Thermaltake V3 Black Edition Review

Testing:

I ran the V3 Black Edition through the usual gauntlet of tests. I tested CPU temperatures, GPU temperatures, HDD temperatures, and chipset temperatures at both idle and full load. I used HwMonitor to check temps for GPU, HDD, and chipset and RealTemp for CPU temps. To generate load on the CPU and chipset I ran Prime95 in blend to stress these components. I ran this for an hour and then recorded the temperature at that time. For GPU load, I ran folding@home for an hour also and I used HDtune to generate load for the hard drive. For all idle tests, I simply allowed the system to idle for a whole hour and then recorded the temperatures.

Testing System:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale @ 3.00GHz
• Motherboard: DFI Lanparty UT P45-T2RS
• Memory: OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2-1066 2x2GB
• Graphics Card: VisionTek HD 4870 512MB
• Power Supply: OCZ GameXStream 600W
• Hard Drive: 1 x Seagate 320GB SATA 7200.10
• OS: Windows Vista Ultimate

Comparison Cases:

• Thermaltake Element T
• Thermaltake Element G
• NZXT M59 - 001BK
• CoolerMaster Storm Sniper Black Edition
• Thermaltake Element V
• NZXT Gamma

It seems that the V3 stuck right by the competition in just about everything. I was surprised to find though that the CPU load temperature was drastically different from the results that the other cases had. It is very likely because the case only has one fan, but one may never know for certain. For a sub-$50 case, however, I would say this one isn't half bad for what it has.