Negative case reviews are so hard to find

T

TheSpoon

Limp Gawd
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Jun 6, 2004
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Just to be clear, I'm not talking about HardOCP.

I find these results kind of funny.

I did a google search for "case review site:hardwaresecrets.com".
Out of the first 10 results: 7 cases got a "gold award", 3 silver, 0 bronze, 0 no award.

Same search, but the site is tweaknews.net. 6 "top rank", 2 "great", 2, "good", 0 no award.
extremetech.com: 2 cases got 4.5/5, 6 got 4/5, 2 got 3.5/5, 0 other.
hardware canucks: 6 "dam good", 3 "dam good value", 1 "dam innovative", 0 no award.

Some sites that seem more credible:
bit-tech.net: 1 excellence award, 1 recommended, 8 no award.
legitreviews.com: 1 editor's choice, 1 innovation award, 1 value award, 7 no award.

And the only site that I've seen that even bothers to compare the cases' cooling performance to one another is bit-tech.net. Most case reviews on the web amount to "we installed our parts, they look pretty, editor's choice".

Anyway mainly I'm just ranting I guess. This probably extends beyond just cases, but it just seems ridiculous that some of these sites slap an award on everything in sight. Why does HardOCP even bother linking to these reviews?
 
One reason they may never give out bad ratings is because they don't bother with reviewing the junk. From your numbers, it looks like they're only reviewing a select few, when in reality, there's probably hundreds of thousands of different cases from over the years.

Also, it may be safe to assume that the primary purpose of a case is to mount and house the hardware inside. Furthermore, the majority of cases that are sold are probably assembled once and never touched until the end of their useful life. Looking pretty may be the only variable left for most people. If you assemble everything at stock settings, so long as you don't stuff the case full of pillows, the cooling should suffice. Again, probably not a huge concern for those not as inclined as all of us at [H].

Just my $0.02. Interesting point though.
 
jamsomito said:
Also, it may be safe to assume that the primary purpose of a case is to mount and house the hardware inside. .
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I don't entirely disagree with you. But it's a travesty to go through an entire review of a case like a HAF X (whose main selling point is excellent cooling) without taking a single temperature measurement, never mind even comparing it to any other case. Then they tell us that this is an excellent case for multi-GPU configurations. How do they know? Did they install multiple GPUs in it? No. In fact, THEY DID NOT INSTALL ANY COMPONENTS INTO THIS CASE. They merely opened the cover and looked around.

They might as well just re-print Cooler Master's marketing material with a Gold Award logo next to it and save themselves the trouble.
 
With a slogan like "uncomplicating the complicated," perhaps it was just too involved :rolleyes:

In all seriousness though, you have a very good point. Temp data would have been very helpful here. It's like an LED light bulb manufacturer who's claiming their bulbs will last 10 years when the technology hasn't even been around that long... you can claim what you want, but how can you even begin to prove it without having tested it?
 
Indeed!

Hahah I'm actually more amazed by this than I was when I started the thread. It looks like my initial assessment of case reviews as "we installed our parts, they look pretty, editor's choice" was actually too generous to hardwaresecrets.com. There, it's "we opened the cover, editor's choice".
 
Yeah, it's amazing how many of these sites just take some pictures and then list the manufacturer's specs. How about you actually install a system and then tell us how loud the fans actually are, not just their specs.
 
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To be perfectly fair, even a "crappy" case made my a major manufacturer these days is pretty good. The bad cases are made by guys who never send stuff out for review. I'd like to see somebody review some of the sub $30 cases on Newegg. Stuff that would have been good 7-8 years ago, but is absolutely terrible now for a variety of reasons.
 
Redbeard said:
To be perfectly fair, even a "crappy" case made my a major manufacturer these days is pretty good.
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But any award system should be calibrated such that only the truly exceptional products get an award. "Pretty good" is average. On average all things are average. That shouldn't get an award.

I understand that doing proper reviews takes a lot of resources. But it'd be nice if the sites that don't have these resources would stop making definitive statements of worth about the products they "review".

