Shame, I saw this on their website a few weeks ago and thought it would make a nice budget case, unfortunately the pricing is just too high. As you have said its among some stiff competition in that price range.
Im sorry but if you're going to market a case as a 'sharkoon Rebel 9 aluminium case' then it should be all alu imo. The name is misleading , when i first saw it on their site i must say i thought it could be a great all alu case.
I too saw this case and thought it looked too cheap to be all aluminium. I couldn't find any reviews, or indeed anything other than the Sharkoon marketing, to be able to find out more. This review has confirmed my suspicions although I was kind of hoping for better.
One thing - the case performed so badly in the cooling test because there was only one (intake) fan. I understand and agree with the BT policy of testing cases as they come but surely common sense dictates that a case with no exhaust fan isn't worth testing with passively cooled hardware - it is sort of a waste of time isn't it?
Surely no one with any hint of a brain would expect to run this case with only the single fan in the front? Could you have switched the supplied fan to be a rear exhaust at least?
Just my thoughts, it doesn't change the poor construction quality.
Edit: this isn't a criticism of the review, just an observation that if Sharkoon had shipped BT the case with the single fan in the rear instead of the front it might have peformed averagely instead of woefully. :-)
Its not though its just a complete lie, Ok in the pdf on the site, it states 'a huge alu faceplate' or something similar, but nowhere does it say that its a steel case with JUST an alu front.
One thing - the case performed so badly in the cooling test because there was only one (intake) fan. I understand and agree with the BT policy of testing cases as they come but surely common sense dictates that a case with no exhaust fan isn't worth testing with passively cooled hardware - it is sort of a waste of time isn't it?
Surely no one with any hint of a brain would expect to run this case with only the single fan in the front? Could you have switched the supplied fan to be a rear exhaust at least?
Its tough when we're testing cases, there are so many variables in terms of number of fans, where they are placed and if they are push or pull, that the fairest and simplest thing to do is to test the cases as they come.
If we start moving fans around we open ourselves up to all sorts of debates about what the best fan configuration is, we also think that part of the process of designing a case is choosing where to mount the bundled fans. Manufacturers have to make sensible design choices about where to place their fan mounts, they should also have to make sensible choices when it comes to where to mount their fans.
At the end of the day the manufacturers know that this is how we test when they send their products to us.
Also while using the single fan as an exhaust may be common sense to you it many not be that way for all of our readers.
Originally Posted by Material Its tough when we're testing cases, there are so many variables in terms of number of fans, where they are placed and if they are push or pull, that the fairest and simplest thing to do is to test the cases as they come.
If we start moving fans around we open ourselves up to all sorts of debates about what the best fan configuration is, we also think that part of the process of designing a case is choosing where to mount the bundled fans. Manufacturers have to make sensible design choices about where to place their fan mounts, they should also have to make sensible choices when it comes to where to mount their fans.
At the end of the day the manufacturers know that this is how we test when they send their products to us.
Also while using the single fan as an exhaust may be common sense to you it many not be that way for all of our readers.
I agree with your stance otherwise you would spend all your time rebuilding cases rather than testing them. As my edit states, it is not a criticism of the review.
It just doesn't make sense to me, I think Sharkoon stuffed up here a bit by supplying the case with the fan in the front. What happens if a noob buys it and doesn't put a rear fan in? The thing will overheat.
Originally Posted by Fingers66 I agree with your stance otherwise you would spend all your time rebuilding cases rather than testing them. As my edit states, it is not a criticism of the review.
Thanks, I wasn't trying to rebuff a perceived criticism, just kinda explaining why we do it the way we do, apologies if I came off as defensive.
We've actually been talking about revising our case testing procedure as we'd like to do another case group test for the mag with more up to date kit. Its just a minefield of variables but hopefully we can get it ironed out.
No worries, I wasn't taking it that way, I was just concerned that my first post sounded negative of BT rather than Sharkoon or the case.
Talking of case testing procedures, have you seen the youtube video of Silverstone testing the FT01 with a smoke machine to demonstrate positive air pressure? An idea for bit-tech? :D
Seriously though, a thermal photograph showing where the heat spots are in a case when under CPU and/or GPU load would graphically demonstrate thermal performance - I wonder if that can be done easily and cheaply?
