Dimastech Easy Test Bench v2.5 Tested

Many users nowadays build their own computers and having a good case is always important. Now, if you were to take that a step further you’d have someone who is constantly buying new components and changing them out on a constant basis. This is where the use of a conventional case becomes a burden and when the lack of a case becomes much easier to deal with.

Many overclockers and power users do not use standard cases for their systems as their cooling solutions typically do not fit inside of a case. This area is where the use of a test bench would be most beneficial to the user and that is where Dimastech specializes. Dimastech has been making test benches for quite some time and this new version 2.5 brings a lot of utility to the test bench while maintaining looks and performance. Today we will evaluate the usefulness of the Dimastech Easy Test Bench v2.5 as well as its ease of use and installation.

Packaging
When the Dimastech Easy Bench arrived from Europe via DHL we were a bit taken aback by the sheer size of the box as it resembled the box of a midtower to full tower computer case. Upon further inspection we noticed that there had been shipping damage to the box itself and we hoped that Dimastech had packaged it accordingly to prevent any shipping damage to the product itself.

Dimastech logo on the outside of the box.

Some of the noted shipping damage to the box itself.

Upon opening the box, we noticed that the Dimastech Easy Test Bench was completely encased in a protective casing of foam. While this definitely prevents the product from being damaged during shipping it is not very environmentally conscious or clean as the foam constantly disintegrated as we removed the bench itself from the packaging.

As you can see, the accessories themselves are actually stored inside of a giant block of foam which saves space when shipping the Dimastech Easy Bench across the ocean from Italy. We hope that Dimastech is able to secure a US distributor soon so that they do not have to use as drastic of shipping precautions. Our hope is that not only Dimastech, but the computer case industry as a whole adopts greener methods of packaging so that we have less Styrofoam in our landfills considering the fact that it takes nearly forever to decompose.
Pictured above are the accessories/parts of the bench. You can see the various thumbscrews, bolts, drive cages, fan mounts and the single USB port.

We did notice that in the process of unpackaging that there were various blemishes in the paint job which did worry us a bit in the workmanship sector, but once we had gotten it installed we didn’t even notice or see them. Still, we chose to note that for the nitpicky people like me.

Acessories
Upon reviewing the included accessories, we notice that Dimastech has included dozens of thumbscrews for all various purposes for easy assembly and disassembly as well as some screws with washers for more permanent installation. When it comes to including the right amount of screws, nuts, and thumbscrews Dimastech definitely did not skimp and we had plenty go around. Because the bench comes completely unassembled nearly the entire bench is full of accessories and optional fans. You can install 3 optional fans standard that come with the bench and additional fans if you purchase the flex fan which was also included with this bench for review purposes but does not come standard with all benches.

The flex fan is an additional paid option that you can purchase after buying your bench or when buying it. In addition to that, there is a 3.5” drive cage for HDDs and SSDs and a 5” drive cage for ODDs. There is also a PSU mounting bracket that installs behind the drive cages. In addition to those major features of the case which can technically be termed as accessories, there are also a power and reset button that you must affix to the bench if you choose to use them. The bench also comes with a single USB port that you can attach to the bench which can then be connected to your installed motherboard. We don’t really see the purpose of this other than the luxury of keeping a single USB drive in that port regardless of the motherboard that was being used. In addition to that, there was a step by step manual that explained each step of the assembly process.

Installation and Performance

The installation of the system into the bench and the assembly of the bench was fairly straightforward. Follow the instructions in the manual and you are bound to get it right. The only thing that we found confusing was the constant reference to different types of thumbscrews, screws, and nuts. I would have recommended using those terms instead of the alphanumeric designations given such as M4. The installation of all of the parts to their appropriate places was fairly simple and they allowed for some flexibility but not too much to the point where it was confusing.

When installing one of the fan brackets onto the bench table, we noticed that it simply would not fit with certain CPU cooler designs and that fan bracket would be more suitable for watercooling or stock Intel/AMD cooling. Other than that, everything seemed to line up nicely and installation was a cinch. We did note that the GPU fan that hung over the PCI slots actually just barely touched the top of our CPU cooler so be mindful of the height of your CPU cooler if you opt to go for AIR when benching and using that fan bracket.

