Soldato
- Joined
- 29 Jun 2005
- Posts
- 4,688
- Location
- London
Arctic Cooling Silentium T1 Pro Case - REVIEW with Pics
My system:
E6300 @ 2.4GHz
GA-945P-S3
2 x 1GB OcUK PC6400 Value RAM
1 x Palit 7900GS 256MB @ 620/750
1 x 250GB SATA HDD
1 x Soundblaster Audigy
When my original Silentium T1 died (my fault for pushing the PSU too far!) I felt that it was a natural progression to grab it's successor.
My PC is often on overnight and is about 4ft from the foot of my bed, so noise is a big issue for me, which is one of the reasons I went for the Silentium in the first place.
I loved my original Silentium, it was cool, quiet and the 350w PSU took an absolute hammering before it died on me, so I had high expectations of this unit and it hasn't disappointed so far.
There are no discernable differences on the exterior between the original T1 and this new version, but the interior has been revamped, mostly for the better.
The only real differences on the exterior are the vented base, which is now screwed to the bottom of the case and the side panel, which can be removed without having to take the vented base off, which was one of the more annoying problems with the original T1.
The PSU has been upped to 500w, Arctic cooling have themselves tested the system with the following high power setups:
AMD Athlon FX-62 CPU
2 GB Ram
2x ATI X1950 XTX (Cross Fire)
Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU
2 GB Ram
2x NVIDIA 7950 GX2
The original 350w PSU was made by Seasonic, which probably explains why it coped for so long when I pushed it and pushed it, however there is no indication on the new 500w supply who the manufacturer is, so for now it's best to assume it's generic. The power demands of the Crossfire test system suggest that it's going to be more than capable of dealing with all normal setups, so unless you're going to build a real 'enthusiast' PC I'd say it'll have enough juice to cope. As a note, there are 2 molex power connectors so that those who are running SLI or Crossfire systems don't have to fiddle about with adaptors.
The interior has been altered to cause less clutter and also accomodate a 2nd hard drive, which I'm sure will be welcome news for many people.
One thing to make clear though, if you are someone who needs to regularly remove their hard drive for whatever reason, it may be worth looking elsewhere.
I say this because installing the hard drive(s) and the muffler/heatsink is a bit of a mission, it's all a very tight fit and not something you'd want to do on a day to day basis.
In fact the whole case is quite tight, you really do need to plan ahead when installing everything, it's less messy than the original T1 by some margin, but if you don't plan where all the cables you need have to go BEFORE you put in the motherboard, then you may find yourself having to remove it just to move a power connector to a more convenient place (as I did!). One thing I love which has been ported from the original is the screwless DVD/Floppy drive installation, it's really effortless and takes seconds. But remember: You have to take the front panel off first!!! This isn't made clear in the (rather brief) manual.
I only have 2 gripes with the case interior really, the first being that the HDD muffler is placed directly where my 24-pin mobo power socket is, so it's a bit of a squeeze.
I know that won't be the case for all mobo's, but it's something to consider before you start putting everything in, I had to bend the wires as much of a right angle as I could manage on the 24 pin power plug, which wasn't too difficult, but again, not ideal.
The other gripe I have is the fact my graphics card molex connector wire is pressing on part of the PSU fan, which I assume is cancelling out sone of the noise dampening, again this is likely to vary from mobo to mobo, but I'm sure it could have been avoided with a bit of effort, maybe a clever right angled molex plug? In truth I haven't tried to rectify this yet, so it might be fine once I manipulate the wires a little, I'll try tonight when I open the case for the photos. One minor improvement they have made is making the USB & Audio front panel connectors into plugs instead of single connetors, so it's less fiddly to connect them to the mobo.
Now down to the nitty gritty, is it as quiet and cool as the original?
Well it's certainly cooler, I dropped about 5 degrees in comparison with my old T1, which is welcome seeing as the stock cooler I'm running on my E6300 is rubbish and runs at 48 degrees idle on TAT (I do have an AC Freezer 7 Pro waiting to be installed, but I'm waiting until I get my DS3 sorted).
Quiet? Well, currently it's not quite as quiet as the original T1, but as I said, it may be the molex pressing on the PSU fan that's the cause of this, so I'll hold judgement on that until I see if that issue is fixable. One thing I can say for sure is that the foam rubber hard drive muffler doesn't dampen as well as the steel one from the original T1 case, but personally I think that's minor.
One issue I'm aware of with the AC Freezer 7 Pro is that you have to mount it backwards to account for the airflow of the case, this can mean the CPU fan plug won't reach the connector on some mobos, but this can be remedied by feeding the wire under the heatsink.
I'd say for the money you really won't get better value, if you're putting together a PC on a budget then this is a great cool and quiet solution.
Edit: It came with a Euro power lead in the box, so I had to use the one from my old system, no big deal, but worth mentioning. I did ring OcUk to tell them and they offered to send a UK lead.
Edit 2: Got myself a 2nd HDD and installed it with my other one in the HDD muffler. Looks like the HDD heat sink doesn't work well enough, both of them were running @ over 50c after a couple of hours. It's worth mentioning that both of them were Western Digital, which are known for running hotter than other HDDs, but it still reflects negatively on the case.
