Five Eight-Slot Cases For SLI And CrossFire, Tested
The most hardcore gamers use multiple graphics cards in CrossFire and SLI configurations. And yet, slinging dual-slot cards together eats up a lot of expansion space. We compare five eight-slot cases with room for complex graphics configurations.
Benchmark Results: Heat And Noise
With two 180 mm fans blowing directly towards the CPU and graphics card, SilverStone’s lead at high fan speeds doesn’t surprise any of us. Instead, the real surprise is how closely the far-cheaper Rosewill Blackhawk falls behind it.
Cooler Master’s HAF X isn’t too far back there either, though it’s technically tied with the Raven RV03’s low-speed setting for third place. The Dragon Rider’s performance also looks quite good in a race this close, especially when we consider that its enormous side fan had to be pulled out to clear our CPU cooler.
Thermaltake’s intake fan doesn’t appear to be very effective, since changing its speed had no effect on GPU temperature. Speeding up its top-panel exhaust did aid CPU cooling, but only slightly.
The average temperature of the above chart is 53° Celsius. For our upcoming Acoustic Efficiency chart, we divide that number by the average temperature of each cases to create a percent scale, with the Raven RV03s high-speed fan setting at 111% and the Chaser MK-I's low-speed fan setting at 88%.
The Chaser MK-I is our quietest review sample when it's switched to a low fan speed, but it climbs to the middle of the graph with its fans turned up. A big increase in noise is a poor trade-off for a miniscule increase in cooling performance.
SilverStone’s Raven RV03 isn’t far behind Thermaltake in low-fan quietness. The big increase in idle noise from the faster fan-speed settings would force us to choose low-speed mode most of the time.
Decibels use a logarithmic scale, so a 3 db increase in SPL is immediately noticeable. The HAF X allows nearly four added decibels of system noise to escape compared to the second-place Raven RV03.
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Competitive in the cooling chart, Rosewill falls far behind most of the pack in noise isolation, exceeded only by the mesh-paneled Dragon Rider and full-speed Raven RV03 in this test of annoyance factor.
The average noise level for all of the above results is 37 decibels. We divided each case’s average noise level by 37 to determine a percent scale that awarded the quietest case the lowest number in our Acoustic Efficiency calculations, ranging from 91.1% for the Chaser MK-I to 107.7% for the Raven RV03 set to its highest fan setting.
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compton The Raven is an appealing case except for it's (supposedly removable) gold trim. That stuff might fly for Mr. T or Too Short, but not for most of the masses. It is truly ugly on the outside, but I like what's going on inside. In fact, I like most any case that deviates from the standard layout conventions, but damn, the RV-03 is fugly. I'm sticking to the Lian Li PC-A05NB for a while longer. You can make most cases quieter, but you can't really make most cases less fugly on the outside.Reply -
hammer256 @compton: why not go for the RV-02E then? It's much more subdued. In my opinion though, the true stunner is the FT-02. Now that is a case with a proper sense of style. Too bad it's quite a bit more expensive though.Reply -
hammer256 Should have mentioned that those cases don't have the 8th slot though, so I guess they won't work if that's what you need.Reply -
rylan Why did you test with a single graphics card? I thought the title of the review was Five Eight-Slot Cases FOR SLI AND CROSSFIRE, Tested.Reply
Just because a case performs well with a single graphics card doesn't mean it performs well in SLI or CrossFire. I know this from experience. -
mattmock It is important to note the >180mm PSU size requirements of the RV03. My Enermax 1050W wouldn't fit in the 03 so I ended up getting a rv02eReply -
hmp_goose The factory castors on my HAF 932 died rather quickly: I'd scrounge up a (metal) substitute set of wheels if I was thinking about another build.Reply -
chovav yeah come on guys, you don't even look at the temperature of the most important card, the 2nd, 3rd or 4th in SLI! isn't that why you chose a 8-slot case?Reply
This article misses the whole point! your could have used a mini-ITX board/case for all that matters.
Please do yourself a favor and revisit this article with 3/4 graphic cards this time! -
boltronics Yeah - one graphics card doesn't cut it when CrossFire and SLI are in the article name.Reply
I've got a HAF-X with 2x RadeonHD 6990 cards in CrossFire... and can confirm that you missed seeing all the flaws because you didn't review it properly.
1. The bracket doesn't cover the 6990s - it physically cannot be made to fit.
2. The fan sitting behind the graphics cards also does not fit with 6990s - they take up more room than the cards allow. Even if they did fit, it would never work with 4 graphics cards (if you were going that way) - it's only designed for 3!
3. My HAF-X case didn't come with the USB3 header cable. When I contacted CoolerMaster about this and asked them to send me one, they basically said "Yeah we announced we would send them out to people who missed out, but we only meant it if you're in the USA and you're not so..."
Further, the case cannot handle the heat. The top fan of the HAF-X above the CPU actually warped out of shape and started making a huge noise - the blades started hitting the metal insides of the case. I had to move the fan to the opposite side of the frame - hanging from the metal roof, instead of sitting on top of it.
And the alignment of the PCI slots is off. I originally intended to go 4-way SLI with my HAF-X (before going down the CrossFire path), and realised it would not be possible (using my Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9 at least). The top two PCI slot ports on the case do not match up with the top two slots on my motherboard! The third & forth case slot would be for graphics card 1, 5 & 6 would be for card 2, 7 & 8 would be for graphics card 3... but if I wanted a forth card, there is only one slot left!
Now, CoolerMaster did cut a hole internally so you could plug a card that overhangs unto the missing 10th slot... but one problem - since there is actually no 10th slot where the heck would all the hot-air go? Yep - straight back into the card. You would be mad to try it on air - otherwise the card would get GPU death.
Needless to say, deeply deeply disappointed with the HAF-X due to wanting a 4-card setup, which the case clearly isn't designed for. Your article missed every one of these flaws! -
JamesSneed The thought was good if the tittle was changed.Reply
Testing of multiple graphics cards mean more heat and a possibly a larger PSU. I read this thinking I would see answers to the following three questions. Do any of these cases struggle with the added heat from multiple graphics cards? Do any of these cases have an issue supporting larger PSU's? How is the acoustic efficiency when more heat has to be dissipated(do they get louder)?