One part case, one part cooler, eight parts awesome

Posted 05/09/2007 at 12:32pm | by David Murphy

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Alas, the RAM fan and the PCI fan aren't included in the final packaging, far as we can tell. They do add a nice touch of color to an otherwise lifeless case.

As you can see, the big-ass Boreas cooler chops your ability to expand much into the 5.25" bays. But come on, now; three should be enough for anybody. Two optical drives, one soundcard port. Done and done. Unless, of course, you're one of those crazy modding types that likes to stick all kinds of information-themed displays in the front. By that same logic, though, you likely won't be buying a pre-built cooling system, and thus, would have no need for the Silverstone-CoolIT deal. But I digress.

For overkill, the Silverstone case even includes two fan mounts on the side. You know. In case the water cooling setup, RAM fan, PCI fan, hard drive fans, and power supply fan weren't enough of a tornado-in-a-box. But hey, we can't fault a case for offering too many options, right?

For a water cooled rig, this case goes pretty heavy into the air side of the equation as well.

The Boreas cooler comes with a block for your CPU, as well as two graphics cards. While the cooler for the 8800 doesn't quite fit the entire card the way other water blocks do, it's still a far better solution than trying to use air to chill these warm monstrosities. The Boreas itself rolls with 12 ThermoElectric Coolers (peltiers) -- three times that of CoolIT's Eliminator Cooler. Attached to the large heatsink are four fluid heat exchangers, which house the TECs. At its peak, the giant cooler pulls in 130 watts of juice... and turns you deaf, as the two attached 120 CFM fans redefine the notion of "kicking it into high gear."

You don't want to know how tempted we were to strap a beer can around this thing and see how frosty a beverage we could get...