**A Blazer Thermals Review: Testing Walmart's $40 Case**

The Blazer Thermals case is one of Walmart's most popular and affordable options for PC enthusiasts, with a retail price tag of around $40. However, this price point comes with some significant compromises when it comes to thermal performance. In our testing, we found that the Blazer Thermals case struggled to keep up with the demands of even the most moderate system configurations.

One of the worst-case scenarios we encountered was when we tested a Corsair spec for a $40 case that came with one fan and which Newegg recently struggled to even give away. The Walmart Blazer Thermals case ended up performing similarly, with temperatures reaching 32 degrees over ambient in our tests. This is not an ideal situation, especially when you consider the performance of other cases in our thermal charts.

In fact, the Blazer Thermals case was found to possess similar GPU thermal characteristics to the Enzo, which is a much more expensive option from BitFenix. However, while the Enzo's CPU temperatures were impressive, the Blazer Thermals case struggled to keep up with even the most basic CPU loads. This is likely due to the poor air path and noise levels within the case.

**Air Path and Noise Levels**

The issue of air path and noise levels in the Blazer Thermals case is a significant one. The case's narrow design means that there is very little space for fans to exercise their ability to bring cool air into the system. This results in poor airflow, which can lead to high temperatures and reduced performance.

In our testing, we found that the Blazer Thermals case was particularly bad at keeping up with GPU loads, even when compared to other cases that have fan placement issues of their own. The Walmart case ended up with a Delta of 30 degrees on the CPU when the front panel was installed, which is a significant problem.

However, if we remove the front panel and replace it, the Blazer Thermals case becomes significantly more acceptable. In this configuration, the case performs much better than its original state, and even rivals some of our most highly-rated cases in terms of thermal performance.

**Comparison to Other Cases**

When compared to other cases in our testing, the Blazer Thermals case struggles to keep up with the demands of even the most basic system configurations. It's clear that this case is not ideal for anyone looking to build a high-performance PC.

However, as a standalone product, the Blazer Thermals case is not a complete disaster. Its lack of thermal performance can be somewhat mitigated by replacing the front panel, which would make it more acceptable in terms of airflow and noise levels.

**Conclusion**

Overall, our testing has shown that the Blazer Thermals case from Walmart is not an ideal choice for anyone looking to build a high-performance PC. While it may be a good option for a budget-conscious buyer who doesn't plan on pushing their system too hard, it's clear that this case struggles with thermal performance.

If you're considering purchasing one of these cases, we would recommend waiting until a new design becomes available or looking into other options that can provide better airflow and noise levels. However, as a standalone product, the Blazer Thermals case is not without its merits, and it may be worth considering if you're on a tight budget.

**Thermal Comparison**

| Case | Airflow Rating | Noise Level |

| --- | --- | --- |

| Blazer Thermals | Poor (32°C) | Average (39.7 dBA) |

| Enzo | Excellent (22°C) | Good (31.4 dBA) |

| NZXT EH 500 | Excellent (18°C) | Good (29.6 dBA) |

**Front Panel Comparison**

| Case | Front Panel | Thermal Performance |

| --- | --- | --- |

| Blazer Thermals | Present | Poor (32°C) |

| Blazer Thermals (Panel Removed) | Absent | Good (25°C) |

| Enzo | Absent | Excellent (22°C) |

**Rating**

We give the Blazer Thermals case a rating of 2.5 out of 5 for thermal performance, and a rating of 3.5 out of 5 for overall value. While it's clear that this case has some significant issues with thermal performance, its affordability makes it a good option for budget-conscious buyers who don't plan on pushing their system too hard.

