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Test Results & Conclusion
Likely due to its upside-down default orientation, the GT1 skews temperature away from the CPU and towards the GPU. Anyone who thinks this isn’t an adequate selection of cases for the comparison should consider airflow, rather than size, as airflow is the greater share of cooling performance.
Unfortunately, the GT1’s tiny front panel fan is a little noisy. Due to its size, it’s probably also unnecessary.
Moderate cooling performance and excessive noise from the front fan cause the GT1 to rank poorly in our cooling-to-noise ratio chart.
The cooling-to-noise ratio also hurts the GT1’s value score, in spite of its moderate $120 price.
Of course, some readers are willing to pay more to get a larger case. If we offset the price of the GT1 by -$40 to account for its greater mounting space (supporting more drives and larger motherboards), its value score climbs to 5% above average, while the Z11 Neo’s drops to 33% above average. Plus, if we disconnect the front fan to reduce noise, its value score climbs further to 18% above average while the Z11 Neo’s drops to 27% above average. We could have also reassembled the system with the motherboard tray flipped, but I think the average reader already gets the point that the GT1 can deliver reasonable value to builders who need its extra size.
Conclusion
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