Operating Temperatures
To ensure accurate thermal results, we installed the same hardware in each case in virtually the same way. The motherboard of choice was the Asrock 890FX Deluxe4 which was loaded with a Phenom II X6 1100T processor. The processor was cooled using the Prolimatech Megahalems in passive mode (i.e. no fan actively dispelling heat). We also stuffed in the Inno3D GeForce GTX 580 OC, half a dozen Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB hard drives and OCZ's ZX 1000w power supply.
At idle, the Corsair Obsidian 650D's thermal performance was on par with the larger, better equipped Thermaltake Chaser MK-1. While that's impressive, the more affordable Lian-Li Lancool PC-K63 mid-tower delivered significantly better GPU, CPU and HDD temperatures.
Under full load, the 650D again had a respectable showing. Even with the low fan speed setting it still provided very solid results. While the overall thermal performance is acceptable, the 650D certainly has room for improvement when compared to the Lian-Li Lancool PC-K63.