PCSpecialist Vanquish Z11 System Review

Allan 'Zardon' Campbell February 14, 2013 Featured Announcement, PC

We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.

Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The Zalman Z11 is not the quietest case on the market, although the noise is never that intrusive. The air flow capabilities are very impressive so there is always going to be a trade-off.

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7 comments

Joe
February 14, 2013 at 8:41 am

I built a system for the same price. Very closely matched actually, except my cable routing is a mess.

They seem a good company.
Wilker
February 14, 2013 at 8:43 am

Never even seen that case before, looks very aggressive. I like it.

Seems like a good well balanced system, only thing I would change would be the cooler. get the H60 and overclock it to 4.7 or 4.8. only £30 more.
Andi
February 14, 2013 at 8:43 am

GOod company, my friend bought the last system Kitguru reviewed from them and he loves it. this looks good too.
Vhero
February 14, 2013 at 2:00 pm

this isnt available on their site I looked everywhere for this system as there finance options are really great. Pay within a year and pay Zero interest.
Zardon
February 14, 2013 at 2:08 pm

Vhero, its a special system deal – link is in the conclusion page – https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/reviews/
stuey
February 14, 2013 at 6:50 pm

I have this case it has great cooling and is very quiet even though it has five fans as standard