nMedia HTPC 600BAR Case Review

Cooling Performance

The nMedia HTPC 600 has a number of design aspects used for keeping its interior cool. Upon inspection, the two 9cm by 30cm ventilation strips on the top panel stand out the most. They are comprised of little rectangles that are punched in and leave the 600BAR's top with a matte black look which definitely keeps with the deisgn intent to blend this case into a home theater environment. Regrettably, the entire top panel is not covered by these punch holes because heat does rise after all. There are also three 12cm by 7cm areas with circular holes: one on each side and one below the power supply.

The case comes with one 80mm fan and two 60mm fans. The 60mm fans are used above the I/O shield due to the lower profile. It’s too bad nMedia didn’t keep an option for an 80mm fan on the right side near I/O shield since that might have allowed quieter cooling.


Test system:
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
Intel Core 2 Quad E6600 (G0 stepping)
XFX 8800 GTS 320MB
Vantec 550w PSU
Corsair XMS2 2GB PC2-6400 4-4-4-12
Western Digital 500GB SATA2 HDD
Pioneer DVR-2120

Stress testing performed for one hour with:

Rivatuner for GPU temperatures
Rivatuner for System temperatures (as reported by the motherboard temperature sensor)
Core Temp for the CPU temperatures

The Idle test was run with the computer running the Windows desktop over the course of 1 hour.
The Load test was run using Orthos to stress the processor while the ATItool spinning box was used to stress the graphics card. This test was run for 1 hour as well.


To compare the cooling capabilities of the nMedia HTPC 600, here’s the same hardware running the same tests in a full size ATX case, the Xion Onyx:



As you can see, size plays the greatest factor here with the nMedia’s smaller volume causing the temperature to rise. The nMedia HTPC 600 may not be the best for gaming all the time or finding prime numbers but it is fine for its intended use of playing video.