Cougar Evolution Chassis Review

Testing:

Testing the COUGAR Evolution required pushing my hardware to heat things up. Testing involved recording temperatures for the CPU, GPU, chipset, hard drives, and overall system during idle and load phases. Load was simulated by running Prime95’s small FFTs, HD Tune, and 3Dmark Vantage for one hour. The maximum temperatures were recorded using HW Monitor. It is important to note that each case is tested from its factory setup, including location of included fans, unless otherwise noted.

Lucky for you, I’ve got plenty of chassis’ here for review, so expect to be seeing some more results for comparison over the next few weeks. New hardware always puts a damper on the number of comparable results for a short time.

Testing Setup:

• Processor: Core i7 2600K @ 4.4 GHz (100 MHz x 44)
• CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P SE 1366
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z68AP-D3
• Memory: Mushkin 991996 Redline PC3-17000 9-11-10-28 8 GB
• Video Card: XFX HD 6970
• PSU: Antec TruePower New TP-750
• Hard Drives: OCZ Agility 3 120 GB, 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 RAID 1
• Optical Drive: N/A
• OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit SP1

Comparison Cases:

• Corsair 600T
• Corsair 650D
• Thermaltake Overseer RX-I

Results:

Overall performance was about average. Idle temps were consistently a smidge higher than the other comparison cases and the chipset was noticeably warmer at idle as well. I’m not really sure what contributed to these higher temperatures, as the case body isn’t much different than the others. Either way, it didn’t perform significantly well or poor; it was on par with other cases in its category, which is a positive. At this point now, it’s a matter of a degree or two and the comparison of appearance with competing cases.