ThermalTake A6000B Aluminum Case: Quiet Cooling

Cooling

We were very pleased to see all five fans were provided.  Furthermore, all of the supplied fans were ThermalTake 2050 RPM everflows.  While not the best fans on the market, the everflows are certainly better quality fans than we are used to seeing in a case.  The provided documentation with the case indicated the maximum air flow at 2050 RPM is 32 cubic feet per minute.  With two front intakes and two rear exhaust, that provides us with 64CFM (theoretical).  Will that be enough to cool off the monster heat rig we have in store?

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One thing to notice is that the two intake fans in the front of the chassis are located right next to the hard drive mounts The bottom fan is below the hard drive bay enough to provide optimal airflow, but the other fan is located in the 3.5” bay along with the drives.  This allows cool air to slip past the drives in the gaps between cooling off the hard drives.  This allows cool air to slip past the drives in the gaps between them, cooling off the hard drives.  Unfortunately, this also decreases the amount of cool air blown into the system both by warming the intake and by obstructing the flow.  If three hard drives are placed in front of this fan in the bay, it would be almost impossible for all 32CFM to pass through.  

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On the other hand, the fundamental material of the case itself is what is supposed to provide the largest cooling advantage.  We all know from high school science that the larger the surface area of a metal, the more cooling that can occur.  Heat sinks are constructed of dense fins to provide the most surface area possible. In a case, this surface area is provided by the large area of metal that the case consists of.   Because the power supply and hard drives all make contact with aluminum components, the expected result would be that the heat dissipates along all of the aluminum components into the cooler areas.  Well, in theory anyway. In actuality, the contacts made between the components and the case are fairly weak (only a few screws in some cases) meaning that the heat produced by the hot components does not always effectively reach the case.