Putting in things like ODDs and HDDs was a cake job and was fairly simple and quick. The beauty of this solution is that you can choose to attach the drives before installing the cages or install the cages and then put the HDDs or SSDs in afterwards. We decided to opt for the latter just to see if it was hard to install drives after installing the cages and installation was extremely quick and easy for our standard 300GB Seagate HDD, our 600GB WD Velociraptor and our 128GB Kingston SSD. Installing our BluRay optical drive was just as easy and only took a minute or two.

Here is our initial installation, we ended up adding an additional Velociraptor and Kingston 128GB SSD on top of the HDD. Note that the power, reset, and USB port are installed as well.

After that came the installation of the motherboard was very quick and easy as it was intended to be. The standoffs screwed on easily and then the accompanying thumbscrews with them. This system allows for tool-less installation of the motherboard which can make things easier for some. If you prefer tooled installation you can always opt to use a flathead screwdriver because all of the thumbscrews come with a notch in the top for one as well.

Once all of the drives and the motherboard had been installed the PSU had to be installed which was extremely straight forward. We just used the screws that came with our power supply and screwed the power supply into the supplied bracket with the included padding. Once that had been done we simply bolted the bracket down to the bench and hooked up all the cables and we were ready to go. Regarding data cables and various front panel connections, because the Dimastech Easy Bench v2.5 has so many appropriate slots and notches in the top the installation was not only easy but also looked clean. Once we had all of that hooked up everything was done and powered up successfully. We unfortunately did not opt to go for watercooling with this setup at the moment but this case is capable of supporting various watercooling solutions including a 120.3 or 120mmX3 radiator.

Since many testers use the motherboard boxes as their bench as I had done in the past we decided to compare the CPU temperatures of the exact same CPU cooler running on the box versus running on the bench. Our findings were that our idle temperature had dropped from 31C to 28C and our load dropped from 53C to 51C. The CPU cooler we were using was the Gelid Tranquillo and we used the same thermal pastes in both cases. The only difference was the fact that we went from a box to an actual bench. That improved our temperatures by 2-3C.

Value
The Dimastech Easy Bench currently retails for 120 Euros before 30 Euro shipping to the US which after all is said and done is $189 at today’s conversion rate. This bench is by far not a cheap one, but it does offer a lot of features and flexibility that other benches do not. We hope that Dimastech will find themselves a distributor in the US soon so that US customers do not have to pay 30 Euros shipping on top of the 120 Euro price. We do wish that this thing was a little more affordable, but the majority of people who will be buying this bench will not care that much about its price. Granted, they will compare this price to other test benches out there that may be around the same price range, though. For example, the Microcool banchetto is $229 and features quite a bit of acrylic which may be more visually appealing to some… but then again you can get the Dimastech benches in almost any color. At the current price, we cannot say that this is a value but there are values that are integrated into the final price.

Conclusion
The Dimastech Easy Test Bench v2.5 is a nice test bench for people who regularly swap hardware in and out of their systems. It provides the flexibility of having a near liftoff amount of fans as well as water cooling.  The cable management as well as ease of installation and uninstallation of components are really what make this bench shine. It also allows benchers to effectively reduce the amount of area that each bench takes up simply because everything is usually sprawled about and takes up more space than a bench table such as the Dimastech one would. In a sense, the Dimastech Easy Test Bench v2.5 is a very niche solution and that is why they offer them in so many colors with so many options of configuration. This bench easy beats out some of the more simple benches, but we cannot forget the cost of owning one by comparison to having something like a full tower case. The Dimastech Bench is great at what it was intended to do with a few cosmetic blemishes to the paint job, but other than that perfect. Also, we HIGHLY recommend grabbing the optional flexible fan mount. We would actually recommend that you get maybe 2 of them, especially if you’re going to run multiple GPUs such as SLI or CrossFireX.

Original Author: Anshel Sag

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