Originally Posted by The Article These open fan mounts did help the Rebel9 to cool out hardware though we could feel the CPU cooler sucking cool air in through the roof and side panel mounts.
This has me confused - did you test the case with a conventional CPU cooler with a fan or just the passive one?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fingers66 Seriously though, a thermal photograph showing where the heat spots are in a case when under CPU and/or GPU load would graphically demonstrate thermal performance - I wonder if that can be done easily and cheaply?
I think they did this a while back in CPC, they had to borrow the thermal camera from somewhere and it wasn't cheap!
I've used it several times now for budget builds, and it always did a marvellous job. Sure, it's not the quitest and sturdiest, but at 50€ there are far worse cases out there. Especially since you don't have to buy any extra case fans.
Originally Posted by TWeaK This has me confused - did you test the case with a conventional CPU cooler with a fan or just the passive one?
The Asus silent square that we use has a fan in it yes, you cant see it very easily though as its in the middle of the fins. It was this that was sucking in air through the side mounts.
The graphics card we test with has a passive cooler though.
Seriously though, a thermal photograph showing where the heat spots are in a case when under CPU and/or GPU load would graphically demonstrate thermal performance - I wonder if that can be done easily and cheaply?
Yea tweak is correct we've done this before in the mag for our case group tests. You have to bind up the side with thick cling film to simulate the side panel being in place but still allow the camera to 'see' the heat.
We'd love to do it again but its getting to be a less and less valid test as more cases these days have fans mounted on the side panel. We obviously can't mount side panel fans on the cling film and leaving the panel in place means the camera cant see anything.
We could just test without the side panel fans but its not really fair on manufacturers who bundle them with the case.
Its a shame really, I'd love to get to play with a thermal camera.
Shows the weakness of abandoning the ATX formfactor and placing the PSU in the bottom where it doesn't help the CPU heatsink.
Then again, with a couple of slow, silent fans on the huge exhaust area's, performance would probably be a lot better.
And for a passively cooled system, the heatsink couldn't be in a better position.
Bought this case a few weeks ago and I'm very happy with it so far.
Got it because I wanted the smallest, high quality, understated ATX case I could get with decent cooling options. Didn't like the Antec 300 - looks tacky imho. So far, overall build quality is almost as good as the Antec Mini P180 I use for my home server. In terms of the front plates, quality control is lacking and 2 on mine were dented. Swapped these out anyway for optical drive and other bay units so no loss. In defence of the alu thing, my last case was all alu and was really easy to scratch. This offers some of the looks but you don't have to handle it like a newborn.
Immediately installed a lower side fan, rear fan and top 140mm fan - cost about £15 extra in fans - massive temperature improvement. Fitted my PSU upside down as I didn't fancy using it like a vacuum cleaner. Got an i7 930 + Megahalems running stable at 4GHz using this set-up after 2 hours of tweaking - my first attempt at OCing an i7.
£65 got me quite a nice set-up tbh. There are other cases out there in this price bracket but the difference in overall quality is negligible and most are either much larger and/or ugly. I've modded mine a bit since then by installing Lian Li mesh bay covers and putting 2 fans up front for extra cooling when I go crossfire.
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ReplyIs the price of aluminium rising drastically, or are manufacturers just increasingly wanting to rip customers off?
Epic fail imo.
One thing - the case performed so badly in the cooling test because there was only one (intake) fan. I understand and agree with the BT policy of testing cases as they come but surely common sense dictates that a case with no exhaust fan isn't worth testing with passively cooled hardware - it is sort of a waste of time isn't it?
Surely no one with any hint of a brain would expect to run this case with only the single fan in the front? Could you have switched the supplied fan to be a rear exhaust at least?
Just my thoughts, it doesn't change the poor construction quality.
Edit: this isn't a criticism of the review, just an observation that if Sharkoon had shipped BT the case with the single fan in the rear instead of the front it might have peformed averagely instead of woefully. :-)
I've got a bunch of marketing text books that says its not.
