Installation and Operation (continued):
The next two images show a before and after of the installation of the CPU air duct bracket. As I originally thought, the duct itself was not usable with this system. It extends so far down towards the motherboard, that even a "smaller" heatpipe like the Hyper TX is way too big! The only reason to use the bracket is for greater strength, as it ties the top and the bottom of the case together to create an extremely rigid structure.
The bracket also provides the expansion card brace, which was also not usable for me. The graphics card installed is low profile, but it seems you would need quite a wide card to actually have the brace reach it. I also tried with a Radeon X800 GTO, which is a bit wider, but it still didn't reach.
The components in the iTower 930 previously found their home on a TV cart with no case. Being in the open air provided a good base line for monitoring component (CPU and hard drive) temperatures to be compared to those available in the iTower 930. In open air, the CPU under a full load was hitting a high temperature of 51 degrees Celsius, and once installed in the iTower 930 it only hit a maximum of 46 degrees Celsius. The hard drive showed similar improvement, going from a load temperature outside the case of 44 degrees Celsius down to 35 degrees Celsius. Despite maintaining the same ambient temperature, and generating minimal noise, the processor dropped 5 degrees and the hard drive dropped 9 degrees Celsius. Definitely a welcome improvement!
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Although the system components operated much cooler with just the case's two fans, it would be nice to have more cooling options in the iTower 930. Perhaps a separate intake fan in the front or on the side panel would be nice to have, just in case someone wanted to move a bit more air.
