Corsair Vengeance C70 Case Review: Going for the Gamers
by Dustin Sklavos on May 17, 2012 5:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- mid-tower
Noise and Thermal Testing, Stock
Going into testing, I had a couple of reservations with the Corsair Vengeance C70. While I'm happy to see them moving more towards positive air pressure designs, Antec has proven time and time again that positive pressure isn't necessarily the key to success. I was curious about the intake fans placed behind the drive cages, but also concerned that Corsair just hadn't made enough progress in terms of actual thermal management. As it turns out, my concerns were well founded.
It wasn't that Corsair hadn't made much progress in terms of thermal design, it's that it seems like they haven't made any progress. That's a serious problem, because thermals have historically been the weak point of their designs. Corsair makes easy to build cases, and some of them do have decent thermals, but they've never been stellar and certainly don't excel the way Antec's Eleven Hundred does.
Ambient temperature during testing was about 25.5C which can account for some of the difference, but essentially the C70 is still in line with the Obsidian 550D and Fractal Design's $40 Core 1000. That isn't promising.
Unfortunately the C70 is also a bit louder under load than the similarly-priced Antec Eleven Hundred, a case that, at least in our stock settings, substantially outperforms it.
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SilthDraeth - Thursday, May 17, 2012 - link
But then again, I am a sucker for that ammo can military green.kyuu - Thursday, May 17, 2012 - link
Pretty sure the "ammo can" was actually the basis for the aesthetics, with the military green, the clips for the side panels, and the handles on top. I actually rather like it as well (though I'd personally probably go with the gunmetal grey instead).The cooling performance is disappointing, unfortunately. However, didn't I see the reviewer state that the ambient temperature was higher than normal, which would skew the results...?
Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, May 17, 2012 - link
Thermal performance is listed as the delta above ambient, so all of the thermal results are adjusted to compensate for differences in ambient temperature.Arghem - Thursday, May 17, 2012 - link
But as the base temperature of the CPU goes up it will draw more current and produce more heat. So making the temperature relative to ambient does not correct for a higher baseline temperature. If this was done in hot conditions then the thermal performance data for the chassis is not accurate relative to other chassis.I realize they are doing as good as they can here but making the temperature relative does not remove bias created by lower or higher environmental temperatures.
JarredWalton - Friday, May 18, 2012 - link
It removes a large portion of the bias. It's not like Dustin is testing at 19C for one case and 30C for another; the temperatures are relatively constant at 23~26C (25.5C for this review). A 2C ambient difference should not create a 5C delta, which is basically what we're seeing with this case.Now, you could stuff more fans into the C70, and that might help. I also think Dustin is right in that the initial positioning of fans is poorly selected -- I'd say at the very front of the drive cages would be better at least. Or you could use a watercooling setup and that would likely help tremendously. The thing is, you can do all those same things with a P280 or Eleven Hundred, and you should still end up with superior results.
kevith - Friday, May 18, 2012 - link
You nailed it!Arghem - Friday, May 18, 2012 - link
Your certainly right that the front fan placement is highly questionable. I wasn't meaning to imply that the higher ambient accounted for the entire difference in thermal performance only a portion of it. And yes probably a small portion in this case.I was just pointing out that presenting the temperature as relative to ambient isn't perfect. It's simply the best that can be done without a perfectly controlled environment.
BMAN61 - Saturday, May 19, 2012 - link
" Or you could use a watercooling setup and that would likely help tremendously."Yes; watercooling any setup vastly improves temperatures, but still requires air cooling to expel air from within the case (via the radiator), and a balanced amount of air coming into the case to create positive air pressure. So if the chassis has dismal airflow; it doesn't matter if you're using water cooling or not, temperatures will still be bad.
Being one that owns a (water cooled) Corsair 700D; I can say that airflow is what has been the problem with many of these cases, the 140mm fans that were shipped with the 700/ 800D cases are all garbage, but neither of these cases had (have) any fan mounts (other than one fan mount on the bottom) to bring fresh air into the chassis.
m0n5t3r - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - link
Out of the box, yes the cooling performance isn't great. The stock fans really don't contribute in the cooling, they are pretty shitty. But as you can see that is a lot of ventilation and fan mount options.Chaitanya - Thursday, May 17, 2012 - link
I still own a Ammo, I kept it aside just because of the looks were awesome.