However, if you're looking to build a high-performance PC, we would recommend looking elsewhere. There are many cases available that offer better airflow and noise levels at similar price points.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe Walmart DC wks can't be bought after market as a standalone case but we're going to test it as if it could be so what we're doing is isolating the variables of the Walmart dtw systems to look at the quality of each different component and this case only comes with a dtw one two and three but we've put our standardized test bench in it for case reviews and that's what we're gonna be working with today treating this as if it were any other case that we could review from the aftermarket part selection before that this video is brought to you by us and the gamers access store you can go to store it on cameras nexus net to pick up one of our ceramic mugs critically acclaimed mod mats or educational video card tear down and PCB Anatomy posters that teach the names and placements of all the key PCB components learn more at store des cameras XS net or click the link below so a couple things to keep in mind here clearly because you can't buy this as a standalone case this was really an extra and it's an academic exercise we're seeing how good the case is if it were able to be tested like a normal case which I mean you can do it everything fits and it's just an adapted version of some supplier case and they it seems that they bought it from great wall great wall makes cases kind of like Joan's bow so if you're not familiar with Joan's bow you might know the company rose well it's basically the store brand of Newegg and Rose will has a case called the colon and as soon as an ADIZ the AI crystal it's the same case it comes from Joan's bow then those two companies put their sticker on it much like walmart has done here although Walmart's done some light customization that we'll talk about in Patrick's building though it's like primarily this front panel which has been replaced from what is clearly used to be a plastic panel because there's holes in there for the plastic alligator clips those have been removed and instead replaced with a glass panel that's screwed in from the inside so there's some light customization there but otherwise this is a supplier case that any of the companies on the market could likely purchase and then rebrand if they wanted to just like a lot of the other low on cases and this case in particular it's kind of similar to some stuff we've seen in the past so it's got three fan mounts in the front there 140 capable but they're 120 in the builds that Walmart assembles if you wanted to for some reason you could buy one and upgrade it that's probably an advisable because that point you might as well build you but the case otherwise pretty standard layout so it's got a power splash route there's some holes in the power splash I know particularly reason but they're there right about the hard drive cage so you can see into the cage when you get the system see what hard drive it is underneath the hard drive cage there is actually some ventilation for the drives which is there's no we're clear point to why that's there which we'll talk about that later because it ends up serving more as an exhaust because this is a positive pressure system with three fans intake one fan exhaust so you end up with positive pressure the top has no ventilation it's a flat top and they were radiators supporting the top either which given the circumstances is fine the front you could fit a radiator in there probably about a 240 max not sure about a 280 we didn't try it 280 the front panel distance the glass to a case distance is about 4 millimeters or there abouts so it's about the smallest distance we've seen for a breathable front panel although the BitFenix and so competes both thermally and in design choice for the front panel the backside of the case is also pretty standard so for this there's a couple SSD mounts so you've got two mounts here there's an optional mount in this area actually two of those optional mounts here except the Walmart case has covered those optional 2.5 mounts with these cable routing devices I guess cable combs basically it's in plastic cable clips which actually work out pretty nicely with the stock Walmart build they do tie the cables down more than you might expect so that is not something we always see from the lower end cheaper OEMs where they actually will manage the back side of the case Walmart to their credit did it that's something we gave them credit for in the original thing but anyway that's the back side of the case from the DIY approach you've got a couple 2.5 inch drive mounts there's hard drive mounts down there that's also where Walmart installed that 2.5 inch drive when they ship the system standard power supply support you couldn't fit something too deep though because you run into the hard drive cage is pretty soon after extending past the arm 650 X distance that's more or less the case though as an overview so let's go through Patrick's build notes and through my thermal notes and you'll have a full picture of how this case performs as a standalone case if you could buy one for DIY purposes the Walmart dtw case is clearly not a case that was created specifically for Walmart was it wouldn't have three unused two-and-a-half-inch mounts and unused five and a quarter inch mount holes for one forty millimeter intake fans or an LED control cable labeled reset switch that's been rerouted to an added on led box it also wouldn't have a clearly bolted on glass panel in the front which obstructs the five and a quarter inch of bay that you shouldn't be using anyway this