If I understand you correctly, you're saying that steel encloses all the hot air, and that one shoot buy an aluminum case and then remove the sides.
First, cases are designed to leave the sides on to create airflow and keep dust out. If you leave the sides of your case off all the time, you'd have 100 times more dust than you get with the sides on. Also, you'd lose the airflow aspect, which kind of defeats the active cooling design of the heatsinks on processors and other chips. You're more likely to develop stagnant air pockets with the sides off than if you had a proper "tunnel" through which the air can travel.
This leads to the difference in steel and aluminum cases. Aluminum just happens to be lighter than steel. That's about the only difference you're going to notice in the application of a computer. Neither of them are in direct contact with a chip, so their heat dissipation properties aren't going to be noticeable.
I MUST BE MORE SPECIFIC.
I should have said thats what works for me,you decide,
asus probe says everthing is OK.For me.
Thats just in "my case"
I just clean the dust more often i guess.
But metal holds heat and aluminum is known to hold less.
:drinkup:
I was just teasing a little on the modding case post.
:horn:
oldtimer, you're thoughts are all over the place. Half your posts don't make sense and have no relation to any previous comments in a thread. I can't figure out what you're talking about half the time.
Half your posts don't make sense and have no relation to any previous comments in a thread. I can't figure out what you're talking about half the time.
===========
Same here about yours.
Lets deal with the other half.The first seem'd unnecesarry to post about seriously.
:drinkup: .
Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited February 2005
Either that or he just enjoys screwing with your heads
At any rate, for anyone else that sees this thread, "oldtimer's" basic premise is, to put it bluntly, wrong. While aluminum does indeed conduct heat better than steel, it's a moot point in the case of, uh, cases. I mean let's think about this logically for a second, shall we? The heat is coming off components like your CPU and GPU, and being transferred into the air. Air-which is not the greatest conductor of heat in the world, I might point out-which is then moved out of the case by the case fan(s) before it has enough contact time with the limited surface area of the case to heat it up any. And even if it does manage to transfer a miniscule amount of heat to the case (which it can do in certain areas of very poorly ventillated cases, such as the Antec SLK-3700AMB) it won't make any difference to anything. Even if the case is unpainted (which many aluminum cases are) the heat is still being dissipated solely via convection cooling. And convection does not work very well, ESPECIALLY when the difference between the heated surface and the air is not very great (which it's not in the case of a warm top panel on a case and the air in the room).
Conclusion: Unless you're using a custom-built case like the $1200-$1500 Zalman TNN 500A or the Hush home theater PCs that use the case as a heatsink, aluminum vs. steel makes absolutely no difference at all.
I believe he has no idea what he's talking about and thinks that just because his son knows computers he can go onto these forums and act like he knows everything.
imported_oldtimer
Mississauga,ON
Comments
First, cases are designed to leave the sides on to create airflow and keep dust out. If you leave the sides of your case off all the time, you'd have 100 times more dust than you get with the sides on. Also, you'd lose the airflow aspect, which kind of defeats the active cooling design of the heatsinks on processors and other chips. You're more likely to develop stagnant air pockets with the sides off than if you had a proper "tunnel" through which the air can travel.
This leads to the difference in steel and aluminum cases. Aluminum just happens to be lighter than steel. That's about the only difference you're going to notice in the application of a computer. Neither of them are in direct contact with a chip, so their heat dissipation properties aren't going to be noticeable.
I should have said thats what works for me,you decide,
asus probe says everthing is OK.For me.
Thats just in "my case"
I just clean the dust more often i guess.
But metal holds heat and aluminum is known to hold less.
:drinkup:
I was just teasing a little on the modding case post.
:horn:
aspire.comptech a.k.a. person who wrote modding case post
I would use the Yellow pages.Or ask his Dad.
:help: Dad
===========
Same here about yours.
Lets deal with the other half.The first seem'd unnecesarry to post about seriously.
:drinkup: .
At any rate, for anyone else that sees this thread, "oldtimer's" basic premise is, to put it bluntly, wrong. While aluminum does indeed conduct heat better than steel, it's a moot point in the case of, uh, cases. I mean let's think about this logically for a second, shall we? The heat is coming off components like your CPU and GPU, and being transferred into the air. Air-which is not the greatest conductor of heat in the world, I might point out-which is then moved out of the case by the case fan(s) before it has enough contact time with the limited surface area of the case to heat it up any. And even if it does manage to transfer a miniscule amount of heat to the case (which it can do in certain areas of very poorly ventillated cases, such as the Antec SLK-3700AMB) it won't make any difference to anything. Even if the case is unpainted (which many aluminum cases are) the heat is still being dissipated solely via convection cooling. And convection does not work very well, ESPECIALLY when the difference between the heated surface and the air is not very great (which it's not in the case of a warm top panel on a case and the air in the room).
Conclusion: Unless you're using a custom-built case like the $1200-$1500 Zalman TNN 500A or the Hush home theater PCs that use the case as a heatsink, aluminum vs. steel makes absolutely no difference at all.