Speeze case modding products review Options

[Bob The Junkie]

Review: Speeze case modding accessories
Reviewer: Jon "Bob The Junkie" Aubrey
Reviewed on: 15th July 2005
Product provided by Speeze (www.speeze.com)

Introduction:

Most people look at PC case modding like they do at car modding, you are trying to make a piece of machinery that you use on a daily basis more interesting to use, a little less dull. If you do think like this then you?re probably in one of two camps. The first camp believes that modding is a pointless waste of money; after all, you wouldn?t pay to make your hammer look prettier would you? The second camp believes that modding gives you a chance to show off your artistic skills and add some flair to something you have to use day in and day out, after all, you wouldn?t live in a house without paint on the walls would you?

However not all PC modding is purely about making a case look better, there are modifications that can be done to increase airflow, reduce noise and keep components cooler. Today we?re going to look at a selection of products from Speeze to help make your PC a nicer thing to use.

Case cooling Green UV Fan (CF402-GR):

Specifications:

? Input DC12V
? Bearing type Ball
? Dimensions 80 x 80 x 25mm (L x W x H)
? Rated speed 2300 RPM +/- 10%
? Noise Level 25.0 dBA
? Air Flow 28.0 CFM at 2,300 RPM
? Current A 0.15 A
? Life Hours 50.000
? Connector 3 Pin mainboard and 4 Pin power supply

The first product we opened was a small 80mm case fan. This is Ultra Violet (UV) reactive and when dowsed in UV light gives off a strong green glow. Included in the packaging is both the fan and a set of four case screws, a nice touch in our opinion as it means you do not have to find additional screws to mount it in place. The power connectors on this fan are nothing short of amazing. A long braided cable runs from the fan to a three pin fan connector, which then feeds back into a Molex connector. The fan connector allows for both the power and monitoring of the fan, or if you have not got a spare header port on your fan controller or motherboard, the fan can be simply powered by the Molex connector. We found this design much better than a standard single power connector as it meant the fan could be mounted or powered from anywhere. We tested the fan by plugging it first into our motherboard using the three pin connector and monitoring the fan via the windows utility ?SpeedFan?, and then by plugging it into our ThermalTake fan controller using the Molex connector. On both occasions we were able to regulate the fan?s speed successfully.

Under UV light the fan gives off an eerie soft green and white glow that looks almost ghostly but doesn?t produce a lot of light ? you are not going to be able to light up your case with the amount of light reflected from it. The fan produces an average amount of noise for a fan this size, it isn?t loud, but it isn?t silent either.

The only addition we would have like to have seen on this fan is a marking on the plastic somewhere to indicate which direction the fan blows in. This would have helped novice users fit the fan without having to plug it in and test it out first.

Case Cooling Green LED Fan (EE-LEDFAN-GREEN):

Specifications:

? Input DC12V
? Bearing type Ball
? Dimensions 80 x 80 x 25mm (L x W x H)
? Rated speed 2300 RPM +/- 10%
? Noise Level 25.0 dBA
? Air Flow 28.0 CFM at 2,300 RPM
? Current A 0.15 A
? Life Hours 50.000
? Connector 3 Pin mainboard and 4 Pin power supply

The second fan Speeze sent us was an 80mm LED case fan. This has four small green LEDs built into the four corners of the fan which glow when the fan is powered on. Included in the packaging is both the fan and a set of mounting screws, and the LED fan uses the same power leads and connectors as the UV fan, a long braided cable which terminates in both a three pin motherboard connector and a Molex connector, so you can chose how you wish to power and control the fan. When powered up the fan glows quite brightly considering its size ? out performing the 120mm blue LED fan in our test case. When mounted in our case the fan is not distinctly audible at all ? although you can definitely hear the increase in noise coming from the case.

Neon Reactive Exhauster (CF401-GR):

Specifications:

? Input DC12V
? Dimensions 80 x 80 x 25mm (L x W x H)
? Bearing Ball
? Rated speed 2,500 RPM
? Noise level 25.0 dBA
? Air flow 31.73 CFM at 2,500 RPM
? Current A 0.15 A
? Life Hours 50.000
? Connector 4 Pin, power supply
? Requirements Any free ISA or PCI slot in the PC case

We don?t usually use a PCI Exhaust fan in our cases due to the already good fans on our graphics card ? which is the primary use for this item, but this has made us think again. Encased in the same green plastic as used by the green UV fan, the reactive exhauster glows a transparent green when put under Ultra Violet light, which although isn?t bright enough to light a case like an LED fan, is still bright enough to see from a distance. The reactive exhauster is powered from a single four pin Molex connector which has a reasonably long power lead but is not braided. The noise from the reactive exhauster is around the same as an 80mm case fan, with no obvious vibration noise coming from the fan or the bracket it is attached to. Speeze have thoughtfully provided a screw to attach the reactive exhauster to the PCI slot ? which was needed in our testing as the screw-free clips used in our case would not lock onto the reactive exhauster due to a large piece of plastic where there would not normally be one on a standard PCI card. Airflow from the reactive exhauster was around the same as a 80mm case fan, with the air being sucked in through the side of the unit and output from the back of the PC case. In our test machine the temperatures of the case did not drop significantly with the reactive exhauster fitted if at all ? but when we placed it next to an overclocked ATi Radeon 9600XT with a standard small fan on it and ran Doom 3 in a continuous loop to heat up the card, we noticed a three to five degree drop in temperature on the card.

