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many people on other forums say that aluminum cases keep your computer cooler than steel cases because supposedly aluminum cases act like a giant heatsink? is this even founded or even true?

air would not be as good as a conductor of heat compared to two metals in contact. i mean if an aluminum case were to a better heatsink, it would have to touch the board or something to cool it. if air was better at conducting heat, would not we have a cpu HSF touch the air above the cpu instead of the HSF having direct contact with a thermal compund and CPU?

everything else being equal, is aluminum really that much better than other case materials with cooling?

I dont think that the kind of metal for your case makes allot of differens. Its better to place a small fan to blow the hot air out.
The impact of an alliminium case in staid of a normal one would be so minimal its hardly worth the extra cost to buy alliminium.

the bord touching the case would be a very bad idea :eek: , metal conducts electricitie! Anyhow its not the bord itself that needs cooling, its the cpu and northbridge.

aluminium conducts indeed better but for a case it would simply be more efficient to place a extra fan or to just make some more hole's in your case.

Greets Crazy,

Having an aluminum case cools the HDDs a bit more then a normal case but I don't think it's worth the price difference.

But you have to admit that aluminum are much easier to carry around.

I dont know about you but do you carry your pc everywhere you go
My case(with everything in) is 12.1kg (yes i put it on a scale) and the side pannals arn't even on it.

Greets Crazy,

Thats almost as good as the one about poprocks and soda causing your stomach to explode

yeah aluminum is definitely a lot lighter than steel to carry around(that is the type of case i use to take to my friends house). it is basically safe to say aluminum cases are primarily for being light-weight and for aesthetics compared to regular cases. that is the only benefit i have found from my aluminum case.

haha stormbringer, good one!

i was just questioning some things people say about the cooling properties of aluminum cases. and yeah what i said about the aluminum case touching the board was an exaggeration. if the board did touch the case, that would be really bad.

Heatsinks are mainly made out of aluminum. Steel is only used for the support structure usually. I imagine it has some better thermal properties than steel, but certainly not noticeable.

Brushed aluminum does look good though. If I hadn't bought my Thermaltake Xaser2 than I would've gotten an aluminum Lian-Li.

I have a Kingwin and lian-li and both are good.But I prefer the kingwin as it has better conectors and 3 windows with extra fans

Aluminium has about three to five times the thermal conductivity of steel, depending on the alloy.

but when talking about heat transfer of the air inside the case, we are talking about a difference of maybe a few hundredths of a degree C. If that. The material the case is made of is not going to make any notable difference.