The cheap old Dell case I stuffed a 4070 into runs cooler than my fancy Fractal build

For years I thought sleeper builds were just a gimmick, like putting a Ferrari engine in a beat up Civic for the shock value. I figured the airflow in those old 2000s beige boxes had to be terrible with that tiny single 80mm fan exhaust. Then my buddy dared me to build a budget rig for his kid using a free Dell Optiplex 780 case from the side of the road. I gutted it, cut a hole in the bottom for a 120mm intake, and crammed in a Ryzen 5 5600X with an RTX 4070 on a Flex ATX power supply. To my shock, after 2 hours of Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p, the GPU barely hit 67C while my $150 Fractal Meshify case with 6 fans runs 5 degrees warmer on my own PC. I think those solid metal side panels actually act like a heatsink and the lack of glass lets the fans breathe without any recirculation. Has anyone else noticed an older cramped case outperforming a modern one on acoustics or temps like this?

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sage_lewis1019d ago

Dude, old school cases are just built different.