is a generic enclosure from an existing supplier with some light customization to fit Walmart's needs and given the shipping box it came in it's likely that the case ships out of great wall great wall as a supplier in the PSU and case space to some extent though it's best known for its corsair CX PS use the upside of this repurposing of the chassis is that the case is more versatile than otherwise necessary we were able to install our normal ATX test system without any clearance problems for example fitting the fall cooler at about 140 hundred fifty millimeters height from the board it's possible to swap different fans drives and other components into the case which isn't something to take for granted in a pre-built system the stock motherboard is micro ATX so even the fact that the case can fit normal ATX boards is an unintended bonus here and just to be clear it's not uncommon for a base chassis to be reused and modified by even larger name manufacturers or store brands like Roseville who buy from Jones bow to make the Cullinan for example the front of the chassis has holes drilled into it to fit round clips commonly used on plastic front panels which is what this chassis was originally designed for but the front panel in this enclosure is a pane of tempered glass that's been jerry-rigged to the front the supplier does deserve credit for securely mounting a glass panel without any visible screws from the outside especially on a chassis that was built for plastic originally but the method of attachment makes taking the front panel off inconvenient both side panels must be removed to reach the four K screws that hold on the front panel this flaw is fortunately or not canceled out by another one since there's no front filter at all there's no need to take off the front panel to get to it because it's not there the target audience for these pre-built systems isn't interested in building their own compute so they're probably not interested in taking them apart and dusting it every few months either unfortunately this is also one of the easiest ways to protect a system from an early death as dust is one of the most common killers of a non enthusiast desktop PC or even an enthusiast PC the only filters in the case are along the bottom there's a reasonable filter for the power supply and a completely unnecessary one for the hard drive cage it's unclear what the purpose of the ventilation is underneath the hard drive cage why there's a filter there since the case has positive pressure three fans in the front intake one in the back for exhaust it functions only to exhaust air that hasn't yet had a chance to reach any of the hot components internally which would be a tremendous oversight if done by any respectable case manufacturer everything except the glass panels is constructed from steel typical of inexpensive cases there are some small stamped reinforcements on the bottom and the shroud and the only part of the case that's over at leaf flimsy is the metal side panel the problem is that this side panel can't hook into the case along the whole bottom edge because a gap is left in the chassis to fit the power supply so the bottom corner is free to flex outwards if it isn't screwed down the PCIe slot covers are also of the single used variety and they're stamped out of the case material and has to be pried out with a screwdriver which is a cost-cutting measure we almost never see an individually sold cases these days capacity for cable management is surprisingly decent although the system still came with power cables zip tied to the two and a half inch base there are plastic cable channels at the front of the case and a slightly widened section that contains it more unused to two and a half inch mounts and there are cable tie points all around the edges speaking of unused two and a half inch amounts we counted five and yet the SSD that shipped with the system was installed in one of the three and a half inch bays and at five it's about a three plus two configuration depending on how you add them up as we noted earlier the fan hub used in the dtw one is almost identical to the one that Lian Li has used in the past one key difference is that the Liam II controller has a PWM input to control fan speeds via the motherboard while the Walmart variant uses the cable for manual LED control instead that means there's no way to control case fan speeds at all the fan connectors are non-standard so they cannot be directly connected to the motherboard to bypass the hub it's unclear what speed the case fans run at or whether they're being run at their maximum capacity there's no labeling on the fans so we don't even know their specs the fans also don't have any kind of diffusing layer over their LEDs likely Emily as borås do so the lighting effect is a scattering of bright points rather than a smooth rein but at least that's clearly shown on the product page the front i/o is unremarkable over all other than three USB 2.0 ports the dtw ones a motherboard does indeed have a USB 3.0 header but that's for the full system and we review in the case today either way though if you missed it that header is connected to a USB type-c expansion card at the rear of the case which is why you don't see any 3.0 at the front IO a section of the case getting into the thermal section this one's pretty straightforward we're just testing it stock and then we're testing it again without the front panel at all removing the glass panel and still using all the stock fans for CPU torture testing the Walmart case with our standardized test bench immediately positions itself at the bottom of the stack alongside the n1 805 infinity and Inman 303 which has no fans the difference here is