What? No platter drives? I'm still trying to find a high quality "silent" case that is sharp, has more than just silicone drive mounts and isn't the SOLO or SOLO II.
Exactly, there should at least be one hard disk in there. I personally know many people have at least one hdd in their system. Just because they want it quiet, does not mean they want to sacrifice storage capacity. It's a shame no one else is doing suspension mounts like the Solo.
Temps of SSDs are kinda silly. They don't even get that hot anyway. HDD temps would have been a better measure of storage cooling, which often gets neglected in these quiet cases.
Seriously :|, how is only having a 1 USB 3.0 port at the front allowed for a case that cost $100. The review should have stopped there and declared the case as a "do not buy".
Why? Personally, I have yet to find a usefull application for even a single USB 3 port, as I don't transport data on physical media but rather just through network connections. And nothing else I connect to USB, like keyboard, mouse, printer, WLAN-Stick utilizes USB 3. Or needs to be connected to the front of the case.
I also buitl 4 PCs for friends and colleagues the last year, and none of them had any USB-3 devices beyond external harddrives, and nobody ever mentioned he wants to connect two of those at the same time. So, I don't think a lot of people have any kind of interest in a second front USB-3 port.
As an engineer I can understand the annoyance with an odd number of case-ports given the fact that Mainboard-Connecters are always provided for pairs of ports, but still I would guess that for at least 80% of potential customers this fact is completely irrelevant.
But do you plug those drives into the front of your case? I plug my drives into the rear, and if I have a temp drive to transfer data to/from, then that one drive will plug into the front.
Because I have no need for a full ATX board, Silverstone could do a fantastic silent case.
Take the TJ08, widen it slightly to allow room for dampening material (and cable management), maybe a revamp to the front so that (so similar to Antec 180), look at PSU mounting (lots of silicon dampening) and my personal bug bear - will someone please include some anti vibration mountings for optical drives!
First, simply don't install an optical drive and it will add 0dB of noise to your system. If you can't handle not having "lasers" inside your computer then realize that spinning a 16g polymer plastic disc at 10k+ RPM is going to make enough noise that any vibration transmitted to the case will be incidental.
Remember what I said about noise levels in silent cases? This is what happens. The Ghost is able to do the best job of keeping our overclocked testbed quiet, but again the DS1 is able to handle the increased thermal load more gracefully.
We have to keep in mind that the Silentium simply isn't designed for this usage scenario, and that's fine. But in the process, cases like the Ghost and R4 start to look like better deals. The R4 is more expensive, but the Ghost isn't.
How is the Ghost doing the "best job", if the DS1 outperforms it in almost every single measurement? And how does the R4 start to look like a better deal, if it is noisier than the AZZA with higher GPU temperatures, while being more expensive?
It seems like those conclusions were written without looking at the measurement results at all.
Given how we have so many All in one watercooling solution it would be nice if you started to incorporate a small section for watercooling with the mainstream coolers. Corsair H100, H80 etc.
I look at the picture, I read till " it's cheaper to use a single USB 3.0 port and a single USB 2.0 port by a couple of bucks" and decided that this is a $19-29 market case at best. At $99 it is a joke. My Dell workdesk PC is dead silent regardless its canny thick case. There is no reason this AZZA plastic POS to be $99 expensive.
Seriously, dont do it. Buy a case which is not like Swiss cheese and do it yourself accurately. Even cheap cases will turn into sound eating monsters (especially weight-wise). Plus they will be completely air tight, so the air flow of the case fans will be excellent without any increase in temperature. Sure, getting off the side panel and back on, will be more work, but it will really eat sound like nothing and will be more than worth the 12 hours spent to get it done. I can actually run my fans on much higher speeds before I hear them and I never have issues with other noise. You wont believe how quiet my DVD drive is.
Whilst an air-tight case would definitely be quieter, it's not an option for most people as they don't wish to replace their entire computer every day after it is damaged from excessive heat.
If there's not fresh air coming in, your computer will gradually get hotter and hotter until something in it melts.
A closed design case will be quieter than an open design, but even closed designs need to allow for sufficient air to flow out of and especially into the case.
