Thermal And Acoustic Test Results
Thanks to its eight-fan cross-flow configuration, AIO Corporation’s DRN-STN facilitates lower temperatures than the top three performers from our eleven-way gaming case round-up. CPU temperatures appear especially low, and part of the credit for that is likely due to the way the unrestricted top intake and top exhaust fans align with the intake and exhaust sides of our CPU cooler (unlike the variation of this idea used in ASRock’s M8).
Finding a noisier angle from which to test the DRN-STN is certainly possible, but not practical since you're going to sit directly in front of this system's screen. Typically, the same is not true of mid-tower cases, so those get tested at an appropriate 45° angle.
AIO’s implementation of a double-walled plastic housing outside of its ATX case is surely worth some mention as well, since it does a splendid job reducing high-pitched fan whine. The graphics card vent still blows almost directly out the right side of the DRN-STN.
This platform presents two faces in high-speed fan mode, becoming the second-noisiest configuration when internal components are idle and the quietest when those components are fully loaded. That means it does the best job of isolating you from the noise of internal components, even though the noise of its own fans is fairly pronounced.
The DRN-STN is consistently the quietest when set to low-speed fan mode, but that setting significantly raises GPU temperature. It’s nice, then, that manual fan controls are located right in front of you, on the screen frame.
