Tests
Tests
Airflow :
Additional ventilation comes in the form of two Silent Series fans from Fractal Design, placed on the left side of the case in the intake.
CPU airflow, original ventilation then supplemented:
We start first with the temperature of our CPU. We keep the front and the upper part of our test case. Let’s see if the airflow is sufficient for the good cooling of the Ryzen 7 1700X.
Let’s go for a new series of readings. Here we focus on the temperature reached by our processor. On this subject, it shows 55.1°C when the ventilation is running at full speed, which allows it to easily compete with the two Sugo from the same manufacturer. On the other hand, things get much more complicated at low speed with 71.7°C. Since we have mounted a top flow cooler, it is not impossible that it struggles to capture the airflow brought by the two fans.
In any case, adding two fans in the intake is not a bad idea. Of course, we notice a slight improvement at full speed, but we imagine that it will be especially beneficial at low speed.
CPU airflow original ventilation without front panel or top :
In order to ascertain the limiting factor in the story (and how much), we remove the top as well as the front of the case. The goal here is to show the raw performance of the integrated fan.
By removing the front panel, we have some gains as well. However, if they are not huge at full speed: 1°C at all, it is at low speed that things change. Indeed, in these conditions, we gain 13.9°C. The fans are not fast, so removing the mesh on the front seems to do the trick.
GPU airflow, original ventilation then completed :
We repeat the operation, but with measurements made on the graphics card. Here, we test with original ventilation and completed ventilation.
On the graphics card, the situation is not catastrophic, far from it. With the basic ventilation at low speed, our reference HD 7970 stabilizes at 80°C. By pushing the ventilation, the card drops to 70°C, so we find a more efficient ventilation than in the Sugo 14 and Sugo 15.
Nevertheless, one of the things you should do urgently after buying a Grandia GD11 is to add some fans on the left side. Your card will clearly thank you since by doing so, our model stabilized at 66°C.
GPU airflow original ventilation without front panel or top:
We do the same test again, but remove the front panel and top of the case. Let’s see how this will affect the temperatures of the card.
Without the front panel, we have a situation quite similar to that of our CPU. Meaning that the gains are significant at low speeds, but quite small at full speed.
Insulation:
Here we simply measure the noise emitted by our config when running CPU cooling and GPU cooling very fast.
As far as insulation is concerned, we stay on something quite classic with 54.5 dB measured. Remember that a radial fan makes noise, especially at high speed and that today’s custom cards are much quieter.
In any case, for a case whose primary use will be the playback of multimedia content, we would have appreciated a better sound insulation.
Noise from the original fan:
This time, we measure the noise emitted by the original ventilation of the case. To do this, the configuration runs in idle mode ( CPU and GPU ventilation at minimum) while the readings are taken successively at 5V, 8V and 12V on the case ventilation.
Basically, the 120mm fans are audible when running at full speed. You should not hesitate to muzzle them to obtain silence, which is feasible from mid speed. Fortunately, at low speed, we do not hear them at all!
In summary:
Roughly speaking, the Grandia GD11 is a case that does pretty well thermally. With its two front fans at full speed, it keeps our components cool. On the other hand, at low speed, it’s a bit more delicate, especially for the processor which will tend to heat up quickly, especially with a top flow fan. The solution would be to migrate to a 240mm AIO and add two fans in suction on the left side. This way, we get a properly cooled CPU and graphics card.
