Cooltek G3

[testman78]

Introduction

Home Theatre PC cases are becoming very popular as the ubiquitous PC migrates ever more commonly into our living rooms.These days, you can buy beautifully crafted pieces of case engineering which will ensure that your machine blends in perfectly with its surroundings and which will give many years of aesthetic enjoyment.Although some of the HTPC cases are full specifications hardware supported, they usually sacrifice the compact size design of the cases and the depths are mostly longer than 440mm.It is not only inconsistent with the exterior of the case, but also not suitable for placing on TV bench.By imitating the exterior of power amplifier,the depth of Colltek's G3 is 350mm only, and it equips with all those features which end users mostly wanted such as a volume control knob,interior all in black and optional temperature control LCD display, etc...



It is approximately the size of a typical receiver and fits perfectly into any hi-fi environment.




Packaging & Contents

As always, the packaging,so that you know what to look for in the stores.The Cooltek G3 is supplied in a plain brown cardboard box which gives little away about what lies within.The front of the box is bare except for a Cooltek powered by Jonsbo logo in the centre.



Turning the box around reveals little else, apart from some basic branding.The box is fairly substantial,though,and should provide a good deal of protection for the cooler during transit.



The Cooltek G3 is held together by two compact foam spacers.A plastic bag further protects the unit from fingerprints and scratches.



All of the accessories are supplied within a cardboard box inside the system, keeping them neat and tidy.



Inside the box we can find some HDD screws,cable ties and extra spacers for the motherboard.



There is also a simple installation guide included to facilitate installation.




A Closer Look - Outside

Cooltek has achieved the low cost by constructing the case from steel and plastic.There's no aluminium here.The front has a mirrored acrylic surface. The front panel is made of reinforced plastic while the case itself is made of 0.8mm SECC steel.



The buttons,flip-down bezel and display really help it blend in with any other components you might have in your A/V rack.



It offers dual USB 3.0 and dual USB 2.0 ports on its fascia along with headphone and microphone jacks.



A big volume knob.



The top is completely solid.There are no air vents or fans anywhere in sight. This is great, as you can place anything on top of the HTPC without having to worry about restricting the airflow within the chassis.



The rear of the case holds no real surprises and looks very clean.We can see the motherboard's I/O panel area,seven expansion slots, and the power supply area.



For optimum cooling of the installed hardware, you can install up to tho 80 mm fans on the rear of the case.



On the right of the case are fan slots for two 120mm fans.



Near them is a slot for installing any fan controller.



On the left of the case are one air vent for the psu and one fan slot.One 120 mm fan from Cooltek is already included.



The bottom side of the case.



The final picture below shows the rubber feet that are on the bottom of the case.




A Closer Look - Inside

The insides of the G3 can be accessed by removing two thumb screws and pulling off the top cover.



The inside of the case is painted entirely in black, meaning it will complement most component choices aesthetically.Inside, the G3 features a tray for your ATX or Micro ATX motherboard and mounts for a 5.25" external drive.You can install up to three hard disk drives in the G3 – either 3 x 3,5" or 2 x 3,5" and 1 x 2,5" HDD/SSDs.



A central support bracket is used in order to highly strengthen the whole case.Thus,it is easily possible to place more Hifi elements on the G3, without risking dents in the top cover.



Preinstalled stand offs for motherboard.



Front panel connections.



The green front PCB.



On the right side of the interior is the removable ODD drive rack.



On the left side you can see the removable 3.5"/2.5" drive cage.



The PSU bay features a large air vent which has been cut out of the steel underside so that a PSU with 120 or 140 mm fan has access to outside air. This means that you should install these type of power supplies with the fan facing downward.The area of the power supply intake fan is covered by a filter and thus prevents dust particles from being sucked into the power supply.



The mounting spaces on the side for the 120 mm fans are equipped with removable dust filters.




Installation and Finished looks

So how easy is it to build a home theatre PC or even a gaming PC with the G3? To find out,and to unashamedly show off our access to the latest kit,i put together an Intel Sandy Bridge machine using an Z77-based motherboard.



I can't give you the performance figures yet,but you can at least get an idea of how much space a ATX motherboard occupies inside the case.



With the preinstalled stand-offs,this is a breeze.



There is enough room in order to put some fans.



The optical drive mounting needs to be removed if you want to install the hard drive in the bay underneath it.