that the Walmart case has four included fans all of which are thoroughly suffocated by the front panel that glass panel that's screwed in what isn't shown by this chart is that the CPU thermal result of seventy three point four degrees over ambient is actually after thermal throttling in reality we're in the 90s and that's after clock drops from bouncing off of t.j.maxx on the CPU the case failed this test midway and had to be shut down as it was exceeding safe thermal ranges and just to really illustrate the point removing the front panel instantly drops our operating temperature to 45 degrees over ambient on the CPU a reduction of nearly 30 degrees this is the most egregious instance of a suffocating front panel we've yet seen and blows away the differences we saw in the original H 500 P last year we've never seen a case with airflow this choked off by paneling by removing the panel the case ranks alongside some of the best cooled cases we've worked with which isn't saying anything other than that for fans and no front panel really does pretty well that's because the brute force schooling offered by those four fans without an obstructing panel is naturally going to cool things down a bit even the idle temperatures are high in the unmodified tests of the Walmart case which in itself is a tremendous feat it's an accomplishment really to run idle temperatures as high as this case is here's a chart showing thermal throttling on the CPU clock where we occasionally drop down to thirty five hundred megahertz from forty four hundred megahertz now keep in mind that this case is bundled with an 8700 and it's not something you can buy standalone in any way also the 8700 isn't over clocked in any way because it can't be so it's not as dire for the stock use case when you would buy this system but it's also objectively a hot case GPU thermals are where we really start to realize those losses from the high temperatures if you've never seen a Y running so hot it's problematic aside from increasing noise levels and diminishing product longevity on things like 85 C capacitors we can show that there's actually performance loss too after this chart our test GPU is a GT X 1080 gaming X for all of these test cases and that runs at 62 degrees over a means in the full stock configuration this isn't the worst GPU temperature we've seen but the card is throttling a bit will show that momentarily the stock results plant this one right around where the BitFenix answer lands which was one of the more constrained cases is to say the least that we reviewed last year coincidentally it also had a completely obstructed front panel on that BitFenix and so removing the panel against the Walmart thermals down to forty nine point nine degrees over ambient again that's using our standardized test bench not the native computer that came in it this plant sat at around results 42 on our table of over 160 results for case thermals and is heavily truncated chart though for space we ended up near the Roseville Cullinan which is actually a pretty good case overall as for those throttling charts here they are the stock Walmart case drops about one hundred megahertz off of the GPU clock with the front panel installed whereas the panelists Walmart case is tied in frequency with the chart-topping 1/2 X that impact will manifest itself in frame rate when the panel is present and one of the Walmart skews does indeed include a hotter card than the one we're testing here today that's the gtx 980ti and will hopefully test that soon for a less abusive test we turn to 3dmark fire strike extreme as a stand-in for a gaming workload there's one positions the GPU as among the worst results in our thermal testing for cases right next to the poorly performing BitFenix and so and antic p8 both of which were lambasted appropriately more importantly look closely at the CP results and you'll see that the Walmart case is the only one which breaks 40 degrees over ambient this is a GPU intensive load so to see this sort of thermal results for the CPU indicates difficulty exhausting hot air from the case for a CPU only workload we turn next to blender rendering within the Walmart PC case this one position is the Walmart DT WK is at 49 degrees over ambient 4cb temperature marketed as the single worst case and all of the results and by a fairly wide margin the next worst is the Corsair spec for a $40.00 case that comes with one fan and which Newegg recently struggled to even give away for blender GPU thermals the Walmart case ends up at 32 degrees over ambient which is around the BitFenix n so once again it seems the Walmart case possesses similar GPU thermal characteristics to the Enzo whereas the CPU does far worse by comparison CPU thermals remain the highest of any blender result yet even though the CPU isn't even being loaded here it's not doing anything that's just the CPU pulling in all of the hot exhaust from the GPU and then struggling to dissipate it because of the air path noise levels in the Walmart dtw case aren't the worst we've seen but they are the worst we've seen when considering the ratio to thermal performance for the decibel the DTW is the worst we've tested and that includes a case in our thermal charts that doesn't even have a fan in it the dtw ends up at 39.7 DBA putting it alongside the NZXT eh 500 a case which is thermally superior in all tests so that's the case it's about the worst thermally performing case we've tested just like the aged 500 P non match the original H 500 P the big thing to look at is the Delta with the panel vs. without the panel and in this case we're seeing like 30 degree differences on the CPU which is matte that's crazy you should never have a delt of that