That is the Aerocool Tomahawk, a PC case usually accessible in lots of locations worldwide for round $55/£35.
Our price range case group take a look at
Kolink Encourage K8 – Fascinating however underwhelming Aerocool Hive – Maintain it cool Aerocool Zauron – The price range case champ Kolink Encourage K11 – Look, a correct fan Bitfenix Nova – Storage galore and nothing extra Kolink Nimbus – Styling on a price range Aerocool Tomahawk – Good however not ok
The Tomahawk is a good illustration of what to anticipate from a price range PC case. It is a mid-tower case with a boxy body, a windowed aspect panel, a few easy followers, and a few tough edges. Typically, although, it affords wide-ranging compatibility with fashionable PC parts.
Chances are you’ll suppose you’ll be able to’t ask extra of a price range case than a standardised residence on your elements, however in testing a lot of equally priced price range instances at the moment, I did discover the Tomahawk’s considerably old style structure to be a bane on temperatures and sure not a great configuration for long-term use.
The Tomahawk has no prime fan vents or mounts, insteading providing a spot for a PSU up prime. That is one thing you may nonetheless see in a less expensive workstation, however not often these days in a gaming PC. Since there aren’t any vents on the highest of the case, the PSU have to be oriented in such a approach to suck in air from the within the case and exhaust it out the rear vent on the unit. Meaning sizzling air generated by the CPU, GPU, VRM, and different parts will journey previous your PSU’s inside parts, which can result in these elements heating up greater than normal, however extra importantly does seem to result in hotter temperatures for different key parts.
The Tomahawk ran our Ryzen 5 5600X CPU hotter than most different price range instances in my testing. Sadly, as a result of structure of the case and the Molex-powered followers, the velocity of which can’t be adjusted, there’s not a lot that may be finished instantly to rectify the upper CPU temperatures. Chances are you’ll, nonetheless, discover {that a} CPU with a decrease energy consumption might fare higher on this case, and naturally you’ll be able to at all times change the followers down the road.
(Picture credit score: Future)
Low cost case airflow take a look at
The principle ingredient for a formidable PC case is airflow, however you would be shocked by simply what number of case designs do not get this fairly right. Ideally, we wish our case to attract in cool air from a handful of excessive circulate consumption followers on the entrance, over our PC’s parts, then out the exhaust. Low cost instances, nonetheless, do not at all times include the best variety of followers for this optimum setup, so it is further necessary to search out one that’s well designed to work with restricted cooling potential.
To check the thermal properties of those six low cost instances, I constructed a PC into every of them. Then I ran a handful of benchmarks to place the CPU and GPU below day-to-day stress and collated the typical outcomes into this graph.
(Picture credit score: Future)
Tomahawk specs
Dimension: Mid-tower 2.5-inch bays: 4 max 3.5-inch bays: 1 max Max GPU size: 324mm Max fan assist: 4 x 120mm Lighting: Followers + indicator gentle bar below entrance panel Facet panel: Sure, acrylic Entrance panel: Energy, reset, audio, 1 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0 Value: $55/£35
The Tomahawk might provide solely Molex-powered followers however not less than it has two. These come as customary mounted within the entrance and rear. This configuration does assist when it comes to graphics card temperature, with the dual-fan RTX 3060 I have been utilizing for testing hitting a most temperature of 79°C. That is someplace in the midst of the pack versus different instances I’ve examined.
These followers additionally gentle up, which does make for a extra interesting-looking case with the windowed aspect panel on the Tomahawk. That is solely a Perspex aspect panel, nonetheless, which I suppose is not all that shocking contemplating the worth of this case, however truly a number of different instances on this value vary do include glass ones. Shocking, I do know.
There are different instances that carry out higher, provide extra choices, and are nonetheless simply as low cost because the Tomahawk. I would truly advocate the Aerocool Zauron from my testing, as this case from the corporate delivers that very same affordability however with out the old style and restrictive structure.
Our group take a look at: A price range PC case is an effective way to trim prices in your subsequent PC construct, but lots of the manufacturers we’re used to seeing within the prime case round-ups aren’t anyplace close to low cost sufficient for what we’re after. That is why I requested our mates at Overclockers UK if it will lend us its least expensive instances to see which is price your small pile of cash, and of the seven instances they despatched my means, I made my conclusions.