Photos:
Questions welcome
My system:
E6300 @ 2.4GHz
GA-945P-S3
2 x 1GB OcUK PC6400 Value RAM
1 x Palit 7900GS 256MB @ 620/750
1 x 250GB SATA HDD
1 x Soundblaster Audigy
When my original Silentium T1 died (my fault for pushing the PSU too far!) I felt that it was a natural progression to grab it's successor.
My PC is often on overnight and is about 4ft from the foot of my bed, so noise is a big issue for me, which is one of the reasons I went for the Silentium in the first place.
I loved my original Silentium, it was cool, quiet and the 350w PSU took an absolute hammering before it died on me, so I had high expectations of this unit and it hasn't disappointed so far.
There are no discernable differences on the exterior between the original T1 and this new version, but the interior has been revamped, mostly for the better.
The only real differences on the exterior are the vented base, which is now screwed to the bottom of the case and the side panel, which can be removed without having to take the vented base off, which was one of the more annoying problems with the original T1.
The PSU has been upped to 500w, Arctic cooling have themselves tested the system with the following high power setups:
AMD Athlon FX-62 CPU
2 GB Ram
2x ATI X1950 XTX (Cross Fire)
Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU
2 GB Ram
2x NVIDIA 7950 GX2
The original 350w PSU was made by Seasonic, which probably explains why it coped for so long when I pushed it and pushed it, however there is no indication on the new 500w supply who the manufacturer is, so for now it's best to assume it's generic. The power demands of the Crossfire test system suggest that it's going to be more than capable of dealing with all normal setups, so unless you're going to build a real 'enthusiast' PC I'd say it'll have enough juice to cope. As a note, there are 2 molex power connectors so that those who are running SLI or Crossfire systems don't have to fiddle about with adaptors.
The interior has been altered to cause less clutter and also accomodate a 2nd hard drive, which I'm sure will be welcome news for many people.
One thing to make clear though, if you are someone who needs to regularly remove their hard drive for whatever reason, it may be worth looking elsewhere.
I say this because installing the hard drive(s) and the muffler/heatsink is a bit of a mission, it's all a very tight fit and not something you'd want to do on a day to day basis.
In fact the whole case is quite tight, you really do need to plan ahead when installing everything, it's less messy than the original T1 by some margin, but if you don't plan where all the cables you need have to go BEFORE you put in the motherboard, then you may find yourself having to remove it just to move a power connector to a more convenient place (as I did!). One thing I love which has been ported from the original is the screwless DVD/Floppy drive installation, it's really effortless and takes seconds. But remember: You have to take the front panel off first!!! This isn't made clear in the (rather brief) manual.
I only have 2 gripes with the case interior really, the first being that the HDD muffler is placed directly where my 24-pin mobo power socket is, so it's a bit of a squeeze.
I know that won't be the case for all mobo's, but it's something to consider before you start putting everything in, I had to bend the wires as much of a right angle as I could manage on the 24 pin power plug, which wasn't too difficult, but again, not ideal.
The other gripe I have is the fact my graphics card molex connector wire is pressing on part of the PSU fan, which I assume is cancelling out sone of the noise dampening, again this is likely to vary from mobo to mobo, but I'm sure it could have been avoided with a bit of effort, maybe a clever right angled molex plug? In truth I haven't tried to rectify this yet, so it might be fine once I manipulate the wires a little, I'll try tonight when I open the case for the photos. One minor improvement they have made is making the USB & Audio front panel connectors into plugs instead of single connetors, so it's less fiddly to connect them to the mobo.
Now down to the nitty gritty, is it as quiet and cool as the original?
Well it's certainly cooler, I dropped about 5 degrees in comparison with my old T1, which is welcome seeing as the stock cooler I'm running on my E6300 is rubbish and runs at 48 degrees idle on TAT (I do have an AC Freezer 7 Pro waiting to be installed, but I'm waiting until I get my DS3 sorted).
Quiet? Well, currently it's not quite as quiet as the original T1, but as I said, it may be the molex pressing on the PSU fan that's the cause of this, so I'll hold judgement on that until I see if that issue is fixable. One thing I can say for sure is that the foam rubber hard drive muffler doesn't dampen as well as the steel one from the original T1 case, but personally I think that's minor.
One issue I'm aware of with the AC Freezer 7 Pro is that you have to mount it backwards to account for the airflow of the case, this can mean the CPU fan plug won't reach the connector on some mobos, but this can be remedied by feeding the wire under the heatsink.
I'd say for the money you really won't get better value, if you're putting together a PC on a budget then this is a great cool and quiet solution.
Edit: It came with a Euro power lead in the box, so I had to use the one from my old system, no big deal, but worth mentioning. I did ring OcUk to tell them and they offered to send a UK lead.
Edit 2: Got myself a 2nd HDD and installed it with my other one in the HDD muffler. Looks like the HDD heat sink doesn't work well enough, both of them were running @ over 50c after a couple of hours. It's worth mentioning that both of them were Western Digital, which are known for running hotter than other HDDs, but it still reflects negatively on the case.
Photos:
Questions welcome
Last edited:
