Zalman Z-Machine GT1000

[Rob Williams]

Zalman is not normally known for their cases, but they are looking to please gamers everywhere with their Z-Machine GT1000. With it's black aluminum frame, the case is built like a tank. But is it worth your $400?

You can read the full review here and discuss it here.

[MakubeX]

The airflow design of this case is terrible. I don't like that the side panels aren't completely removable. And it's kind of small.

IMO, this case is barely worth $100.

[Saikoro]

Hehe, I loved the "Built like a Tank" pro. That made me chuckle like one would at Jack Nicholson in The Shining when he says "Heeere's Johnny!"

[Merlin]

I don't think there is enough room for an 8800 GPU in there.
These people designing cases should consider what gamers need.
92 mm fans are louder than 120's

Merlin

[Greg King]

Airflow design in this case isn't ideal, but our hardware never reached an alarming temperature... not once. It's a mid tower and to compensate for the complete lack of hard drive space in the Fatal1ty was to add an extra slot on the front cage. Again, it's a mid tower. There aren't to many cases of this size that are going to win any awards for airflow design. Shit is going to get cramped. Perhaps if they kept the hard drives parallel with the motherboard the air would be a bit less restricted.

As for the doors being removable, I honestly didn't have any hindrance at all with the doors pulled open all of the way.

As for the price, no, it's not worth $400 to anyone but the most avid fans of either Zalman or thick aluminum.

It would have been difficult to place a pair of 120mm fans side by side in the front, defeating the intended look of the case entirely. And concerning what gamers need, they sure as hell do not need a $400 chassis. This is a novelty luxury item, well out of reach for most but we weren't going to give it a 5 score for being expensive alone. As for an 8800 GTX fitting in there, I do not have one on hand to test this but it would be quite close if it fit at all.

[Rob Williams]

I agree that the price is bordering on asinine. I can vouch for the quality of the case though. I was at Greg's house when he first received it, and even saw him squeal like a girl when he first took it out of the box.

Very solid case, I love the look of it, but I dislike the lame "Z-Machines" branding, and the price could have been less luxury.

Originally Posted by Merlin

I don't think there is enough room for an 8800 GPU in there.
These people designing cases should consider what gamers need.
92 mm fans are louder than 120's

Merlin

Haven't read every post yet, but an 8800 GTX or Ultra fits fine from what I've seen of other screenshots. Tight fit, maybe a half inch between the end of the card and the drivebays, but will fit.

[MakubeX]

Originally Posted by DarkSynergy

Airflow design in this case isn't ideal, but our hardware never reached an alarming temperature... not once. It's a mid tower and to compensate for the complete lack of hard drive space in the Fatal1ty was to add an extra slot on the front cage. Again, it's a mid tower. There aren't to many cases of this size that are going to win any awards for airflow design. Shit is going to get cramped. Perhaps if they kept the hard drives parallel with the motherboard the air would be a bit less restricted.

As for the doors being removable, I honestly didn't have any hindrance at all with the doors pulled open all of the way.

As for the price, no, it's not worth $400 to anyone but the most avid fans of either Zalman or thick aluminum.

It would have been difficult to place a pair of 120mm fans side by side in the front, defeating the intended look of the case entirely. And concerning what gamers need, they sure as hell do not need a $400 chassis. This is a novelty luxury item, well out of reach for most but we weren't going to give it a 5 score for being expensive alone. As for an 8800 GTX fitting in there, I do not have one on hand to test this but it would be quite close if it fit at all.

Even if your hardware didn't reach high temps it's just because your room temp wasn't hot and/or your hardware wasn't highly OCed or much OCed at all. The airflow design is not just not ideal, is terrible. There are MANY mid tower cases with much a better cooling design. This one not only has one intake and one outtake (counting the two front 90mm fans as one intake), the HDD cage blocks the front intake completely. I don't like having to remove it and limit my HDD space just because their flawed design. If the front fan was replaced by a 120mm fan and the HDD cage was set with the side parallel to the side of the case, then the airflow would be ok. Even if they left the 2 x 90mm fans, but at least turned the cage 90 degrees, it would be ok. But they didn't,tsk tsk.

As for the side panels, I like laying my cases flat on the side to work on them. I would hate not being able to remove those doors on the side.

The least of my worries about a case is how much thicker the aluminum is. It's an nice bonus to have it thicker than usual, but easily sacrificed if it means paying much less.

Even if this is a novelty luxury item it's still way overpriced. They didn't make the novelty luxury item well, they certainly didn't make it worth it.

[madstork91]

I appreciate the fact that this thing has a hinged door... and that it doesn't have any hinged parts to the front facing side. (I personally hate those)

That being said, I have but one word left for this case, ugly.

