Raidmax Alpha Prime Case Review

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By Thomas Soderstrom
published

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Benchmarks & Conclusion

Glass can really hurt cooling performance, but that deficit can easily be overcome by increasing airflow. The Raidmax Alpha Prime has three intake fans, but still has too little airflow to match two of its competitors. A closer look at the fans revealed that they spin very slowly (with no RPM detection), and a closer look at the front panel reveals that these fans draw air from small slots on its sides. These features could prove beneficial in our noise measurement.

Unfortunately, the Alpha Prime’s noise level is roughly average and exceeded only by the open-faced Meshify C. At least the pitch of its fans is low enough not to be intrusive.

The Meshify C’s higher noise level also came with improved temperatures, and the Nova TG’s lower noise levels came at higher temperatures. That puts the Raidmax Alpha Prime in fourth place, edging out the low-cost Nova TG in our Acoustic Efficiency chart.

The Nova TG didn’t even have a power supply shroud, let alone RGB lighting, and the price relief of its reduced feature set put it far ahead of every other case in today’s comparison. Meanwhile, the Alpha Prime edges out the slightly costlier Aurora.

None of the comparison cases had the level of lighting present in the Alpha Prime, and builders preoccupied with appearance will certainly be willing to pay a little extra for that feature. The Alpha Prime is simply a stunning-looking case.

From a performance aspect, only the Meshify C and S340 Elite will appeal to users with the type of hardware used in our test, which includes a high-end graphics card and mildly-overclocked 6-core CPU. A larger CPU cooler would have helped, but our test configuration was set up to push cases that performed at this level to the edge of failure. Mission accomplished.

We’d say that buyers of the Alpha Prime might overcome its lackluster thermal performance by replacing its fans, but its fans are wired for its RGB controller. The case appears to make its best case to buyers of mid-performance PCs who want the bling of something far pricier.

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Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
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7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • veiledcas
    Question, how are those 3 front fans being fed air? Looks like there is next to no gap at all...

    In fact why are there so many cases with the same issue with utterly abysmal air flow to the front fans....
    Reply
  • Crashman
    20162511 said:
    Question, how are those 3 front fans being fed air? Looks like there is next to no gap at all...

    In fact why are there so many cases with the same issue with utterly abysmal air flow to the front fans....
    It's discussed in the article: See those holes tucked behind the edge of the front panel?

    Reply
  • Gillerer
    I think there's something strange going on with the CPU temperature values in the graph.

    1) Are you using Fahrenheit for the temperature deltas? :-O

    2) Or the values are not actually "over ambient" but actual temperatures. I find it difficult to believe that you would be running the CPU at up to 119°C (assuming ambient of about 20°C)...

    3) Or maybe your ambient is close to 0°C? :-)

    If using °F, could you please label it as such, and add another graph with Celsius/Kelvin? Temperature differences in °F are pretty much impossible to grasp for most of the World unless you do the math for each value.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    20162625 said:
    I think there's something strange going on with the CPU temperature values in the graph.

    1) Are you using Fahrenheit for the temperature deltas? :-O

    2) Or the values are not actually "over ambient" but actual temperatures. I find it difficult to believe that you would be running the CPU at up to 119°C (assuming ambient of about 20°C)...

    3) Or maybe your ambient is close to 0°C? :-)

    If using °F, could you please label it as such, and add another graph with Celsius/Kelvin? Temperature differences in °F are pretty much impossible to grasp for most of the World unless you do the math for each value.
    1.) No, the temperatures were that bad
    2.) No, we have the cuttoff point set to 115° in BIOS just for cases that perform this poorly, and occasionally lower the room temperature when one takes a while to reach the cutoff point.
    3.) No, that was for the Lian-Li case (it was at 5° Celsius). This one was around 17° IIRC.

    The test system is set up to produce CPU temperatures in the low 90 °C's on well-cooling cases, at 21°C ambient. Some cases just have poor airflow.
    Reply
  • takeshi7
    That's pathetically poor design on the front ventilation. I'm no case engineer, but even I could tell that those holes are way too small and restrictive for 3 front fans.
    Reply
  • zthomas
    I got this case.. cards run cool.. also have outside fans hitting case.. when running warm.. case's need dust catchers that are easy to clean from outside the case..
    Reply
  • teknobug
    Inadequate ventilation on the front faceplate for THREE fans and looks like those 3 cans would be starving for air, it's a big fat minus for that case.

    That PSU filter looks like a pain in the butt to remove.
    Reply