And when all said and done, the Louqe Raw S1 is hands-down the nicest ITX chassis I’ve ever had the honor of working with. From its stunning, elegant single-piece external shell to the simplicity with which a system inside it pieces together, the Raw S1 is a chassis that I’m going to remember. For completeness' sake, I ran a set of tests with all the mods. The vented top fan still doesn't really make much of a difference. As an experiment, I tried to figure out the minimum fan speed required to get close to maximum performance. It turns out that with every fan at 75%, I can get within 1% of CPU performance. It's extremely loud, though, and it still doesn't get the GPU Temps down. For most getting into the mini-ITX cases, you can't go wrong (and may not go any further) going with the NR200. It's much smaller than the big cases you may have been using, and it's easy to build in. You don't necessarily have to get the Max version if you weren't planning on going with an AIO build. However, if you were, then it doesn't get much easier than the Max with the large 850W PSU and AIO already installed. An important note: the Corsair One case is only available in prebuilt configurations, severely limiting GPU and CPU options. Meanwhile, the Raw S1 will support most graphics cards and CPUs on the market thanks to its construction. The Raw S1 is a more subtle design than the Corsair One, opting for simple sides and vents instead of the Corsair One’s LEDs and large vents. Instead, the Raw S1 looks much closer to its smaller brother, the Ghost S1. There are almost no markings or features on the outside of the case. In fact, the front only features one small button for power, and I/O options are limited to a single Type-C placed on an angled panel.

As for looks, the Ghost S1 is most similar. In fact, it looks quite a bit like the same case stood vertically if a few inches were added all around. This is not an issue; the design of the Ghost S1 is a major selling point for many buyers. However, people who were not fans of LOUQE’s last offering are unlikely to change their minds here. Aesthetically, the Raw S1 has a unique look that blends a modern style with aggressive, “gamer”-esque patterns and details. Red details on the interior, sand-blasted aluminum, and interesting cooling lines accentuate the look. However, most of the build is a simple sheet of aluminum. LOUQE has masterfully balanced these aesthetic choices with performance thanks to small features like a floating top plate and uni-body construction. It is extremely similar to the Corsair One in size, while their designs differ dramatically. Both are slim, vertical cases that are 12 liters in volume that can fit almost anywhere.

Now is a good time to mention my goal: maximum performance with silent fans. That means running all fans at around 50%. Eventually I'll set up a proper fan curve, but for now, and most of the rest of the tests, the fans are all just pegged at 50%. There's only a slight performance reduction here, again indicating sufficient airflow, and this is our CPU thermal performance target. It goes without saying that this is a unique and visually striking case, whether you're a fan of the particular aesthetic or not. I'm going to skip commenting on the looks and artistic merit to focus on the practical aspects instead.

We can actually quantify the effect of these poor design choices and how much improvement the gasket offers by measuring the airflow. I'm fairly sure that the same issue affecting the CPU performance is affecting the GPU. It's just not able to pull in cool air from outside. People using triple slot GPUs seem to have fewer issues, presumably because the fans are closer to the shell. A duct would probably help this, but it would have to be custom-designed for every model. Despite its unique design, the case’s thermals do not suffer. LOUQE has tested temperatures in the chassis with two different GPUs. Using the 3D-mark Firestrike extreme benchmark, the Nvidia RTX 3080 FE (2-slot) reached 70 °C with the case closed. In the same test, an EVGA RTX 2070 FTW3 Ultra (3-slot) reached just under 60 °C. The Raw S1’s ability to fit 3-slot graphics cards is a nice step-up from some competitors. It supports triple-slot GPUs up to 145 x 65 x 320 mm in size. For comparison, the Ghost S1 fits dual-slot GPUs up to 143a x 45 x 305 mm. An anemometer is a device that measures air speed. I measured air speed at 9 points around the exhaust vent and multiplied the average by the approximate area of the vent openings to get an airflow number in CFM. It's not perfect, but it will get us some ballpark numbers. top exhaust fan - I, and many others on Discord thought this fan mounts on the interior of the case. It doesn't. You have to remove the top lid and mount the fan on top of the shell, which ruins the looks of the case (did anyone really buy this case for a reason other than looks?). It's also a giant pain to wire up because you either have to connect it after the shell is on or have a really long cable. The reason feels deceptive is that none of their pictures show it! They all have the top lid on.

Once that's all done, I'm going to test the other two coolers I mentioned above, and add an intake duct for the GPU. The only real catch to this chassis is that it relies entirely on the AIO for airflow. But in testing, we found that this setup is perfectly adequate, even when we threw our high-TDP i5-11600K and RTX 3080 Ti graphics card at it.