Thankfully, the drive mounting here has rubber isolation so it doesn't vibrate the whole case.



The storage cage also needs to be removed if you want to install the hard drives in the bay underneath it.The storage cage is easy to remove.If you look closely enough, you can see that is held in with four screws at the top of the case.After removing the screws,the cage simply slides out.



The storage cage can hold two drives.The crowding caused by the drives makes the rest of the installation more tedious, but it is manageable.Make sure you hook up cables as much as possible before putting those drive racks back in.



Two high-end graphics cards with a maximum length of 315 mm,and CPU cooler with an installation height of up to 135mm can be accommodated in the G3.You can see what my finished install looks like in the last picture.For a HTPC case, the G3 is very spacious.It is very easy to mount the components.A somewhat more consistent tool-free installation would have been even better, though.




Test System and Methology

Processor: Intel Core i5-3570K
Motherboard:Gigabyte GA-Z77N
CPU Cooler:Thermalright AXP-200
Memory: 16GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1800MHz
Graphics Cards:Sapphire R7 270X
Power Supply:Antec 1000w Platinum
Boot Drive:Samsung F4 EcoGreen 2TB
OS: Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit



To test the thermal performance of the Cooltek G3 i loaded my test system for 15 minutes using Prime95 and Furmark and recorded the maximum temperatures reached using CPUID Hardware Monitor.I then restarted the system and left it for 15 minutes before recording idle temperatures.I overclocked the system to 4.0 GHZ for my tests using a voltage of 1.18V.Room temperature was maintained at 20 degrees C for the duration of my tests.I also installed two Cooltek Silent Fans 120 PWM - 700 - 1,500 rpm on the side of the case.




Temperature

The plus side to all those vents, of course, is that they help to keep the motherboard,vga card and CPU cool when using a heatsink that pushes the air downwards.After all,you can't fit a tower cooler in there anyway.Thanks to the the vents,both the hard drive slots get quite "fresh", particularly the one under the optical drive as it's exposed to very little airflow.My Samsung test hard drive operated at around 35 C in this bay, while the Samsung Green drive in the other bay was slightly less toasty at 34 C.



All i'll say at the moment is that a 'fast' Ivy Bridge CPU had no problems inside the case, even with a small Thermalright cooler, thanks to the case's ventilation.




Noise level

In terms of noise output, the G3 has a huge amount of open ventilation holes,so it's only as loud or quiet as the hardware inside it.The noise isolation for the hard drive bay under the optical drive works well and the same can be said for the optical drive above it when it starts spinning. Thankfully,it stays quiet for long if you start putting in more powerful hardware and additional 120mmm fans.




Conclusion

The G3 is designed primarily for HTPC setups but it could also workout nicely for a SOHO server, desktop system, or other environments where desiring a compact chassis.First on the negative side is the absence of aluminium.The case would have actually looked better with the use of brushed aluminium .Cooltek Powered by Jonsbo are practically known as the king of proper Aluminium designs and a case with an interior of this standard deserves a proper exterior design similar to the quality of some other cases.Air intakes under the top allow for ideal air exchange.As expected, the amount of intake airflow maintained very reasonable CPU and GPU temperatures.The removable dust filters will help keep your internals clean, helping ensure a long life for your new build, and the overall design is neat and simple.The Cooltek G3 is basically silent with only one fan.At full RPM,the three 120mm fans are audible, although not that intrusive.A special optical highlight is the illuminated display of the G3, which says "Home Theatre PC by Jonsbo" (not programmable).



The G3 is an performance case hidden within a sleek professional design.You could easily fill this case with the highest end components and hide it in an office or in the middle of a HiFi style set up under a TV and you would never suspect the G3 of being anything more than a standard desktop.I am a massive fan of the interior design the G3 brings to the table,offering all of the features needed for this generations high end gaming system.It allows for up to two dual slot graphics cards and it can also house a full-size ATX PSU,although the modular units are highly advised given the space constraints.We even have the extensive cooling options capable of handling such a system too making the G3 a great choice for people with limited available space who want a powerful PC.It can be placed comfortably in any space-constrained home theater environment that requires a powerful PC.For those looking to build a cleanly-styled HTPC with gaming or more powerful components in small form factor, the Cooltek G3 is the perfect solution at 70 Euro's.