As noted earlier, we would have liked a seventh fan to use for exhaust, and for long-term use with this system, we’d move one of the fans from up top if need be. For the sake of symmetry, we installed three on the bottom as intakes, and three up top where a radiator might go if you were installing one in the case. They aren’t the most vivid of RGB air movers, but the thin neon-like light strip that runs around the outside looks downright understated compared to the front panel and our next component. The version of the Inwin 309 case that the company is currently selling ships with no fans-something that’s becoming increasingly common in cases where companies know you’re going to be designing a showy build, and so will likely want to use specific spinners from another company.įor our purposes, InWin sent along a pair of three-packs of its Sirius Loop ASL120 fans. Maybe it’s time to implement a zero-RPM fan mode like many of your third-party partners?
But even at idle, I can hear the card’s fans spinning from across the room as I write this. That’s 1,000 points for aesthetics, Nvidia.
But the 2070 Super Founders Edition was close to hand, a capable performer, and I’d argue that-while it doesn’t light up beyond the GeForce RTX logo-its silver metal shell makes it prettier than the vast majority of third-party cards. This is another area where, given different circumstances, we probably would have gone with a flashier GPU with RGBs and some out-of-the-box overclocking. Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 2070 Super Founders Edition It’s hard to argue with free, especially when it’s this capable, pretty, and Intel doesn’t ship a cooler with its unlocked processors at all. The fact of the matter is, AMD’s Wraith Prism is more than good enough, delivering solid cooling, a little room for overclocking, and an RGB light ring and fan-all in a compact, easy-to-install package that comes free in the box with AMD’s Ryzen processor. But many etailers are experiencing shipping delays, our lab is currently locked down in Midtown Manhattan, and I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of trying to get one of our off-site writers to ship me something else. If the world weren’t upside down right now, we probably would have gone with an AIO for this build. But the company did send us six of its neon-like RGB Sirius Loop fans to get the air moving. This is further complicated by the fact that the current iteration of the InWin 309 ships without any fans at all. There are some cutouts on the steel right side panel of the case, but the vast majority of the system’s airflow is going to have to come in from the mesh bottom and be exhausted out of the back.
#PIXEL SORTER FREE PC PC#
Given that, it’s unlikely that the 309 would wind up on our list of best PC cases. The front panel is completely closed off from air, due to the addressable pixel array, and the top is a solid sheet of steel. While the light show up front is second to none, the 309 can be challenging - or at least counter-intuitive - from an airflow perspective. You can control the light show via buttons on the front-left edge, and switch between a number of built-in patterns (including some awesome retro-arcade designs), or you can design your own patterns via the company’s surprisingly slick and capable GLOW2 software. The brighter, edgier (and I’d argue sleeker) followup to the 307 that launched in 2018, InWin’s 309 is a tempered-glass midtower case with an eye-catching front panel that packs in 144 bright, addressable pixels. (Image credit: Tom's Hardware) Case: InWin 309 I eventually had to resort to electrical tape to hold them together, and even then it seemed like one or more would occasionally disconnect when I so much as looked at the system sideways.īefore I get too much more into the joys and frustrations of the Disco Pixel PC, let’s take a closer look at the parts I used. But I can now tell you from personal experience that three-pin RGB connectors get very finicky when you try and string six of them together and onto a motherboard connector. That meant I could plug them into headers on the board rather than having to wire everything to some kind of RGB/fan hub. And the spinners do have built-in fan and ARGB splitters so you can helpfully daisy chain them together. But InWin also sent along six of its Sirius Loop ASL120 fans. Storage wasn’t a problem, as I just went with what I had and slipped a 2TB Intel 660p (it’s a good budget drive, but not currently one of the best SSDs) in the first M.2 slot under the heat spreader of Gigabyte’s X570 Aorus Master motherboard.