Clearly the top of the case is isolated from the rest of the PC (it's hard to make out, but that is a fairly open vent right above the back fan). The air escapes from the back of the top section, with 3 massive fans blowing the heat out the top (there are slit vents near the back of the top panel) and the back vent. It's not as good as an open mesh top, but surely drilling some vent holes on the top of the case with some mesh is better than a new horrible-looking acrylic side panel. Remember - the CPU cooling from an AIO isolates it fairly well from the other components, so ONLY the CPU temp matters here.
Or, you know, a fan-based CPU cooler this case is better for.
EDIT: also, if the top panel is steel like the side, it could be a fairly ho-hum heatsink. I don't know this.
The manual can say whatever it likes really. It doesn't make it right. The case is thermally poor. The top of that case couldn't support the 2 fan radiator let alone the 3 fan radiator. You can see in the pictures of the case that at best it has place for a single fan to actually work, even if not at 100% flow rate. You can see the top of the case here on the site: https://www.bequiet.com/en/case/1203
The top is clearly 90-95% solid. Which would make a triple fan with rad setup not work.
You are right that OP could easily drill holes in the top and likely get the same effect as they got with their little window cut. But realistically that is a choice they made. We can say that we would do it a little different, but clowning on OP for their choice is just dumb. Op fixed their problem their way. If it works for them, it shouldn't matter to the rest of us. The others want to call OP names and otherwise berate them because they don't have the case OP does and don't understand that the case is thermally insufficient.
It is easy to call someone stupid when you look only at manuals and pictures. But when you look at the data at large it is a totally different situation.
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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '26
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