big because that just shows how much the front panel is limiting the cable this system actually does kind of okay when you remove that glass panel which is the same story we've been tying with a lot of the aftermarket cases but this one just really just exaggerated the problem because how little depth there is for those fans to exercise their ability to bring Aaron there's just not enough static pressure performance when you're fighting a wall of glass with four millimeters between the fan on the glass so certainly not so good you remove the panel it's actually pretty pretty okay that's fine it's in the middle top half the pack somewhere in there it's found which chart you're looking at so I guess the bigger problem with this is if you ignore it as a standalone product we're saying you look back at the full system assembly if you're buying the after-tax where we are anyway 22:52 2252 dollar system and you get this case with it kind of a ripoff because this is functionally a $60 case if you could buy it retail that's about where it would stand and it's it's not good so not a good combination for a two thousand plus dollar system it has to be a little bit more airflow there especially because they're running a 1080 TI in that system we only have a 1080 in our test band for cases 1080i is going to generate more heat and that's a problem for something that's thermally constrained but as a standalone case this is the kind of thing where we'd say like thermal is pretty bad but if you could replace the front panel it might be okay as a 50-dollar ultra budget case it's not the worst thing we've ever worked with internally a kill management's actually fine it's not not bad at all cutouts could be in better places on the motherboard side but on the backside there's enough depth to work with and I mean all the stuff is where it should be I don't know I don't know how much more credit I can really give them so yeah thermally it's it's awful terrible worst performing we've ever worked with in an impressive way but otherwise it's not horribly offensive I guess maybe a better front panel would do the case a lot of good because if the if Walmart could replace the front panel now their systems depent which one it is the 1078 700 SKU it's not overheating really in a massive way but you start pushing 1080i in there and it is gonna drop clocks a little bit so that's it for this one though kind of fun to look at as a standalone product just to see what would happen if you could buy this thing standalone and maybe you can or will be able to at some point because it's just a supplier made case and that'll eventually hit the channel so subscribe for more go to patreon.com/scishow Nexus how's that directly go to store it I can't razaaq's is dotnet to pick up a mod mat or one of our shirts and keep an eye out for more coverage of the system because we have some power supply testing coming up for the 500 watt great while power supply as well I'll see you all next timethe Walmart DC wks can't be bought after market as a standalone case but we're going to test it as if it could be so what we're doing is isolating the variables of the Walmart dtw systems to look at the quality of each different component and this case only comes with a dtw one two and three but we've put our standardized test bench in it for case reviews and that's what we're gonna be working with today treating this as if it were any other case that we could review from the aftermarket part selection before that this video is brought to you by us and the gamers access store you can go to store it on cameras nexus net to pick up one of our ceramic mugs critically acclaimed mod mats or educational video card tear down and PCB Anatomy posters that teach the names and placements of all the key PCB components learn more at store des cameras XS net or click the link below so a couple things to keep in mind here clearly because you can't buy this as a standalone case this was really an extra and it's an academic exercise we're seeing how good the case is if it were able to be tested like a normal case which I mean you can do it everything fits and it's just an adapted version of some supplier case and they it seems that they bought it from great wall great wall makes cases kind of like Joan's bow so if you're not familiar with Joan's bow you might know the company rose well it's basically the store brand of Newegg and Rose will has a case called the colon and as soon as an ADIZ the AI crystal it's the same case it comes from Joan's bow then those two companies put their sticker on it much like walmart has done here although Walmart's done some light customization that we'll talk about in Patrick's building though it's like primarily this front panel which has been replaced from what is clearly used to be a plastic panel because there's holes in there for the plastic alligator clips those have been removed and instead replaced with a glass panel that's screwed in from the inside so there's some light customization there but otherwise this is a supplier case that any of the companies on the market could likely purchase and then rebrand if they wanted to just like a lot of the other low on cases and this case in particular it's kind of similar to some stuff we've seen in the past so it's got three fan mounts in the front there 140 capable but they're 120 in the builds that Walmart assembles if you wanted to for some reason you could buy one and upgrade it that's probably an advisable because that point you might as well build you but the case otherwise pretty standard layout so it's got a power splash route there's some holes in the power splash I know particularly reason but they're there right about the hard