Take the Antec Lanboy Air, for example. To pick at hardwaresecrets.com again, if you read their review, you'd come away with the impression that the mesh exterior must mean this case will be totally awesome for cooling:

The Antec LanBoy Air is an amazing product for the serious enthusiast, with a unique, functional design. The components will be protected inside the case and, at the same time, the user will have the highest airflow possible.
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However if you read a review from a site that actually installs components into the cases they review, then measures their temperatures, you'd realize that this is actually one of the worst cases you could get if you're interested in good cooling:

The mesh exterior not only provides no protection for your hardware against dust, fluff and curious insects, but it doesn’t give the fans fitted to the LanBoy any focus for airflow, leading to poor cooling.
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Agreed on most points. Sometimes, even if they do install a system, they don't analyze things thoroughly. They always start off with a detailed description of the cardboard box, including pictures of every side and a written description of what each side of the box looks like.

I used to have a Thermaltake Element G. Type in the name and "review" into google, and the first hit (overclockersclub) has some nice stuff like this:

Looking at the box of the Element G, you will find the top emblazoned with "Element G". More importantly, however, is what the front of the box conveys. The front shows off the elegant look of the case, along with the words "Create for Pros". What these words seem to convey to me is that this is a professionally-designed case. As such, I would expect the performance to be nothing short of professional as well. Upon further investigation of the box, one may find that it features three color-changing LED fans. Both the front and top fans are 200mm in size and the side panel fan is 230mm in size. With fans this big, they must move quite a lot of air. Additionally, the case supports two 120mm fans in the front for intake and two 60mm rear exhaust fans for cooling your video cards.
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HERP DERP

As previously stated, it features three included fans, which conisist of two 200mm fans and one 230mm fan. Big fans move a lot of air, so one should expect a very cool CPU, videocards, hard drives, RAM, etc.
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Thermaltake uses big thin fans with undersized motors... none of those fans move more than 60cfm, so cooling performance is crappy. I hate it when the cooling portions of case reviews are like "Well there's lots of fans and mesh, so it must be good"

Also to note, there are only three 5.25" bays, but who really needs more?
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Most crappy reviewers assume that everyone thinks exactly as they do, so features that might not be important to them are generally discounted or ignored.

Don't let that be the deciding factor on this case though, as it is always possible to add a window yourself with some modification.
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Seriously? It's always possible to do a lot of shit with cases. That's not the point of a case review.

The fans on this case are pretty special, but what is so special about these fans compared to other LED fans? The answer is color. Yes, color. These fans can change color. Of the five color modes you can cycle through, three of them consist of plain blue, green, and red. They cycle in that order and do this via the button that controls the fans. A push of the button cycles to a different color. The fourth mode goes through different combined color patterns using the different LED colors, while the fifth mode simply turns off the LEDs entirely.
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And every time the computer is shut down or put to sleep, it resets the LEDs to blue, which gets annoying unless you decide to click through all the colors every time you turn the computer on.

There is also a box in the upper right, which holds all the accessories for the Element G. Below that box is something I couldn't quite figure out. It is possible it is a fan grill for the two optional 60mm fans, but its hard to really tell since there is no documentation provided. I don't care that much though, since I would much rather rip into this and figure it out myself, rather than have to read directions. Besides, should a case design be that complicated that you have to read directions?
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Isn't it your job as a reviewer to figure out what the features of the case are?

It ended up with a "Gold" award, the only con being that it didn't have a window. Really? It was perfect in every other way?

So many other reviews are exactly like that. Flaws are discounted or ignored, and they focus on the unimportant aspects, and don't go into enough detail on smaller features.
 
Haha that's an awesome review. It sounds like he's trying to bullshit his way through some test question along the lines of "what does the box art mean to you?"

And the whole "it has X therefore it must be awesome at Y" is such a common review meme. It needs to die.
 
Cruiza said:
Agreed! It's actually uncommon for an item to get 10/10 in any given category. They also always test the air cooling performance of each case and compare it to all other cases they have reviewed. Here's an example of what I believe is their latest case review:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/03/17/lian-li-pc-v2120-review/1
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Yeah bit-tech's reviews are great, no question about it. It's just a shame there aren't more sites like that (at least I'm not aware of them).
 
