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Noise Levels

Soltek's QBics have always had one consistent advantage over every other SFF. The QBics would consistently achieve a much lower noise level than competing cases. No change here. Even with the extra side fan, the noise level from this thing is still lower than most cases. Whereas cases like the Shuttle would start off really loud and then drop after booting into Windows, the Soltek starts quiet and stays quiet.

We did a couple simple measurements two positions while the Qbic was idle and the same two positions when the Qbic was under load. The first position is the worst case scenario, right behind the Qbic where the power supply fan and Qbic side fan vents. The second position was roughly 1 meter in front of the Qbic, where a Qbic may sit if it is placed on the desktop. Load readings were obtained by looping through 3DMark05's CPU tests. Sound measurements were taken with an Omega HHSL1 DB meter.

Idle is roughly 37.5

Similar to its predecessors, there was little difference in noise between idle and load which is awesome. The Qbic can still be heard, as the fan is still a whisper under a quiet environment, but under most office environments, it works spectacularly. For example, I had to stick my heard near the case when all our workstations were turned on to hear the fan. This was not the case with some of the other SFFs. Therefore for noise, the Soltek (once again) gets a positive thumbs up from us (is there any other kind?)

Conclusion

Two months ago we had a conclusion which was the same as the one a few months before that. Since the case itself has not changed much, the conclusions remain the same. The main advantages in the Qbic lie in the second bay and the noise levels. Although it obviously will not compete against a fanless system, the Qbic is still very impressive. On the down side, since the design was not changed, installation is still more work than competing products due to the placement of the power supply. Extra-length AGP cards also have a problem being used since the drive cage is in the way. As much as we'd like to install a dual-slot card (a NVIDIA 6800 Ultra or ATI's X850XT PE), this isn't possible with the AGP situated on the outside and the drive bays completely in the way.

While the 3901a looks identical to the 3801a and the 3401a, inside tells a different story. Whereas Socket 754 is on its way out, being relegated to a budget platform for 05, Socket 939 is AMD's socket of the near future. With the 3901, you are at least partially futureproofing your motherboard from CPU socket changes, at least until AMD's dual core CPUs come out, at which point all bets are off.

With two drive bays, the Qbic is far more flexible than most other SFFs, and the motherboard inside provides some serious fire power. Had Soltek revamped the design (phyiscally and the internal structure), this would have been highly recommended, but as it stands, the 3901a is still a good choice on the basis of its capabilities and noise (or lack thereof).

UPDATE: 1/1/2005: Soltek has announced a case redesign of the Qbics. Now this (and many others) are also available in their new outfits called the 'Mania' line. As much as I would like to think my ranting helped it along, I know this is not the case. However, kudos for Soltek for listening to consumer demand - this is definately a breath of fresh air. It seems that Soltek is starting to take a different approach by separating the case and the motherboard - similar to full sized ATX systems. This is a good thing for the consumer as it gives the element of choice.