By fitting the reactive exhauster next to a passively cooler PCI card you are effectively giving it active cooling ? making it ideal for components that get quite hot over a period of time ? such as a network card in a fileserver.

Green 300mm cold cathode light bar (EE-NEONBAR-GREEN):

Specifications:

? Input DV12V
? Dimensions 310 x 15 x 15mm (W × D × H)
? Diameter 9mm
? Voltage 600 V
? Current 5 mA
? Housing 100% acrylic shell
? Life Hours 15,000 hrs
? Connector 4 pin Molex

The first word that came out of our mouths when we plugged in the green cold cathode light bar was ?Ouch!?. Even on a bright sunny day the light from the cathode bar was blinding and we were suitably impressed with how bright it actually was. In our test case we generally have one 300mm cold cathode light and two 100mm cold cathode lights, and it takes all three to light up the interior. However with the Speeze green cold cathode bar we managed to light up the entire case quite brightly with only the single 300mm bar. The light bar draws its power through a standard Molex connector and it features a pass-through cable so can still power other devices from it. In order to regulate the power to the light bar a small inverter box is used, which is around the size of a USB key. The box is capable of powering up to two light bars at a time, which means if you fit a second light you won?t have to try to hide a second box from sight in the case. To control if the light bar is turned on or off ? Speeze use a PCI bracket with a small external switch on it. At first we thought this was a great design as it allowed us to turn the light bar on and off without opening the case ? which is what we had to do with our current lights. However we soon realised that if the user wishes to fit the light bar to a case that does not have any PCI brackets free (which happens on a lot of small PCS designed for Micro-ATX boards, or systems that have a lot of add-on peripherals such as sound, USB and video) they will not be able to fit the light bar. A good solution to this problem would be to include both a PCI bracket and a non-mounted switch that be left inside the case ? and we hope its something Speeze will implement in the future.

Ultra Violet 300mm cold cathode light bar (EE-UVBAR):

Specifications:

? Input DV12V
? Dimensions 310 x 15 x 15mm (W × D × H)
? Diameter 9mm
? Voltage 600 V
? Current 5 mA
? Housing 100% acrylic shell
? Life Hours 15,000 hrs
? Connector 4 pin Molex

As we?d never actually used a UV cold cathode light in a PC before, we weren?t sure what to expect from the Speeze UV light bar. What we found was a dark, almost purple coloured light that didn?t seem particularly bright at all. When we plugged it into one of our test cases however everything changed. The reactive exhauster and the UV fan started giving off a eerie green glow, our OCZ ModStream?s cabling in places started glowing blue, and our existing red UV cabling sleeving started giving off a very bright, but embarrassing pink colour. The UV bar uses a similar box and Molex design as the green light bar to draw power, with the only difference being that the boxes are a slightly different shape from each other. With UV lights a fine line has to be drawn over the amount of power used in them. Too much and the light itself starts to lighten up the case, which is not what it is meant to do. Too little light and the UV reactive objects in the case will not light up. The Speeze cold cathode light bar faired quite well in this way, only giving off minimal light around the case and causing most of our components to light up ? however near the top of the case the UV reactive components were either dimly shining or not at all, and we would have liked to have seen the light slightly more powerful. As it is ? we?d recommend you purchase two of these if you?ve got a lot of cabling blocking the light in the case, or if you?ve got a large case.

Sound Proofing pads (EE-SOUND PAD01):

Specifications:

? Dimensions 2 pieces 40 x 35cm
 2 pieces 40 x 18cm
? Material Soft cellular foam 4mm thick
? Colour Black
? Self-adhesive tape
? Withstands temperatures up to: +80 °C
? High Density sound absorption
? Soft cellular 4mm foam
? Heat & Fire resistant
? Reduces case vibrations
? Application Inside your PC midi tower case

Ask any PC enthusiast if they want a quieter rig without spending a lot of money, and they?ll jump at you looking for more information. Many users will replace case fans, hard drives, processor cooler and anything else that moves in the case to try to reduce noise levels ? but even then it isn?t enough. Enter sound proofing material, foam padding that is used to either absorb or reflect sound waves that are produced inside the PC case.

Speeze have supplied us with their four piece sound proofing set ? so without further a-do, let?s see how it performs.

