APNX C1 Mid-Tower Review – New case manufacturer makes a solid debut, but still drops points

1 - Intro and unboxing 2 - Technical data and features 3 - Building diary 4 - Temperatures 5 - Gallery, summary and conclusion

Preinstalled fans

Before I get into the temperature behavior, I have to make a quick note about the pre-installed fans. While the 120 in the rear did not show any conspicuousness in this regard, clearly audible bearing noise (clacking) could be heard from the 140 in the front. The manufacturer had informed me that some of the samples were equipped with pre-production fans and that the noises should no longer occur in the final product. The fans in the test lab, which were sent independently of the case test, do not seem to produce the noise anymore. Basically, the fans installed in the test case were also quite loud and even audible at the minimum speed of just under 500rpm. Silent fans probably don’t even need to try it with these fans!

In return, the airflow is clearly noticeable even at the minimum speed and the fans are a real feast for the eyes.

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Temperature behavior

Now we come to the temperature behavior. The familiar test system was used again for this. A 240mm AIO from Cooler Master was used on the CPU, and the pre-installed FP-1 fans were used as case fans. As mentioned above, they are relatively loud, but generate a noticeable airflow at a minimum speed of about 500 rpm, so the case fans were only operated at the minimum speed during the test.

General conditions

Room temperature: 20.7°C
Case fans: 500rpm
AIO Fans: 800rpm
AIO Pump: 1900rpm

CPU Torture

I used Cinebench R23 in the loop for the CPU torture test. Over the test period of a good 15 minutes, the CPU reached an average temperature of 80.7°C. With PBO enabled and a continuous (read) power consumption of 145 watts, the CPU reached a clock of 4100MHz on all cores.

Gaming

Borderlands 3 was again used for the gaming test, which continuously loads the graphics card to 100% and thus runs it in the power limit (290W) for the entire test duration. The 3070 Ti leveled off at around 71.5°C and kept a clock of 1905MHz permanently.

The CPU was mainly in the mid-60s during the session and occasionally surpassed 70°C for a short time.

Interim summary

Although the CPU and GPU, both no children of sadness, were allowed to push their full power limits, no heat accumulated in the case. Once again, the AIO was placed “awkwardly” and blew the waste heat from the graphics card through the radiator, which is anything but optimal for the CPU temperature. However, the exhausts in the lid ultimately prevented heat from building up in the case. Basically, the airflow in the C1 works very well and the temperatures were kept within limits by the decent airflow of the FP-1 fans. Unfortunately, the fans also generate a relatively high noise level to ensure the corresponding airflow. While the fan noise was easily masked by the graphics card’s noise during gaming and could no longer be described as annoying, the fans are quite noticeable when idling.