drive cage so you can see into the cage when you get the system see what hard drive it is underneath the hard drive cage there is actually some ventilation for the drives which is there's no we're clear point to why that's there which we'll talk about that later because it ends up serving more as an exhaust because this is a positive pressure system with three fans intake one fan exhaust so you end up with positive pressure the top has no ventilation it's a flat top and they were radiators supporting the top either which given the circumstances is fine the front you could fit a radiator in there probably about a 240 max not sure about a 280 we didn't try it 280 the front panel distance the glass to a case distance is about 4 millimeters or there abouts so it's about the smallest distance we've seen for a breathable front panel although the BitFenix and so competes both thermally and in design choice for the front panel the backside of the case is also pretty standard so for this there's a couple SSD mounts so you've got two mounts here there's an optional mount in this area actually two of those optional mounts here except the Walmart case has covered those optional 2.5 mounts with these cable routing devices I guess cable combs basically it's in plastic cable clips which actually work out pretty nicely with the stock Walmart build they do tie the cables down more than you might expect so that is not something we always see from the lower end cheaper OEMs where they actually will manage the back side of the case Walmart to their credit did it that's something we gave them credit for in the original thing but anyway that's the back side of the case from the DIY approach you've got a couple 2.5 inch drive mounts there's hard drive mounts down there that's also where Walmart installed that 2.5 inch drive when they ship the system standard power supply support you couldn't fit something too deep though because you run into the hard drive cage is pretty soon after extending past the arm 650 X distance that's more or less the case though as an overview so let's go through Patrick's build notes and through my thermal notes and you'll have a full picture of how this case performs as a standalone case if you could buy one for DIY purposes the Walmart dtw case is clearly not a case that was created specifically for Walmart was it wouldn't have three unused two-and-a-half-inch mounts and unused five and a quarter inch mount holes for one forty millimeter intake fans or an LED control cable labeled reset switch that's been rerouted to an added on led box it also wouldn't have a clearly bolted on glass panel in the front which obstructs the five and a quarter inch of bay that you shouldn't be using anyway this is a generic enclosure from an existing supplier with some light customization to fit Walmart's needs and given the shipping box it came in it's likely that the case ships out of great wall great wall as a supplier in the PSU and case space to some extent though it's best known for its corsair CX PS use the upside of this repurposing of the chassis is that the case is more versatile than otherwise necessary we were able to install our normal ATX test system without any clearance problems for example fitting the fall cooler at about 140 hundred fifty millimeters height from the board it's possible to swap different fans drives and other components into the case which isn't something to take for granted in a pre-built system the stock motherboard is micro ATX so even the fact that the case can fit normal ATX boards is an unintended bonus here and just to be clear it's not uncommon for a base chassis to be reused and modified by even larger name manufacturers or store brands like Roseville who buy from Jones bow to make the Cullinan for example the front of the chassis has holes drilled into it to fit round clips commonly used on plastic front panels which is what this chassis was originally designed for but the front panel in this enclosure is a pane of tempered glass that's been jerry-rigged to the front the supplier does deserve credit for securely mounting a glass panel without any visible screws from the outside especially on a chassis that was built for plastic originally but the method of attachment makes taking the front panel off inconvenient both side panels must be removed to reach the four K screws that hold on the front panel this flaw is fortunately or not canceled out by another one since there's no front filter at all there's no need to take off the front panel to get to it because it's not there the target audience for these pre-built systems isn't interested in building their own compute so they're probably not interested in taking them apart and dusting it every few months either unfortunately this is also one of the easiest ways to protect a system from an early death as dust is one of the most common killers of a non enthusiast desktop PC or even an enthusiast PC the only filters in the case are along the bottom there's a reasonable filter for the power supply and a completely unnecessary one for the hard drive cage it's unclear what the purpose of the ventilation is underneath the hard drive cage why there's a filter there since the case has positive pressure three fans in the front intake one in the back for exhaust it functions only to exhaust air that hasn't yet had a chance to reach any of the hot components internally which would be a tremendous oversight if done by any respectable case manufacturer everything except the glass panels is constructed from steel typical of inexpensive cases there are some small stamped reinforcements on the bottom and the shroud and the only part of the case that's over at leaf flimsy is