Introduction
Right now, the hot ticket—no pun intended—is Intel’s Core i7 platform. Overclocked, an i7 920 is actually a reasonable proposition. And with most of the X58-based motherboards we’ve seen supporting CrossFire and SLI, your choice for budget-oriented multi-GPU setups is more diverse now than ever before. So, in the interest of testing out some of the full tower chassis that’ve landed in our lab during the past three months, we’ll be loading each up with a complete Core i7 setup, a couple of Radeon HD 4870s, and an assortment of hard drives. We’ll build up each enclosure, take note of any snags that hamper our progress, measure acoustics, measure thermals, and compare design philosophies.
Just who, exactly, is on our dance card ? We have ABS’ Canyon 695, with its elegant looks and performance-oriented construction, Antec’s Twelve Hundred, with its 12 drive bays, seven expansion slots, and massive coolers, Cooler Master’s beefy HAF 932, able to accommodate eATX motherboards and up to seven expansion slots, and Thermaltake’s Spedo, armed with its optional Advanced Package, said to improve cooling and prevent hot air from being re-circulated.
prices range from $150 to $600, so there’s undoubtedly something for everyone. If you’re building a gaming box with hardware that really needs to breathe, you won’t want to miss this comparison.
