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Installation (continued)
One feature that did not end up in my final install was the PCIe riser card shown below. I have two PCIe x16 graphics cards, a Power Color X800 GTO and a Gigabyte X600 XT, and I tried both in the system. The X800 GTO was just a bit too long, and although it worked on this motherboard when not in a case using a riser card, when installed in this system, the card's end was right up against the CPU cooler. The X600 XT on the other hand was too thick thanks to an after market cooler (Thermalright V1 Ultra) that uses a heatpipe. The extra thickness not only interfered with the case's cover closing, but on the other side of the card it touched the power supply cable leading into the 24-pin motherboard connector.
 
I did test the riser card using the X600 XT, and it worked properly. I didn't get into any benchmarks to see if there was a performance loss, but I could see clear images on the monitor and that was good enough for me. What I am going to do is start a log of compatible cards/motherboards/cases in the BTX Form Factor forum, to help people design their systems without running into surprises. Testing
The bulk of case testing to me is just seeing if your system will fit in it, and how easy the whole process was. Except for the issues I created myself by not following the directions, and the compatibility of my particular graphics cards, everything was fairly straightforward. The part of the testing that can actually be quantified involves checking temperatures as compared to other known values. Having just reviewed the Thermaltake CL-P0191 Silent CPU Cooler [ review] a few days prior, I knew exactly how warm the Intel Pentium D 840 got while outside of a case. With the system fully assembled, I then ran through the same tests as completed in the cooler review to see what impact the CM Media B260 would have on the temperatures. The thermal results were recorded from the motherboard's onboard thermal sensor with the system in an idle condition and in an active condition. Idle conditions simply involved having the system sit at the Window's desktop with nothing else running. Active conditions involved having the system run SiSoft Sandra's CPU benchmarks in a loop for thirty minutes by using the "Burn In Wizard" option.
The CPU cooler was installed with the stock fan and the 'upgraded' thermal paste detailed in the cooler review. The list below details the results of CPU thermal testing, with an ambient temperature of 20 °C: Condition: Idle °C / Active °C
No Case: 29 / 47 CM B260: 32 / 51 As you can see, there was a slight rise in temperature, but nothing to be alarmed about. The Cooler Master CM Media B260 had a very hot processor to contend with, and it did its best to keep the temperature from rising too high. The air restrictions in the power supply area couldn't have helped, and having a little more flow drawing hot air out of the back would have to be a good thing. The final phase of testing involved the noise output. This is an area that the CM Media B260 really shines. Although the silence comes at the price of high temperatures, the system is about as quiet as I have ever experienced. The CPU cooler and PSU are the only sources of fan noise, and both were nearly silent. Other than the occasional hum of the optical drive spinning up, this system really could vanish acoustically. Definitely a worthy feature for consideration in an HTPC setup!
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