Hardware BitFenix Colossus Review

It's better if they don't review it. The Corsair fanboys might burn the place down. Mind you, Corsair is one of my favourite brands, their cases look great, but for air cooling they are terrible. Especialy with stock fans. WC in an 800D is another thing though.

 

I'm going to dissent on this one - I think the looks are stellar! It looks to me like something stormtroopers would have in their base with that Imperial white look.

I too wish BT would help us with out decisions a bit more - we're not the audience who is likely to leave something that performs poorly in a stock configuration, but we also don't want to shell out 130 to be the guinea pig. If there is a glaring omission from a case, then it should be acceptable to rectify it and report those results separately - otherwise, any case can be made to cool well, so long as it screams!

 

okay how much did Bit-Tech get paid for that review? seems a bit more favorable then it should have been? is it because its a new company and you dont want to give them a hard time or what?

 

Well, it is a quite unique looking case (like it or not). Is quite well thought out on the inside, might make an excellent show case. However they missed some chances on cooling.
It was however tested against what I would consider high-airflow cases. How would it fare against for example an Antec or a Fractal?

 

fugly as hell

 

If I worked for bit-tech <cough> I'd want to review cases first with a stock cooling setup then with some choice upgrades - I mean who here doesn't already have a ton of 120mm fans lying about the place? Its not like swapping fans in and out takes very long, when you consider all of the hassle associated with installing hardware into these cases for the testing that is already carried out during the course of a review.

 

I hope the survivor has better stock cooling, cause i want that.

 

My god you are all kinds of wrong. Both of the 230mm fans can be replaced, albeit with only 1x 120mm or 140mm fan when 2 sets of mounts should have been present (especially so as to give WC potential). Also, the case *already has* a fan controller which powers up to 5 fans, which was clearly stated in the review. Short of over-volting (and probably breaking) them, there's not much more the stock fans can provide. As for your comments on graphic designers, if anything they need much better cooling as that sort of work requires high-end kit, not the kind with 'low and non-sequential power requirements'.

Obviously BitFenix made a poor choice with the large fans. I think anything above 140mm just won't provide enough pressure to push or pull air to and from the components that need it. The fact that they chose not to at least provide dual 120mm mounts (only 10mm more in length over the 230mm stock fans) is inexcusable. Stiil, it might not be that hard to mod the fan mounts to take more smaller fans. Also, I really like the features of the case and the looks have grown on me since the preview - I actually quite like it.

One thing that I wonder about is to do with the orientation of the CPU cooler. Given that the airflow in the case is quite low, it seems to me that the way you had the cooler mounted it was probably sucking hot air off of the graphics card. If you guys do retest this sometime, is there any chance you could do it with the cooler mounted in the conventional way?

 

Poor cooling and Computer, the worst aliance.

 

I think I read somewhere that the padded sides of this case make it very quiet. Sounds very enticing until you learn about its feeble cooling. I greatly appreciate the continued emphasis on testing the cooling power of these cases. That Silverstone FT-02 just keeps looking great.

One thing: "[T]hanks to the case’s mighty girth, there’s room behind the motherboard tray for even the thickest of 24-pin ATX power cables." Next time, please measure the distance from the back of the mb tray to the opposite side panel. One person's 'ample' is another person's 'cramped.'

Thanks for a fine review.

A last bit: why do they leave the grills in? Case fans work better and don't make as much noise when there are no grills in the way.

 

Dear Bit-Tech community,

After reading Bit-Techs review of our Colossus tower case, I'd like to explain a little bit about our thinking behind this product, and the way in which we have chosen to release it to the market.

For people who are looking for an out of the box œpre-modded￾ case that will be used in a somewhat normal situation￾ we believe that the cooling provided by two 230mm fans is sufficient and will satisfy the needs of most users.

We also believe that most serious hardware enthusiasts and overclockers already have their favourite brands of fans and, when buying a new chassis, regularly swap the stock fans with others more suitable to their needs, be it higher airflow, pressure, more silence or simply a matter of aesthetics.

We have therefore chosen not to include any fans of those dimensions that are readily available in the market, such as 120mm and 140mm ones, and instead offer the Colossus at a lower price. Why pay for something that you will not use, right? We have indeed included two rather large 230mm fans as these are much harder to find and there are less choices available in the market.

Naturally, we do recognize that there are power users out there who will overclock their CPU, install multiple graphics cards and push them to run as fast as possible.

For those situations I wholeheartedly suggest that anyone looking for maximum cooling potential do add at least a 140mm fan in the rear of their Colossus, which, as anyone who tries it will notice, increases the thermal performance dramatically.

Whereas we do understand and respect Bit-Techs test methodology, and we agree 100% with the thermal results under that specific configuration (we have replicated them in our BitFenix Lab), I believe that this has somewhat prevented our Colossus from really shining in their thermal tests.

Best regards from Taiwan,
David - BitFenix

 

I Am modding one, Casekings.de was so gentle to sponsor me one.

Project is GoldFenix.

 

If you have any questions regarding BitFenix products feel free to PM us or even better we will be more than happy to go over it here in the forum .

 

There ARE holes for a 2.120mm rad, and many more

 

Hi All:::::
I Just joined/logged in,, Because ,,, I have a Bitfenix Colossus sitting right here beside me AND it is nowhere as 'HOT" as the above review would seem to suggest,, in fact according to Everest the max temp right now is my Gforce 2g 460 @ 41c,, the temps run between 33c and the a/m 41c..The only non stock additive is an extra 140mm fan at the back , and maybe another 140 later on the bottom...