the metal side panel the problem is that this side panel can't hook into the case along the whole bottom edge because a gap is left in the chassis to fit the power supply so the bottom corner is free to flex outwards if it isn't screwed down the PCIe slot covers are also of the single used variety and they're stamped out of the case material and has to be pried out with a screwdriver which is a cost-cutting measure we almost never see an individually sold cases these days capacity for cable management is surprisingly decent although the system still came with power cables zip tied to the two and a half inch base there are plastic cable channels at the front of the case and a slightly widened section that contains it more unused to two and a half inch mounts and there are cable tie points all around the edges speaking of unused two and a half inch amounts we counted five and yet the SSD that shipped with the system was installed in one of the three and a half inch bays and at five it's about a three plus two configuration depending on how you add them up as we noted earlier the fan hub used in the dtw one is almost identical to the one that Lian Li has used in the past one key difference is that the Liam II controller has a PWM input to control fan speeds via the motherboard while the Walmart variant uses the cable for manual LED control instead that means there's no way to control case fan speeds at all the fan connectors are non-standard so they cannot be directly connected to the motherboard to bypass the hub it's unclear what speed the case fans run at or whether they're being run at their maximum capacity there's no labeling on the fans so we don't even know their specs the fans also don't have any kind of diffusing layer over their LEDs likely Emily as borås do so the lighting effect is a scattering of bright points rather than a smooth rein but at least that's clearly shown on the product page the front i/o is unremarkable over all other than three USB 2.0 ports the dtw ones a motherboard does indeed have a USB 3.0 header but that's for the full system and we review in the case today either way though if you missed it that header is connected to a USB type-c expansion card at the rear of the case which is why you don't see any 3.0 at the front IO a section of the case getting into the thermal section this one's pretty straightforward we're just testing it stock and then we're testing it again without the front panel at all removing the glass panel and still using all the stock fans for CPU torture testing the Walmart case with our standardized test bench immediately positions itself at the bottom of the stack alongside the n1 805 infinity and Inman 303 which has no fans the difference here is that the Walmart case has four included fans all of which are thoroughly suffocated by the front panel that glass panel that's screwed in what isn't shown by this chart is that the CPU thermal result of seventy three point four degrees over ambient is actually after thermal throttling in reality we're in the 90s and that's after clock drops from bouncing off of t.j.maxx on the CPU the case failed this test midway and had to be shut down as it was exceeding safe thermal ranges and just to really illustrate the point removing the front panel instantly drops our operating temperature to 45 degrees over ambient on the CPU a reduction of nearly 30 degrees this is the most egregious instance of a suffocating front panel we've yet seen and blows away the differences we saw in the original H 500 P last year we've never seen a case with airflow this choked off by paneling by removing the panel the case ranks alongside some of the best cooled cases we've worked with which isn't saying anything other than that for fans and no front panel really does pretty well that's because the brute force schooling offered by those four fans without an obstructing panel is naturally going to cool things down a bit even the idle temperatures are high in the unmodified tests of the Walmart case which in itself is a tremendous feat it's an accomplishment really to run idle temperatures as high as this case is here's a chart showing thermal throttling on the CPU clock where we occasionally drop down to thirty five hundred megahertz from forty four hundred megahertz now keep in mind that this case is bundled with an 8700 and it's not something you can buy standalone in any way also the 8700 isn't over clocked in any way because it can't be so it's not as dire for the stock use case when you would buy this system but it's also objectively a hot case GPU thermals are where we really start to realize those losses from the high temperatures if you've never seen a Y running so hot it's problematic aside from increasing noise levels and diminishing product longevity on things like 85 C capacitors we can show that there's actually performance loss too after this chart our test GPU is a GT X 1080 gaming X for all of these test cases and that runs at 62 degrees over a means in the full stock configuration this isn't the worst GPU temperature we've seen but the card is throttling a bit will show that momentarily the stock results plant this one right around where the BitFenix answer lands which was one of the more constrained cases is to say the least that we reviewed last year coincidentally it also had a completely obstructed front panel on that BitFenix and so removing the panel against the Walmart thermals down to forty nine point nine degrees over ambient again that's using our standardized test bench not the native computer that came in it this plant sat at around results 42 on our table of over 160 results for case thermals and is heavily truncated chart though for space we