It's about time we get a review of a case with 5 external bays. I was beginning to think that most cases only came with 3 these days given that there is nothing to put in them these days. I like to make dioramas in mine to make things more cheerful.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
22 Comments
Back to Article
The Von Matrices - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Are all the pictures broken or has my browser gone crazy?csroc - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
broken for me too unfortunatelykarasaj - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
happened to me too, so I doubt it.colinstu - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
kinda pointless without the pictures!Dustin Sklavos - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Our server was hosed, should be up with pictures now.pcfxer - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
What? No platter drives? I'm still trying to find a high quality "silent" case that is sharp, has more than just silicone drive mounts and isn't the SOLO or SOLO II.jimmyzaas - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Exactly, there should at least be one hard disk in there. I personally know many people have at least one hdd in their system. Just because they want it quiet, does not mean they want to sacrifice storage capacity. It's a shame no one else is doing suspension mounts like the Solo.Temps of SSDs are kinda silly. They don't even get that hot anyway. HDD temps would have been a better measure of storage cooling, which often gets neglected in these quiet cases.
hmaarrfk - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Seriously :|, how is only having a 1 USB 3.0 port at the front allowed for a case that cost $100. The review should have stopped there and declared the case as a "do not buy".ShieTar - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Why? Personally, I have yet to find a usefull application for even a single USB 3 port, as I don't transport data on physical media but rather just through network connections. And nothing else I connect to USB, like keyboard, mouse, printer, WLAN-Stick utilizes USB 3. Or needs to be connected to the front of the case.I also buitl 4 PCs for friends and colleagues the last year, and none of them had any USB-3 devices beyond external harddrives, and nobody ever mentioned he wants to connect two of those at the same time. So, I don't think a lot of people have any kind of interest in a second front USB-3 port.
As an engineer I can understand the annoyance with an odd number of case-ports given the fact that Mainboard-Connecters are always provided for pairs of ports, but still I would guess that for at least 80% of potential customers this fact is completely irrelevant.
Hrel - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
I transfer data from one external to another, via USB 3.0. 2 Ports is a bare minimum.Stuka87 - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
But do you plug those drives into the front of your case? I plug my drives into the rear, and if I have a temp drive to transfer data to/from, then that one drive will plug into the front.cjs150 - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Need better thought than this.Because I have no need for a full ATX board, Silverstone could do a fantastic silent case.
Take the TJ08, widen it slightly to allow room for dampening material (and cable management), maybe a revamp to the front so that (so similar to Antec 180), look at PSU mounting (lots of silicon dampening) and my personal bug bear - will someone please include some anti vibration mountings for optical drives!
Grok42 - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
First, simply don't install an optical drive and it will add 0dB of noise to your system. If you can't handle not having "lasers" inside your computer then realize that spinning a 16g polymer plastic disc at 10k+ RPM is going to make enough noise that any vibration transmitted to the case will be incidental.ShieTar - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
How is the Ghost doing the "best job", if the DS1 outperforms it in almost every single measurement?
And how does the R4 start to look like a better deal, if it is noisier than the AZZA with higher GPU temperatures, while being more expensive?
It seems like those conclusions were written without looking at the measurement results at all.
Hrel - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Man I want that to case to come over here.UNhooked - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Given how we have so many All in one watercooling solution it would be nice if you started to incorporate a small section for watercooling with the mainstream coolers. Corsair H100, H80 etc.Ananke - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
I look at the picture, I read till " it's cheaper to use a single USB 3.0 port and a single USB 2.0 port by a couple of bucks" and decided that this is a $19-29 market case at best. At $99 it is a joke. My Dell workdesk PC is dead silent regardless its canny thick case. There is no reason this AZZA plastic POS to be $99 expensive.Beaver M. - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Seriously, dont do it. Buy a case which is not like Swiss cheese and do it yourself accurately.Even cheap cases will turn into sound eating monsters (especially weight-wise).
Plus they will be completely air tight, so the air flow of the case fans will be excellent without any increase in temperature.
Sure, getting off the side panel and back on, will be more work, but it will really eat sound like nothing and will be more than worth the 12 hours spent to get it done. I can actually run my fans on much higher speeds before I hear them and I never have issues with other noise. You wont believe how quiet my DVD drive is.
Pre-insulated cases are placebos.
althaz - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Whilst an air-tight case would definitely be quieter, it's not an option for most people as they don't wish to replace their entire computer every day after it is damaged from excessive heat.If there's not fresh air coming in, your computer will gradually get hotter and hotter until something in it melts.
A closed design case will be quieter than an open design, but even closed designs need to allow for sufficient air to flow out of and especially into the case.
Tech-Curious - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
I think he meant air-tight except for the fan vents. ;)"Plus they will be completely air tight, so the air flow of the case fans will be excellent without any increase in temperature."
Beaver M. - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
As I said, the fans (of course they have openings) allow for enough air flow to not raise the temperature a single degree C.Grok42 - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
It's about time we get a review of a case with 5 external bays. I was beginning to think that most cases only came with 3 these days given that there is nothing to put in them these days. I like to make dioramas in mine to make things more cheerful.