Temperatures and Noise
Internal Temperatures

Gauging the temperature of a system is a complicated task on its own: where do you take its temp?  (don’t go there…)  How long should a system be in idle/load for the temperature to stabilize, etc?

To start, we’ll look at what the NVIDIA nTune monitoring utility tells us for various temperatures.

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Temperatures – idle

After leaving the system as the desktop for an hour or so, this is where the temperatures settled inside the case.  The CPU is running at a very cool 29C and the GPU is toasty at 64C.   

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Temperatures – GPU load

The system under load doesn’t see anything in the way of dangerous component temperature changes as the CPU only gets up to 38C, well below the 40-50C I get on our test beds at PC Perspective on a regular basis.  The GPU does get up to 75C but thanks to the dual slot cooler on the 8800 Ultra this is as high as it gets. 

Case Temperatures

I also thought it would be a good idea to see how the chassis cooling performed by checking the temperatures at various locations of intake and exhaust. 

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This shot shows the temperatures at various locations on the chassis during a couple of hours of looped gaming to load the CPU and GPU pretty heavily.  Starting at the top, the air coming through the CPU cooling radiator was 95F, the air near the mesh vent on the case door was 81F, the air coming in the front of the case was 82F while the air coming in through the bottom of the case was 80F.

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Turning to the back of the chassis we found the air in the CPU area (where an exhaust fan COULD be placed) was at 85F while the GPU output was 120F and the PSU output was 86F. 

Overall, these temperatures are very impressive and are a testament to the well designed case interior with its compartment divisions. 

Noise Levels

The HP Blackbird 002 definitely wasn’t silent but thanks to the integrated water cooler for the CPU and the single GPU it was much quieter than the Digital Storm Twister system we reviewed last month.  HP and Voodoo built the Blackbird case for looks, function and cooling and it would seem that noise was also in their sights too.  The door, for example, has foam padding around where it makes contact with the main chassis to avoid any kind of vibration noise from fans or hard drives.  Again, this is just another aspect of the Blackbird chassis that continues to impress me.

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