Another fan of bit-tech. I was all about the 600T until I saw their actual review of its cooling performance, something most everyone else completely missed.
 
anexanhume said:
Another fan of bit-tech. I was all about the 600T until I saw their actual review of its cooling performance, something most everyone else completely missed.
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To be fair, Corsair's cases are generally geared toward the water cooling crowd. ;)
 
anexanhume said:
That's no excuse for a poorly designed 200mm fan, which corsair admitted and have corrected on the 650d and white 600t :)
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And we'll be making that fan available for people that want it on the regular 600T as well.

It's always a balance between noise and cooling, and I just (incorrectly) assumed that 600T buyers would care more about low noise than outrageous cooling.

But we've got the mesh side panel and increased fan speeds en route for those of you guys who want it.

Negative case reviews of my products actually help me create better products. Well, let me rephrase - I rarely read the "PROS" section of a review and disagree, and I'm grateful for all the awards the 600T has won, but in a couple of the reviews they mentioned no window or side panel fan, so we corrected that, and in others, they wanted better 200mm fans, so we corrected that.

I'm more upset when we get a bad review due to bad test procedures. Sometimes reviewers test cases over months in a house without good temperature control, so cases reviewed in August are always hotter than cases reviewed in February.
 
Redbeard said:
And we'll be making that fan available for people that want it on the regular 600T as well.

It's always a balance between noise and cooling, and I just (incorrectly) assumed that 600T buyers would care more about low noise than outrageous cooling.

But we've got the mesh side panel and increased fan speeds en route for those of you guys who want it.

Negative case reviews of my products actually help me create better products. Well, let me rephrase - I rarely read the "PROS" section of a review and disagree, and I'm grateful for all the awards the 600T has won, but in a couple of the reviews they mentioned no window or side panel fan, so we corrected that, and in others, they wanted better 200mm fans, so we corrected that.

I'm more upset when we get a bad review due to bad test procedures. Sometimes reviewers test cases over months in a house without good temperature control, so cases reviewed in August are always hotter than cases reviewed in February.
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Both you and CorsairGeorge on overclock (I assume you are separate guys) are great at listening to feedback, which is a good thing.

The thing with the balance is that if my case fans are starving my GPU and CPU, their fans are going to start working harder, eliminating the low noise gains you presumably made. Since you always include fan controllers, it makes more sense to include fans capable of more air flow so the user can adjust for air flow/noise as needed. After all, a 200mm fan's increase in noise versus CFM is going to be a lot different than a 80/92/120 etc. fan's increase in noise output versus CFM.
 
Hopefully you didn't add a window to everything. Some people like not having a window. For example, I got a b-Envi matx case for cheap, and am planning to either spray the window black, or something like that. I will not buy a case with a window unless there was a really good reason.
 
anexanhume said:
Both you and CorsairGeorge on overclock (I assume you are separate guys) are great at listening to feedback, which is a good thing.

The thing with the balance is that if my case fans are starving my GPU and CPU, their fans are going to start working harder, eliminating the low noise gains you presumably made. Since you always include fan controllers, it makes more sense to include fans capable of more air flow so the user can adjust for air flow/noise as needed. After all, a 200mm fan's increase in noise versus CFM is going to be a lot different than a 80/92/120 etc. fan's increase in noise output versus CFM.
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Same guy - I'm CorsairGeorge on Overclock.net

(but Redbeard might get handed off to somebody else one day, like the Dread Pirate Roberts)

You're right of course, but when developing the 600T we never got to the point, even running 3-way SLI, that the fans on the GPUs would be hitting 100% and screaming.

But we're moving to faster fans anyway - the built-in fan controller takes care of any concerns about noise.
 
Redbeard said:
Same guy - I'm CorsairGeorge on Overclock.net

(but Redbeard might get handed off to somebody else one day, like the Dread Pirate Roberts)

You're right of course, but when developing the 600T we never got to the point, even running 3-way SLI, that the fans on the GPUs would be hitting 100% and screaming.

