Zalman TNN 300 review,
Whilst browsing through the usual notebooks, projectors, motherboards, and hard drives on display, I came across a stand from zalman, normally, this isn’t much to write home about, but there were two main reasons why this caught my eye. 1. This was an open-air technology show in beamish, north Yorkshire. Meaning it was a very small, low key affair, usually not populated by the likes of zalman..this meant they were up to something. 2. The stand didn’t just have the usual heat sink offerings on it, it had two very distinct looking cases.
The zalman TNN 500, and more notably, the brand new TNN 300
Due to the ATX style size of the case, I immediately assumed it was for those boards, but on closer examination, it was in fact built for the micro ATX style.
It’s an unusual looking thing to say the least.. Firstly, it rotates…why it does this, even the representative on hand couldn’t even tell me this, but sure enough, it stands around 6 inches off the ground on a single, circular rotating leg. Secondly, it has 3 huge out of case heat sinks, which heat up to around 90 *c when any AMD or Pentium processor is under strain. Despite its obsidian black finish, it still reminds me strongly of the old tye fighters from star wars.
Included with the case is a power unit, weighing in at 350 watts, and a triple layer DVD RAM drive.
That’s enough grunt to power any micro atx board, and a nice drive to go with it.
But on to the actual gubbins of the case…when you open it up(which I was allowed to do once the nice lady guarding it realised that I wasn’t a fool
) is breathtaking. The whole thing isn’t just a case, it’s a massive part of the computer. Copper heat pipes lead off everywhere from the CPU, hdd, gpu, northbridge. You also get a load of other heat sinks with it, for if you need to cool SLI cards, RAID HDD’s, or some of the more exotic parts in it..Theres even a bizarre looking contraption for cooling Sound Blaster based sound cards.
On to its performance.
The case had a demo rig in it…and the insides of it brought a tear to my eye, as it reminded me of my own rig id been separated from for two weeks. The board was an ASUSa7n8x-vm 400, with 512 megs of drr 400 ram, a segate 40 gig hdd, an athlon xp 3200+ and rather out of place on such a standard rig..a geforce 6800.
I played a short section of farcry( the only game on it) and was shocked when after 2 minutes of play the whole thing shut down. I looked round with a worried expression on my face, and gingerly reached for the case door to see what had blown up….I jumped back in pain when my hand got badly singed by the door. I asked the attendent (who’d watched me do all of the above with some amusement) what exactly was wrong with it. She gave a rather a simple answer
The TNN 300 is not a gaming case.
Whilst idle, the passive cooling system can keep the CPU at a relatively respectable 45*c
When under even 40% strain, cpu’s can reach ANYTHING up to 100*c
100*c, hot enough to boil water. No shock how I burnt my digits on it then.
So, in conclusion, if you want a case that’s silent, and is used for a rig that’s for internet/word processing, its fine….if you want gaming rig avoid it like the plague…it also has a ridiculous price tag attached to it. “£500 is just too much. The following is out of 5 stars, and reflects the producst performance, in my OWN view
Value:*
Features:***
Doeswhatitsaysonthetin factor:**
Style**
Quality*****
OVERALL **
Whilst browsing through the usual notebooks, projectors, motherboards, and hard drives on display, I came across a stand from zalman, normally, this isn’t much to write home about, but there were two main reasons why this caught my eye. 1. This was an open-air technology show in beamish, north Yorkshire. Meaning it was a very small, low key affair, usually not populated by the likes of zalman..this meant they were up to something. 2. The stand didn’t just have the usual heat sink offerings on it, it had two very distinct looking cases.
The zalman TNN 500, and more notably, the brand new TNN 300
Due to the ATX style size of the case, I immediately assumed it was for those boards, but on closer examination, it was in fact built for the micro ATX style.
It’s an unusual looking thing to say the least.. Firstly, it rotates…why it does this, even the representative on hand couldn’t even tell me this, but sure enough, it stands around 6 inches off the ground on a single, circular rotating leg. Secondly, it has 3 huge out of case heat sinks, which heat up to around 90 *c when any AMD or Pentium processor is under strain. Despite its obsidian black finish, it still reminds me strongly of the old tye fighters from star wars.
Included with the case is a power unit, weighing in at 350 watts, and a triple layer DVD RAM drive.
That’s enough grunt to power any micro atx board, and a nice drive to go with it.
But on to the actual gubbins of the case…when you open it up(which I was allowed to do once the nice lady guarding it realised that I wasn’t a fool
) is breathtaking. The whole thing isn’t just a case, it’s a massive part of the computer. Copper heat pipes lead off everywhere from the CPU, hdd, gpu, northbridge. You also get a load of other heat sinks with it, for if you need to cool SLI cards, RAID HDD’s, or some of the more exotic parts in it..Theres even a bizarre looking contraption for cooling Sound Blaster based sound cards.On to its performance.
The case had a demo rig in it…and the insides of it brought a tear to my eye, as it reminded me of my own rig id been separated from for two weeks. The board was an ASUSa7n8x-vm 400, with 512 megs of drr 400 ram, a segate 40 gig hdd, an athlon xp 3200+ and rather out of place on such a standard rig..a geforce 6800.
I played a short section of farcry( the only game on it) and was shocked when after 2 minutes of play the whole thing shut down. I looked round with a worried expression on my face, and gingerly reached for the case door to see what had blown up….I jumped back in pain when my hand got badly singed by the door. I asked the attendent (who’d watched me do all of the above with some amusement) what exactly was wrong with it. She gave a rather a simple answer
The TNN 300 is not a gaming case.
Whilst idle, the passive cooling system can keep the CPU at a relatively respectable 45*c
When under even 40% strain, cpu’s can reach ANYTHING up to 100*c
100*c, hot enough to boil water. No shock how I burnt my digits on it then.
So, in conclusion, if you want a case that’s silent, and is used for a rig that’s for internet/word processing, its fine….if you want gaming rig avoid it like the plague…it also has a ridiculous price tag attached to it. “£500 is just too much. The following is out of 5 stars, and reflects the producst performance, in my OWN view
Value:*
Features:***
Doeswhatitsaysonthetin factor:**
Style**
Quality*****
OVERALL **
meanign that your stuck with that pos forever..plus the steel on the case cant be cut for modding otherwise itd spoil the already frankly shit cooling