[Merlin]

[quote=MakubeX;16773]The airflow design is not just not ideal, is terrible. There are MANY mid tower cases with much a better cooling design. This one not only has one intake and one outtake (counting the two front 90mm fans as one intake), the HDD cage blocks the front intake completely. I don't like having to remove it and limit my HDD space just because their flawed design. If the front fan was replaced by a 120mm fan and the HDD cage was set with the side parallel to the side of the case, then the airflow would be ok. Even if they left the 2 x 90mm fans, but at least turned the cage 90 degrees, it would be ok. But they didn't,tsk tsk.

quote]

If you think about it in most cases you have one or two fans cooling the harddrive/drives in the front. The air leaving the hard drive is heated, leaving that area and then trying to cool anything else that produces heat is not very effecient. The thermals build inside before being expelled. Just not a good way to cool at all.
The Thermaltake Armor has a seperate fan for the hard drives in the back and a 120 fan in the front along with another 120 in the back, you can also use one in the top, this one also has the huge one on the side door panel, now that's airflow.
I know it's only a mid tower case here, but I don't think it should have implied to be a gamers box....and by the way, they must like to see Zalmon stamped on everything...huh?

Merlin
my two cents

[MakubeX]

Originally Posted by Merlin

If you think about it in most cases you have one or two fans cooling the harddrive/drives in the front. The air leaving the hard drive is heated, leaving that area and then trying to cool anything else that produces heat is not very effecient.

Not really. The air leaving the hard drive is barely heated and then trying to cool anything else would be almost as efficient as if the hard drive didn't produce any heat at all.

[Merlin]

Originally Posted by MakubeX

Not really. The air leaving the hard drive is barely heated and then trying to cool anything else would be almost as efficient as if the hard drive didn't produce any heat at all.

If you cool something you are taking away heat, the heat is absorbed into the passing air. Ambient in say, 80*F across the heated hard drives, picking up heat thermals. The abient air is now layden with heat from hard drive/s. That air passes over the GPU. picking up more heat and so on. The total heat exumed from the case is the some of all heat inside the case.
What I'm saying is that ambient air changes it's temp as it collects the heat inside the case. The flow is first in contact with the heated hard drives ( do you know the operating temp of most hard drives? ). Then. let's say it picks up only 10% of the heat from hard drives, So ambient air that was once 80*F is now 92*F, then it may flow around the GPU and pick up less amount because the humidity in the air can only hold so much heat. Adequate cooling is achieved when air absorbes heat at a certain airflow rate, slow to medium is best due to the time the heat transfers to the cooler air ( heat is absorbed at a certain rate with the temp/ humidity from the ambient air.
By the way, I worked in AC and refrigeration for ten years, so I know how heat transfers.

Merlin

[MakubeX]

Originally Posted by Merlin

If you cool something you are taking away heat, the heat is absorbed into the passing air. Ambient in say, 80*F across the heated hard drives, picking up heat thermals. The abient air is now layden with heat from hard drive/s. That air passes over the GPU. picking up more heat and so on. The total heat exumed from the case is the some of all heat inside the case.
What I'm saying is that ambient air changes it's temp as it collects the heat inside the case. The flow is first in contact with the heated hard drives ( do you know the operating temp of most hard drives? ). Then. let's say it picks up only 10% of the heat from hard drives, So ambient air that was once 80*F is now 92*F, then it may flow around the GPU and pick up less amount because the humidity in the air can only hold so much heat. Adequate cooling is achieved when air absorbes heat at a certain airflow rate, slow to medium is best due to the time the heat transfers to the cooler air ( heat is absorbed at a certain rate with the temp/ humidity from the ambient air.
By the way, I worked in AC and refrigeration for ten years, so I know how heat transfers.

Merlin

Yes, I know how heat transfers too. I was in Engineering for 5 years. Yes, the air will be hotter than outside the case, but trust me, from the HDD to say the video card, the air will barely be heated compared to if the HDD didn't put out any heat at all. The HDDs don't put out that much heat and the air will be moving pretty fast. The temp of the air from the HDD cage to any other component won't be affected much by the HDD. The air will be heated up a little bit, but just a little bit. Not really enough to complain about its efficiency difference from passing over/under the HDD or not. Especially if don't have low room temps like me. Of course, if you happen to have like 3 or 4 Raptors crammed one on top of each other in front of the fan then in this uncommon situation the temp difference will be much more noticeable, but unless the situation is something of that sort, there won't be much of a temp difference.

PS. Slow or medium airflow rate is not best. You will cool the object faster as the airflow rate is faster. Which is the reason for low, medium and high settings on things like fans. If you're still too hot with the medium setting, the set it to high for a faster airflow rate and more cooling. Let's say you have an object that outputs heat constantly and needs active cooling like a computer part. The faster the airflow rate the cooler the air touching the hotter object will be because the heat transferred from the object will be carried away quicker leaving less time for the object to heat up the air that is at the moment touching it, hence more heat will transfer from the object trying to equate temperatures between the air and itself. If the airflow is slow the air touching the heated object will obtain more heat before it passes by, so eventually the temp difference between the object and the air won't be as big as the difference between the object and the faster moving air, hence the stable temp of the object with slow airflow rate will be higher than stable temp with higher airflow rate.

[Merlin]

LOL....Okay I see you DO know about thermal conduction of air.
Just remember the humidity to temp relationship.

Peace,
Merlin )

PS..... I designed resturant capacity ratings

[MakubeX]

Originally Posted by Merlin

PS..... I designed resturant capacity ratings

Cool! (no pun intended... ok maybe a little bit)