The kit comes with four pieces of sound proofing material, already cut to fit the four sides of a midi-tower case. Although it can be used in a full tower it will not reach the edges of the side panels and so must be mounted in the middle of the panel. The smaller pieces are used for mounting in the top and bottom of the case to reduce noise escaping from there. All pieces carry Speeze?s name and logo on them in a not too distracting white paint. The foam pieces are all made from one piece of foam which is the same density throughout (the consistency of the foam does not change throughout the piece). On the back of the padding is a thin sticky layer used for sticking the padding securely to the inside of the PC case. In our testing this stuck extremely well, a little too well ? as we could not get the padding unattached to the case after it had been stuck for a few hours, without damaging it significantly ? once its on, its on.

For testing we used a slightly different setup than our normal testing rig. This was because our standard rig uses a Crucial X850XT graphics card which is a dual slot solution and so uses an open PCI slot for cooling. Noise can escape from this slot and we wanted to close the case up as much as possible. We swapped the X850XT for a 9600XT with a small GPU fan which only takes up one slot. For a case we decided to use a Cooler Giant CS-718 server case, which has larger panels that the padding is designed to be used on. The reason for this case is that we only had two cases ? with a ThermalTake Xaser III with a side window in it being the other, and we weren?t about to put non-removable padding on that!

Test system:

? AMD Athlon 3000+ Venice core processor with stock heatsink/fan
? OCZ EL DDR PC-3500 Gold GX Dual Channel RAM running with 2-2-2-8 timings
? Optronix OP-K9A200G-MLF motherboard
? Maxtor DiamondMax 7200rpm 2MB cache PATA hard drive
? Maxtor DiamondMax 7200rpm 8MB cache SATA hard drive
? Enermax FMA EG465AX-VE 460W power supply
? Enermax CS-718 Entry level server case
? ATi Radeon 9600XT 256MB graphics card
? 50x generic CD-ROM drive
? 2 x 120mm case fans running at 4000rpm

Unfortunately we did not have any sound measuring equipment to test the padding out ? but we had the next best thing ? Subject A.

Subject A is a fairly young (we won?t disclose her age as we?re under threats of violence) well educated woman who unfortunately for us, hears like a bat. She can hear a pin drop from 100 yards, detect every word said in a conversation in another room even with the television on full blast, and can hear the door open even when she?s asleep when we?re trying to sneak in from the pub at night.

Testing was performed by first leaving the system idle and then setting all of the fans to maximum and running HD-Tach on the hard drives, to increase their noise. We tested first without the sound padding and then with the sound padding. Temperatures were checked during testing to see if the extra padding raised the case temperatures at all.

After hours of testing the official verdict from subject A was that she could hear no difference at all when the PC was idle with or without the padding on, even with her head right next to the PC. She mentioned that some noises we slightly more muffled (like the CPU fan) but nothing fantastic ? and we?d have to agree with her, we couldn?t tell the difference. When we started pushing the hard drives however, Subject A noticed an immediate difference in the sound coming from the case, she could no longer hear the distinctive clatter of the hard drives accessing the platters, when the padding was on and over all she determined the case was much quieter.

Temperatures in the case did not significantly increase during testing, certainly not enough for us to worry about components overheating ? and as testing occurred on the hottest day so far of the year, we could not ascertain whether it was the padding that increased the temperatures of the case by one degree or so, or the day getting hotter.

For users that are worried about the padding catching fire and destroying their components, Speeze rate the padding up to 80 degrees C ? and so unless you?ve got your processor stuck to the padding (you won?t have) you should have nothing to worry about.

Conclusion:

Without a doubt we can say that using these products have definitely made our test PC a nicer thing to look at. It is now decked out in glowing greens and thanks to the sound padding it is quieter too. The products Speeze provided us with to test were of high quality and looked good; we have no problem recommending them to a case modder. The only things we would have liked changed would be removable sound padding ? once its on its not coming off at the moment, and a slightly more powerful UV light bar ? it wasn?t strong enough to light up the components at the top of our case.

We would like to thank Mark Colville at Speeze for providing us with this equipment to review.

[Athildja]

Very nice looking stuff Bob.

nice review :)

[PhatSOB]

I have had a long day in the sun, but is that case built upside down. Do you notice a difference in the cooling? It looks pretty cool with the Speeze kit installed, all one color would have looked a bit cooler I think. Interesting review

[Bob The Junkie]

Check out the review of the case for that answer Phat :)

For the processor though - you don't notice much difference (as mine isn't running hot anyways) but the RAM certainly is much cooler.

Speeze do make other coloured products, including blue fans and lights, it is just that the ones sent to me were green.

-BTJ

[Aries]

A nice review BTJ. :thumbsup:
With just a few things, you make the case looking prety nice.

The Speeze is interesting. For my case I found a special Cellular Material also Self-Adhesive, but I had them 5 different thickness sizes: 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10mm. I have to say, that I´m very pleased with it, because I´ve got Thermal- and Acustic Insulation and I´m not coming over 25dB noice (runing 13 fans).

Aries

[David_Heavey]

cool stuff :thumbsup: . Good work on the review

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