Enlight Extreme Gamers PC Case

Assembly and Testing

To see how well it copes with a fair amount of heat in it we fitted it with enough hardware to keep even the best ventilated case busy cooling. The specs are as follows:

• Gigabyte GA 81955 X Royal Motherboard
• Intel Pentium 4 3.4EE LGA775 fitted with an Intel retail Heatsink and overclocked to 3.73GHz
• 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair XMS2 5400 RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT fitted with standard Heatsink
• 2 x Samsung Spinpoint SATA 120GB HDD
• 2 x Western Digital WD400JB 40GB HDD
• Sony DVD Drive
• Plextor SATA DVD-RW Drive
• Floppy Drive

No additional fans were added to the case, and once built, proper cable management was carried out to not impede airflow.

Fitting most of the internal components proved to be easy. Although the space inside is not massive, and there is no removable motherboard tray getting all of the above in took very little time thanks to the screwless design.


It wasn't until we came to fit the PSU that we found what could only be described as a very bad design flaw. As you can see from the above photograph the PSU, an Enermax Coolergiant, simply did not fit. The top 92mm fan and its shroud stopped us getting our chosen Power Supply into the case. The only way we could have fitted the PSU in would have been by removing the fan and shroud, killing one of the features I would consider essential for a high power system.

The problems didn't end there: we tried to remove the shroud only to see that it was screwed in from above. This means there is no way to actually get to the screws to remove the top fan without dismantling the whole top part of the case. It seems that Enlight has taken the ATX PSU size specifications and built a case around them, quite a poor show.

Once we bodged the PSU in, we hooked it up and pressed the power button. We were greeted by the glow of the Enlight badge, etched through the top panel. We looped 3DMark for a few hours and measured the system temperature throughout using the CPU diode and a hand-held K-Type thermometer with a probe placed on the inside of the case, one on the exhaust fan and one on the side fan. This was repeated for both the standard and Extreme sidepanels.

Before testing, with an ambient temperature of 21C, the system temperatures settled at 27/29/26/23C(internal-->CPU-->rear/side). The Galatin-cored Intel Pentium 4 3.4EE processor runs cooler than an equivalent Prescott, so we overclocked it up to 3.73GHz to really push the envelope.


As you can see the Extreme sidepanel does in fact make a difference to the internal and exhaust temperatures. However, the indication on the CPU remained the same, suggesting that the duct over the CPU fan is of little use compared to the 120mm fan on the Extreme.

Under load most of the temperatures increase inline, with the difference between load and idle results down to just a few degrees. Once again the Extreme sidepanel seems to perform a little better, this could be down to increased airflow created by the 120mm or possibly because the CPU duct is no longer impeding airflow through the case.

The noise level wasn't unbearable but the 92mm fans were definately noticeable, although with the Extreme panel the loudness remained the same. I doubt you would even notice the fans if you were in a LAN environment, but at home you might find it tiring. The case was rattle and creak-free throughout testing - a tick in the box for that at least goes to Enlight. I was disappointed that I couldn't test the case with the 92mm fan on the top vent but I expect this would have only made the fan whine louder.


Was it extreme enough for us? Click Next page for the answer...