But we're moving to faster fans anyway - the built-in fan controller takes care of any concerns about noise.
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Good, so I've been giving you shit on two fronts :cool:

Only thing I'm curious about is when we can expect to see normal 600T with the revised fans. I hope it coincides with their availability on the corsair website.
 
I also agree that review sites are more generous. Review sites don't do any head to head reviews anymore. When I see a Storm Sniper, a Corsair 600T and a Thermaltake Element G together in Fry's or Microcenter, I want to know which is better for the project I need to accomplish. These cases are so similar, at least they should be compared to each other so people can appreciate the subtly that makes every case different.

I don't want to read 3 separate reviews that are all 90% to find out which one is right for me. According to these review sites, I should buy all three. IMHO, review sites don't want to give bad reviews because they are afraid that manufacturers wont advertise or send cool stuff for review afterwards. I believe that Corsair (Redbeard) here and other manufacturers are smart enough to appreciate a harsh, critical review rather than trite opinions. Case reviews seem so subjective, they need more objective data.
 
Redbeard said:
Same guy - I'm CorsairGeorge on Overclock.net

(but Redbeard might get handed off to somebody else one day, like the Dread Pirate Roberts)

You're right of course, but when developing the 600T we never got to the point, even running 3-way SLI, that the fans on the GPUs would be hitting 100% and screaming.

But we're moving to faster fans anyway - the built-in fan controller takes care of any concerns about noise.
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You got yourself a lifelong fan with the Princess Bride reference.

Head to Head case reviews would be amazing. Same components, same test procedure, and test it through like 3 different configurations - basic water cooling, low speed quiet fans, and then loud super air cooling.
 
TheSpoon said:
Just to be clear, I'm not talking about HardOCP.

I find these results kind of funny.

I did a google search for "case review site:hardwaresecrets.com".
Out of the first 10 results: 7 cases got a "gold award", 3 silver, 0 bronze, 0 no award.

Same search, but the site is tweaknews.net. 6 "top rank", 2 "great", 2, "good", 0 no award.
extremetech.com: 2 cases got 4.5/5, 6 got 4/5, 2 got 3.5/5, 0 other.
hardware canucks: 6 "dam good", 3 "dam good value", 1 "dam innovative", 0 no award.

Some sites that seem more credible:
bit-tech.net: 1 excellence award, 1 recommended, 8 no award.
legitreviews.com: 1 editor's choice, 1 innovation award, 1 value award, 7 no award.

And the only site that I've seen that even bothers to compare the cases' cooling performance to one another is bit-tech.net. Most case reviews on the web amount to "we installed our parts, they look pretty, editor's choice".

Anyway mainly I'm just ranting I guess. This probably extends beyond just cases, but it just seems ridiculous that some of these sites slap an award on everything in sight. Why does HardOCP even bother linking to these reviews?
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what's wrong with hardwaresecrets? Mr Torres works his arse over there and are not afraid to say when a thing is junk. Nvidia blacklisted him once.
 
This is why when I look for a case review, I'm mainly looking for a good supply of images so I can try to figure out myself how good it will work :(
 
go to newegg.com and look through the cases and their reviews. Some cases have lots of negative case reviews. Read through the bad ones to see if you think the authors are being fair in their assessments.
 
Spooony said:
what's wrong with hardwaresecrets? Mr Torres works his arse over there and are not afraid to say when a thing is junk. Nvidia blacklisted him once.
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Maybe they only have integrity when reporting about companies that don't send them free stuff anyway? I don't know.
 
TheSpoon said:
Maybe they only have integrity when reporting about companies that don't send them free stuff anyway? I don't know.
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Actually HardwareSecrets is one of the good guys, Gabe is a hard worker and generally really knows his stuff. The fact that his case reviews don't ever point out an "awful" case has more to do with their scale, I'd guess.

For example, maybe they set up the scale so that a case that has no major defects that prevent you from running a typical system (single high-end video card, overclocked mid-range processor, etc) and has a few good features is a 7. Maybe somebody reading that review will look at the case as a "me-too" product that doesn't have any unique features and is middle-of-the-road in all ways, and think it should have been a 3. It's all a matter of perspective.
 
