Sytrin Nextherm ICS 8200: The Air-Conditioned Mid Tower

High Electricity Bill Guaranteed

Even in offline mode, the case draws about 25 Watts.

It's no big secret that Peltier cooling is a very power-hungry proposition. However, our measurements showed that the case draws 25 watts even in offline mode. And that was when the case was still empty except for the Peltier devices and the 460 Watt power supply. We've had entire systems running with that much power!

Pressing the power button on the front of the case activates the two 80 mm fans, which raises the power consumption by 2 W. Activating the Peltier cooling system increased the power draw to 95 W. Again, remember, this is without a motherboard, any drives or a CPU installed! Let's do the math - say the computer (with the Nextherm case) runs about eight hours a day on average, five days a week. That comes to a good $75 or so per year right there. So much for energy efficiency.

The case's power usage with Peltier cooling and without additional hardware.