Associate
- Joined
- 1 Jan 2006
- Posts
- 252
- Location
- Sheffield
I like my new Silentium T2... though when I bought it today (local store ex-display model in VGC for £45) I didn't consider the 'dead end' aspect of it as regards the non-standard PSU. However, it is for a system that will hopefully last me a year or more - I have spent far too much with my constant upgrading in the past few years! When I do upgrade, I'll sell the whole PC with the case. If the PSU fails before then, hopefully it'll be covered by a warranty of some kind. And if not... well, I'm sure I can mod something up.
It is a great case for the price - even the reasonable price that OcUK are charging. Much better than the Antec NSK4400 and the Chieftec cases I tried recently.
The suspended hard drive muffler is superb - absolutely no case vibration or rattle, and I can hardly hear my SATA WD 250gb through the thick aluminium housing. Well worth the price of admission in itself!
The cooling system really works well - I was sceptical at first as it seemed to go against the conventions of airflow and thermal dynamics, but in practise it runs very cool. I am actually quite surpised as there is no active air intake - but it runs a helluva lot cooler than the case I had before that had a 120mm fan sucking air in from the front.
To emphasize how well it works, in the system this case is housing I have a Radeon X800XL with an Arctic Cooling Silencer GPU HS&F. The Silencer is way quieter than the stock fan and handily blows the air out the back of the case, but it makes an annoying rattle at low speeds. So I have ATI Tools setup to only kickstart the fan at 25% speed if the temperature goes over 65 degrees or when a 3D game starts, increasing the speed 10% with each 5 degree temperature increase. In 2 other PC cases I used, when in 2D mode it would heat up and hover between 60 to 65 degrees centigrade, occasionally starting the rattley Silencer fan up. In the Silentium T2 it rarely goes over 43 degrees, effectively making my GPU passively cooled... until I start hammering it with Half-Life2 or Oblivion that is. Perfect!
(When gaming I tend to wear my Sennheiser headphones so as not to annoy the neighbours so am not too bothered by a little bit of fan noise... but I do like to have a quiet system at all other times.)
The output fans at the top of the case are nice and quiet but they do really shift some air. The PSU fans are a bit noisier, not dreadfully so, but enough for me to consider doing a mod and trying to whack a Fanmate into the mix.
I had no problems fitting my kit in, though I was using an m-ATX mobo so probably didn't have as much problems as others have reported using ATX standard mobos as regards front panel connectors etc... I guess it depends on the layout of your motherboard.
I've read elsewhere of other peoples complaints about the apparent flimsyness of the steel and the cheap plastic trim. Well, I'm not sure if they've changed it but I think it's fine - seems very sturdy, well put togetehr with no loose fittings, the door seems a lot more solid than other cases (eg P180!) , and I really like the way it opens to the right as I have my computer on the floor to the right of my desk.
And, contrary to what most other people say, I think it looks great! Very HAL9000. Maybe even better than the silver P180 (just maybe!), but about 2/3rds the size and weight!
The only niggle I have is with the 'tooless' design of the drive rails and PCI slots... Thanks to the lack of instructions I spent almost half an hour trying to get my DVD and floppy drives in until I realised I probably needed to take the front of the case off. And I felt the PCI holding mechanism was flimsy, difficult to use and not too effective at holding cards solid, and there seems to be no option to discard it and use screws.
Whats wrong with having to use a screw driver? You have to anyway to put your motherboard in! Grrr. I've always felt 'toolessness' was a gimmick. And in this case actually more time-consuming and difficult than digging out yer Philips!
Overall, a great case with great cooling and one I would recommend for a quick quiet fix ... maybe just a little bit noisier than I would like but I think with a bit of tinkering of the PSU fans it will be perfect for me for the next year or so.
It is a great case for the price - even the reasonable price that OcUK are charging. Much better than the Antec NSK4400 and the Chieftec cases I tried recently.
The suspended hard drive muffler is superb - absolutely no case vibration or rattle, and I can hardly hear my SATA WD 250gb through the thick aluminium housing. Well worth the price of admission in itself!
The cooling system really works well - I was sceptical at first as it seemed to go against the conventions of airflow and thermal dynamics, but in practise it runs very cool. I am actually quite surpised as there is no active air intake - but it runs a helluva lot cooler than the case I had before that had a 120mm fan sucking air in from the front.
To emphasize how well it works, in the system this case is housing I have a Radeon X800XL with an Arctic Cooling Silencer GPU HS&F. The Silencer is way quieter than the stock fan and handily blows the air out the back of the case, but it makes an annoying rattle at low speeds. So I have ATI Tools setup to only kickstart the fan at 25% speed if the temperature goes over 65 degrees or when a 3D game starts, increasing the speed 10% with each 5 degree temperature increase. In 2 other PC cases I used, when in 2D mode it would heat up and hover between 60 to 65 degrees centigrade, occasionally starting the rattley Silencer fan up. In the Silentium T2 it rarely goes over 43 degrees, effectively making my GPU passively cooled... until I start hammering it with Half-Life2 or Oblivion that is. Perfect!
(When gaming I tend to wear my Sennheiser headphones so as not to annoy the neighbours so am not too bothered by a little bit of fan noise... but I do like to have a quiet system at all other times.)
The output fans at the top of the case are nice and quiet but they do really shift some air. The PSU fans are a bit noisier, not dreadfully so, but enough for me to consider doing a mod and trying to whack a Fanmate into the mix.
I had no problems fitting my kit in, though I was using an m-ATX mobo so probably didn't have as much problems as others have reported using ATX standard mobos as regards front panel connectors etc... I guess it depends on the layout of your motherboard.
I've read elsewhere of other peoples complaints about the apparent flimsyness of the steel and the cheap plastic trim. Well, I'm not sure if they've changed it but I think it's fine - seems very sturdy, well put togetehr with no loose fittings, the door seems a lot more solid than other cases (eg P180!) , and I really like the way it opens to the right as I have my computer on the floor to the right of my desk.
And, contrary to what most other people say, I think it looks great! Very HAL9000. Maybe even better than the silver P180 (just maybe!), but about 2/3rds the size and weight!
The only niggle I have is with the 'tooless' design of the drive rails and PCI slots... Thanks to the lack of instructions I spent almost half an hour trying to get my DVD and floppy drives in until I realised I probably needed to take the front of the case off. And I felt the PCI holding mechanism was flimsy, difficult to use and not too effective at holding cards solid, and there seems to be no option to discard it and use screws.
Whats wrong with having to use a screw driver? You have to anyway to put your motherboard in! Grrr. I've always felt 'toolessness' was a gimmick. And in this case actually more time-consuming and difficult than digging out yer Philips!
Overall, a great case with great cooling and one I would recommend for a quick quiet fix ... maybe just a little bit noisier than I would like but I think with a bit of tinkering of the PSU fans it will be perfect for me for the next year or so.
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