Thanks for the info. I wish I had seen Bit-techs review before I bought a PC-V2120. But all the other reviews gave it high marks while taking exception to not having a side window or led fans. I've added Bittech & Legitreviews to my favorites list, to try to avoid another expensive boo-boo. Although I bought the case to mod it with additional quiet fans (You can add up to 3 120mm fans in the top panel) I'm going to see what temps I end up with. I changed all the original fans, the 3 140mm & the 2 120mm & added 2 120mm fans to the top (because this case has only 1 120mm exhaust fan). They're slower with quieter bearings & although my temps won't exactly be apples to apples I now can't wait to see what I find. I'm beginning to wonder if Manufacturers donate parts to certain sites for favorable reviews in return.
 
Redbeard said:
Actually HardwareSecrets is one of the good guys, Gabe is a hard worker and generally really knows his stuff. The fact that his case reviews don't ever point out an "awful" case has more to do with their scale, I'd guess.

For example, maybe they set up the scale so that a case that has no major defects that prevent you from running a typical system (single high-end video card, overclocked mid-range processor, etc) and has a few good features is a 7. Maybe somebody reading that review will look at the case as a "me-too" product that doesn't have any unique features and is middle-of-the-road in all ways, and think it should have been a 3. It's all a matter of perspective.
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Ok, that's fine. We can call that a difference of perspective. But it's still wrong to do a case "review" without installing components into the case or measuring cooling performance relative to other cases. They simply do not perform the necessary testing to warrant giving recommendations.
 
vallonen said:
My first call to port for case reviews, just like this site will be for PSU reviews.

I wouldn't call the englishmen harsh though, these guys make quality case reviews.
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A bit off topic, I still have yet to find a site like CNET where they give something 4.5/5 with no cons. So stupid. Why would you have a system, make that score, and have nothing wrong?

But yeah, usually Bit-Tech does have good reviews.
 
TheSpoon said:
Maybe they only have integrity when reporting about companies that don't send them free stuff anyway? I don't know.
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who hardwaresecrets? I think you got the wrong site there mate. if a thing is crap they will say its crap. That's why they got black listed by nvidia once. So they don't bother about the free stuff I can assure you

But this thread will be a good start if we can list what we like to see in a case review.
eg putting a setup inside it with 1 gpu check its circulation, 2 gpus check the circulation etc etc
 
Spooony said:
who hardwaresecrets? I think you got the wrong site there mate. if a think is crap they will say its crap. That's why they got black listed by nvidia once. So they don't bother about the free stuff I can assure you
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Why did they get blacklisted?
 
I know myself and a few others have posted about the poor quality of most case reviews out there, but even the best of review sites have criteria which needs to be considered carefully. Bit-tech is great (and silentpcreview is also very good), but Bit-tech only tests cases in stock form. This is absolutely fair and I don't have a complaint about the methodology. However, many of the best cases these days offer flexibility as a major selling point, so to see chassis tested only in stock form portrays a somewhat unrealistic situation. It's pretty common nowadays that a case has mounting locations for optional fans which in turn can greatly improve cooling performance with a minimal increase in noise. Similarly, almost every single review/test I read uses a single hdd, but it's pretty common for users to have MORE than one hdd. Look at cases like the NZXT Phantom, every single Corsair case, or the Antec p193 (there's a new version w/ usb 3.0). How many users buy these cases costing well over $100 to simply slap in a single gpu, 1 hdd, and NO upgraded or optional fans? I'll bet most of those people are instead buying stuff in the ~$100 or less price range.

It's impossible to cover every angle thoroughly despite how much time is invested by reviewers, but I wish someone would do 2 stage reviews. The first stage would be a blend of bit-tech and silentpcreview; test a case in stock form with a consistent set of hardware and compare it's temp and dB performance against all previous cases via graphs. The second stage would involve building a loaded system that uses an ssd with at least 2 additional hdds (more for full-towers with bucketloads of hdd bays) along with either a single, toasty gpu, or an SLI config. The second stage would also add in any additional fans or make other easy changes allowed by the case manufacturer's original design (excluding cutting holes etc).

