Antec Skeleton Review

Testing:

To test the Antec Skeleton, I will be running a series of temperature tests in order to find maximum temperatures during an idle state and under load. The temperatures collected will be from the CPU, the video card, the hard drive, and the chipset of the motherboard. To simulate an idle state the computer will sit for 30 minutes while making sure nothing is running (except what loads with Windows) and then temperature readings will be recorded. For a load environment, I will run Prime 95, HDTune, and 3DMark Vantage simultaneously for one hour.

Temperatures readings will be recorded at that time. To gather the temperatures I will use Real Temp 2.7 for the CPU, Easy Tune 5 Pro for the chipset/system, HD Tune for the hard drive, and Catalyst Control Center 8.10 for the video card. Cooling for the cases will only be the stock cooling that came with the cases, no fans will be added and the CPU cooler will be the stock Intel cooler that came with the CPU. I will be comparing the Antec Skeleton to Danger Den's Torture Rack to get an idea of where it stands against another open air chassis. The same hardware was used in each case for accurate numbers and to alleviate the possibility of contamination of the scores by different hardware.

• Processor: Intel Q9450 Core 2 Quad 333x8
• Motherboard: Gigabyte X48-DQ6
• Memory: Mushkin XP2 8000 Redline 2 x 2GB 5-5-5-12
• Video Card: Sapphire HD 4850 w/ Catalyst 8.10
  
• Power Supply: Mushkin 800watt Power Supply
• Hard Drive: 1 x Seagate 1TB 7200.11 SATA
• Opticals: Asus Blu-ray Drive
• O/S: Windows Vista Home Premium
• Ambient Temperature: 24 degrees Celsius

Comparison Cases:

• Danger Den Torture Rack

The Skeleton edges out the Torture Rack in every test.  Since both are in the same open air environment, I would imagine the 250mm fan provides the advantage in this case.