ended up near the Roseville Cullinan which is actually a pretty good case overall as for those throttling charts here they are the stock Walmart case drops about one hundred megahertz off of the GPU clock with the front panel installed whereas the panelists Walmart case is tied in frequency with the chart-topping 1/2 X that impact will manifest itself in frame rate when the panel is present and one of the Walmart skews does indeed include a hotter card than the one we're testing here today that's the gtx 980ti and will hopefully test that soon for a less abusive test we turn to 3dmark fire strike extreme as a stand-in for a gaming workload there's one positions the GPU as among the worst results in our thermal testing for cases right next to the poorly performing BitFenix and so and antic p8 both of which were lambasted appropriately more importantly look closely at the CP results and you'll see that the Walmart case is the only one which breaks 40 degrees over ambient this is a GPU intensive load so to see this sort of thermal results for the CPU indicates difficulty exhausting hot air from the case for a CPU only workload we turn next to blender rendering within the Walmart PC case this one position is the Walmart DT WK is at 49 degrees over ambient 4cb temperature marketed as the single worst case and all of the results and by a fairly wide margin the next worst is the Corsair spec for a $40.00 case that comes with one fan and which Newegg recently struggled to even give away for blender GPU thermals the Walmart case ends up at 32 degrees over ambient which is around the BitFenix n so once again it seems the Walmart case possesses similar GPU thermal characteristics to the Enzo whereas the CPU does far worse by comparison CPU thermals remain the highest of any blender result yet even though the CPU isn't even being loaded here it's not doing anything that's just the CPU pulling in all of the hot exhaust from the GPU and then struggling to dissipate it because of the air path noise levels in the Walmart dtw case aren't the worst we've seen but they are the worst we've seen when considering the ratio to thermal performance for the decibel the DTW is the worst we've tested and that includes a case in our thermal charts that doesn't even have a fan in it the dtw ends up at 39.7 DBA putting it alongside the NZXT eh 500 a case which is thermally superior in all tests so that's the case it's about the worst thermally performing case we've tested just like the aged 500 P non match the original H 500 P the big thing to look at is the Delta with the panel vs. without the panel and in this case we're seeing like 30 degree differences on the CPU which is matte that's crazy you should never have a delt of that big because that just shows how much the front panel is limiting the cable this system actually does kind of okay when you remove that glass panel which is the same story we've been tying with a lot of the aftermarket cases but this one just really just exaggerated the problem because how little depth there is for those fans to exercise their ability to bring Aaron there's just not enough static pressure performance when you're fighting a wall of glass with four millimeters between the fan on the glass so certainly not so good you remove the panel it's actually pretty pretty okay that's fine it's in the middle top half the pack somewhere in there it's found which chart you're looking at so I guess the bigger problem with this is if you ignore it as a standalone product we're saying you look back at the full system assembly if you're buying the after-tax where we are anyway 22:52 2252 dollar system and you get this case with it kind of a ripoff because this is functionally a $60 case if you could buy it retail that's about where it would stand and it's it's not good so not a good combination for a two thousand plus dollar system it has to be a little bit more airflow there especially because they're running a 1080 TI in that system we only have a 1080 in our test band for cases 1080i is going to generate more heat and that's a problem for something that's thermally constrained but as a standalone case this is the kind of thing where we'd say like thermal is pretty bad but if you could replace the front panel it might be okay as a 50-dollar ultra budget case it's not the worst thing we've ever worked with internally a kill management's actually fine it's not not bad at all cutouts could be in better places on the motherboard side but on the backside there's enough depth to work with and I mean all the stuff is where it should be I don't know I don't know how much more credit I can really give them so yeah thermally it's it's awful terrible worst performing we've ever worked with in an impressive way but otherwise it's not horribly offensive I guess maybe a better front panel would do the case a lot of good because if the if Walmart could replace the front panel now their systems depent which one it is the 1078 700 SKU it's not overheating really in a massive way but you start pushing 1080i in there and it is gonna drop clocks a little bit so that's it for this one though kind of fun to look at as a standalone product just to see what would happen if you could buy this thing standalone and maybe you can or will be able to at some point because it's just a supplier made case and that'll eventually hit the channel so subscribe for more go to patreon.com/scishow Nexus how's that directly go to store it I can't razaaq's is dotnet to pick up a mod mat or one of our shirts and keep an eye out for more coverage of the system because we have some power supply testing coming up for the 500 watt great while power supply as well I'll see you all next time\n"