Admittedly, only a very small percentage of computer enthusiasts run SLI (less than 1% IIRC) and that trend isn't likely to change, so a single midrange/high-end gpu probably makes more sense. A much larger percentage of enthusiasts (25% or so) currently own an ssd, but that percentage is definitely going to increase dramatically over the next two years. Given the small size of ssds, most owners tend to have at least 1 hdd for raw storage, if not more (I currently run 5 hdds in my main box along with an ssd).

Wish list: someone please, make cases that come with NO fans whatsoever and pass along the savings to customers. The fans in 99% of cases probably aren't exactly what the user themselves would choose if given a choice. Worse still is that most of these fans are terrible. My Lian Li case came with 5x 14cm fans. They're not complete shit as temps are pretty good, but yeah... not my first choice. I'd rather have been given ~$20-30 off the cost of the case so I could spend that money on quality stuff.

Simonzi said:
This is why when I look for a case review, I'm mainly looking for a good supply of images so I can try to figure out myself how good it will work :(
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AQ_OC said:
go to newegg.com and look through the cases and their reviews. Some cases have lots of negative case reviews. Read through the bad ones to see if you think the authors are being fair in their assessments.
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The pictures from newegg and various reviews are useful, but even better is to hit youtube. There are a TON of video "tours" these days. The vids are terrible if you're looking for a critical review that points out a case's flaws, but they're awesome for getting a good look at the various angles and layouts of a case. 3dgameman, PCwizkids, Hardware Canucks and even the e-tailers post vids.
 
coconutboy said:
The fans in 99% of cases probably aren't exactly what the user themselves would choose if given a choice. Worse still is that most of these fans are terrible. My Lian Li case came with 5x 14cm fans. They're not complete shit as temps are pretty good, but yeah... not my first choice. I'd rather have been given ~$20-30 off the cost of the case so I could spend that money on quality stuff.
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Would you want the fans if it's just a $5 difference?
 
If it was $5 bucks total for all 5 fans, I would keep 'em (if only to give to a friend), but I highly doubt that's what Lian Li paid. About 16 years ago I sold wholesale for a large electronics distributor (scopes, caps, silicon, you name it) and even back then, 12cm fans weren't cheap, much less the larger stuff. I'd still expect Lian Li to pay closer to ~$10 at a minimum for the 5x 140mm fans, and possibly closer to ~$12-15 (even $20 ain't outta the question, but not likely). Add in Lian Li's markup and I'd rather spend extra for better quality stuff.
 
Spooony said:
who hardwaresecrets? I think you got the wrong site there mate. if a thing is crap they will say its crap. That's why they got black listed by nvidia once. So they don't bother about the free stuff I can assure you
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Without guessing at their motivations, I can still say that their case reviews are crap. And the fact that they give out awards based solely on their experience opening the cover is ridiculous.
 
I am sometimes amazed that people haven't clued in to the economics of "product review" publications. Or maybe I'm just old and jaded.

If they say honest^H^H^H^Hmean things, they can scare away the thin-skinned advertisers, or dry up their supply of advanced review materials. And we the readers like to have those reviews on or before product release date - combining a tendency for early builds / versions to end up as review copies, and leverage of getting those review items at all. Further combine that with the very low barrier to entry for websites, and new reviewers are always available.

Just think of all the scandals past with editors leaving venerable publications in a huff about bias or suppression of critical statements. (Well, that and the fact that everything gets an 8 now. Even Boot has fallen.)

And that, for me, creates an appetite for more empirical reviewers. (cheers to spcr on that.) Or I wait for user forums to really dig in. Cause Consumer Reports sure isn't going to do it anytime soon - and y'all can be pretty damn direct about product flaws.
 
Always judge a review site by their willingness to review something poorly.

I love laptopmags, gamespot, bit-tech and anandtech all for this reason--they are not afraid to call a spade a spade. Other sites cannot do so for fear of alienating manufacturers who supply items for review, hence each review gets a positive spin and a "you should buy this" vibe. Unfortunate, but reality.
 
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