI P6N SLI Platinum
  
• RAM: 2x 512MB Corsair XMS2-667
  
• Hard Drive: 1x 250GB Western Digital WD2500 7,200RPM
  
• Heatsink: Asus Silent Square Pro
  
• Power Supply: Xilence XP700 700W PSU

While this isn't representative of current ultra high end hardware, the equipment we use is specifically selected to kick out maximum heat inside the case, with a passively cooled graphics card and 130W TDP processor at its core to really heat things up and push the case's ability to cope with toasty components to the limit. Thanks to the inbuilt fan and pump controls, we tested the Zalman ZMachine LQ1000 at both full speed and low speed to get an idea of its performance at both ends of the noise scale.

With the advantage of an enormous 240mm cooling fan blowing directly onto the graphics card and a watercooled CPU, we were expecting some seriously impressive results, and we certainly weren’t disappointed!