Its not though its just a complete lie, Ok in the pdf on the site, it states 'a huge alu faceplate' or something similar, but nowhere does it say that its a steel case with JUST an alu front.
Its tough when we're testing cases, there are so many variables in terms of number of fans, where they are placed and if they are push or pull, that the fairest and simplest thing to do is to test the cases as they come.
If we start moving fans around we open ourselves up to all sorts of debates about what the best fan configuration is, we also think that part of the process of designing a case is choosing where to mount the bundled fans. Manufacturers have to make sensible design choices about where to place their fan mounts, they should also have to make sensible choices when it comes to where to mount their fans.
At the end of the day the manufacturers know that this is how we test when they send their products to us.
Also while using the single fan as an exhaust may be common sense to you it many not be that way for all of our readers.
I agree with your stance otherwise you would spend all your time rebuilding cases rather than testing them. As my edit states, it is not a criticism of the review.
It just doesn't make sense to me, I think Sharkoon stuffed up here a bit by supplying the case with the fan in the front. What happens if a noob buys it and doesn't put a rear fan in? The thing will overheat.
Thanks, I wasn't trying to rebuff a perceived criticism, just kinda explaining why we do it the way we do, apologies if I came off as defensive.
We've actually been talking about revising our case testing procedure as we'd like to do another case group test for the mag with more up to date kit. Its just a minefield of variables but hopefully we can get it ironed out.
Talking of case testing procedures, have you seen the youtube video of Silverstone testing the FT01 with a smoke machine to demonstrate positive air pressure? An idea for bit-tech? :D
Seriously though, a thermal photograph showing where the heat spots are in a case when under CPU and/or GPU load would graphically demonstrate thermal performance - I wonder if that can be done easily and cheaply?
This has me confused - did you test the case with a conventional CPU cooler with a fan or just the passive one?
I think they did this a while back in CPC, they had to borrow the thermal camera from somewhere and it wasn't cheap!
Yeah, they cost £50k, I have been chatting about it in another thread so as to not hijack this one :|
http://www.abload.de/img/365064vbs2zm.png
I've used it several times now for budget builds, and it always did a marvellous job. Sure, it's not the quitest and sturdiest, but at 50€ there are far worse cases out there. Especially since you don't have to buy any extra case fans.
The Asus silent square that we use has a fan in it yes, you cant see it very easily though as its in the middle of the fins. It was this that was sucking in air through the side mounts.
The graphics card we test with has a passive cooler though.
Yea tweak is correct we've done this before in the mag for our case group tests. You have to bind up the side with thick cling film to simulate the side panel being in place but still allow the camera to 'see' the heat.
We'd love to do it again but its getting to be a less and less valid test as more cases these days have fans mounted on the side panel. We obviously can't mount side panel fans on the cling film and leaving the panel in place means the camera cant see anything.
We could just test without the side panel fans but its not really fair on manufacturers who bundle them with the case.
Its a shame really, I'd love to get to play with a thermal camera.
Then again, with a couple of slow, silent fans on the huge exhaust area's, performance would probably be a lot better.
And for a passively cooled system, the heatsink couldn't be in a better position.
Got it because I wanted the smallest, high quality, understated ATX case I could get with decent cooling options. Didn't like the Antec 300 - looks tacky imho. So far, overall build quality is almost as good as the Antec Mini P180 I use for my home server. In terms of the front plates, quality control is lacking and 2 on mine were dented. Swapped these out anyway for optical drive and other bay units so no loss. In defence of the alu thing, my last case was all alu and was really easy to scratch. This offers some of the looks but you don't have to handle it like a newborn.
Immediately installed a lower side fan, rear fan and top 140mm fan - cost about £15 extra in fans - massive temperature improvement. Fitted my PSU upside down as I didn't fancy using it like a vacuum cleaner. Got an i7 930 + Megahalems running stable at 4GHz using this set-up after 2 hours of tweaking - my first attempt at OCing an i7.
£65 got me quite a nice set-up tbh. There are other cases out there in this price bracket but the difference in overall quality is negligible and most are either much larger and/or ugly. I've modded mine a bit since then by installing Lian Li mesh bay covers and putting 2 fans up front for extra cooling when I go crossfire.
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