Corsair Graphite Series 600T: Cool and Quiet
by Dustin Sklavos on November 26, 2010 2:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- 600T
Thermal and Noise Testing
For testing the 600T, I actually used the components from my personal system in the Antec P182. Noise was measured using an Extech SL10 sound meter, while temperatures were measured conventionally using HWMonitor. The test system specs are as follows:
| Test Configuration | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-930 overclocked to 3.6GHz, undervolted to 1.125v |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R rev. 2.0 |
| Graphics Card | XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 |
| Memory | 3x4GB Corsair Value Select DDR3-1333 |
| Drives |
Memorex DVD+/-RW Combo Drive LG HD-DVD/Blu-ray/DVDRW Combo Drive 2x Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB (RAID 1) 2x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB (RAID 0) Kingston SSDNow 64GB |
| CPU Cooler | Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283 w/ Nexus Silent 120mm Fan |
| Power Supply | Corsair 750HX Modular Power Supply |
My machine isn't particularly noisy to begin with, but it's reasonably powerful and the Core i7-930 can still generate its share of heat. To generate load temperatures and noise, I ran 3DMark06 in a loop with Prime95 in the background and left it running for fifteen minutes at a time. The system was tested with the fan controller at its lowest and highest settings, and the sound meter was positioned one foot away from the tower, on a tripod, pointed directly at the side of the case.
Right away we can tell the fan noise isn't appreciably higher with the controller maxed, but these numbers are also excellent. Subjectively, it has to be nearly dead silent in the apartment for me to be able to hear the tower running, idle or under load. And for those that are curious, the Nexus 120mm fan produces temperatures comparable to the Xigmatek's stock fan at substantially lower RPMs and noise levels.
Once we move into temperature testing, we can see that temperatures are generally pretty solid and that yes, all the other reviews are right: the fan controller and differing fan speeds just don't matter that much. The 200mm fans do seem to move enough air to keep everything fairly cool given the extreme load the system was placed under for stress testing. Since the hard drives are directly behind the front intake, they also remain exceptionally cool. As Martha Stewart would say, it's a good thing.
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philosofa - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
I like this case (albeit that I'm a bit of a side-window whore). But honestly.... as a man whose maleness was unaltered at birth... it reminds me of said personal 'maleness'. Seriously... the 600T appears to have a foreskin lol. Assuming this isn't some kind of Freudian thing, why on earth did they design the case in such a way?Ahh well... my search for a reasonably sized case with good cable routing, a side window, top-notch construction and cooling, good GPU clearance and good looks continues.
MeanBruce - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Side window, black powdercoat interior tool-less bays, multiple hdd and ssd configs, two 200mm fans, amazing airflow, room for my Noctua NH-D14, and 180mm Corsair HX-850 psu 4 optical bays for $99. Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced, available in US from the Cooler Master Store! Nothing like beautiful hardware through a window, Yeah Baby!dirtrat - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Dude, who cares! This isn't a review about your Cool Master case. What an idiotic post!MeanBruce - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
It wasn't an initial post, it was a response to philosofa, who said he was still searching for a case. The HAF Advanced might be what he is looking for. Try reading the above before shouting out dumbass, and if it doesn't concern you move along, what are you twelve?glad2meetu - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
The low cost of the Cooler Master case is offset by your need to add fans to address sound suppression issues. Many other cases also have fan related issues. A Noctura fan is $25+ dollars, which raises the system costs dramatically for a case. Some of the Cooler Master cases are also relatively ugly in appearance in my opinion. For the cost, there are a couple of Lian Li cases on sites such as Newegg which offer a better value, including some aluminum cases. For example, a Lian Li PC-P50WB for $190. Steel cases tend to be rather heavy, so I prefer aluminum if the price is not too high. I thought about this Corsair case, but the large fans in it do not provide enough air flow. I consider it to be one of the main problems with this case. I also have concerns about the Antec cases that generally get good recommendations on Anandtech since they have better airflow than this Corsair 600T case and reasonable sound suppression. My concern with Antec is multiple users have complained about poor ground connections leading to electrical shorts. I currently have a now outdated Antec case in a desktop system that I will be replacing with Sandy Bridge. This time I decided to go with Lian Li.USB 3.0 is still relatively early. I think it is going to be very successful over the next few years with a high adoption rate. Intel screwed up big time with USB 3.0. Luckily other tech companies are filling in the gaps for their screw up. I will probably go with AMD when Intel brings out their high cost light bridge systems in the future. I'm hoping AMD will be able to reduce their power consumption more in the future. I am also interested at looking at their merged CPU and GPU systems.
MeanBruce - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Corsair memory and PSUs are top shelf, but they are far behind in case design at least for air. If you can enjoy the rugged looks of the HAF 912 Advanced Edition there is no better air case on the market now. Air flow is so good I am running the extra large Noctua NH-D14 passively which looks amazing thru the window. I put 2 Noctua uln fans up front replacing the red led 200mm, Noctua 140mm in the psu, another uln for rear exhaust and attenuated the top Cooler Master 200mm black fan down to an 8db level using a blue in-line Noctua resistor. Left all the dust filters in place. Super quiet, super temps, super fast! $99, they said they were only getting 200 in for the US and Canada, I got number 4. And they will be offering a USB 3.0 module in a few months, right now the add on module is Asia-only. Hope this helps!bigboxes - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Fanboi much?abbeytim - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
try a nzxt tempest evophilosofa - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Forgot to say cheers for the review Dustin, top notch work :)semo - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
What's with all the USB 2.0 ports? Stopped reading right there. Why would I spend premium price on a case that is already outdated?