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  • DanielW - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    If you spend the money and time, two 120mm fans can be significantly quieter than the air penetrator.
  • JMS3072 - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    What are your thoughts on getting the PS07, and then spending a bit more to upgrade the fans to quiet models?
  • ezorb - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    I wish Noctua would make a 180mm fan, I would buy 3 for my FT02, I think that the 180 size is perfect, but the Silverstone is too loud and unreliable I have had 2 fail on me.
  • SunLord - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    I can't even hear the 180mm fans in my FT02 the 6870 in it masks all the noise in my case save the dvd drive.. I did notice a few weeks ago frozencpu has a non-silverstone 180mmx25mm fan
  • Samus - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    I agree, the 180mm fans in my FT01 are amazingly quiet for moving over 150CFM of air each. Unfortunately the factory-included models both broke after a few years (the motor separated from the housing because of the startup-torque) and forced me to replace them with newer models that hopefully have a corrected design. $30/ea for basic 180mm fans is not what I'd call cheap.
  • Morg. - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link

    I have tested a few 180mm fans, and the best one I've seen is this :

    http://www.aquatuning.de/product_info.php/info/p11...

    Really nice and silent.

    I also bought the Silverstone (just for testing) . and it was a bit worse.

    For the long term I have no clue as I haven't been running those full-time.
  • Morg. - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link

    Oh and . the case showed here is a piece of crap that's overpriced . you don't get vga cooling and it's just overall worse than an Antec one hundred that costs much less.
  • antef - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    Hi all,

    I haven't read the whole article yet, but I just wanted to post since I JUST bought this case and assembled a system in it over the weekend. I chose it because I wanted a nice mATX case, and was afraid the Temjin would be a little too loud with the large fan and open front grille. With the shipping cost on Newegg, I actually paid the same thing the Temjin would've cost with free shipping, but I don't mind because I wanted this case with the 2 front 120mm fans instead.

    It's a GREAT case, very high quality all around, and the manual explained things well. I did have a hard time routing some cables. It was a tight fit behind the motherboard, and certain cables like the main motherboard power wouldn't fit at all with the hard drive cage in place due to the sleeving and not a lot of flexibility so I just removed the cage. It's not the cleanest cable job in the world but it's fine. But I think it's a good, really nice looking case.

    Regarding acoustics, it's not really too loud, but not whisper quiet either. I don't know if the Temjin would've been any quieter on the low fan speed setting. I added one Scythe Slipstream 120mm fan in the rear. I'm not sure yet if I want to replace the front fans with anything quieter. I could buy two and end up hearing pretty much the same thing. Or maybe I don't even need two front fans at all? My hard drive is also pretty audible, but I don't hear it much because my primary is an SSD. I was considering hard drive suspension somewhere, but maybe this is just as quiet as this drive's going to get.

    Anyway, if anyone has any questions about this case, feel free to ask.
  • Morg. - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link

    if you wanted silence you should've taken a sonata.

    However. slipstreams around 1k rpm are silent enough, and a green drive would be silent (WD caviar green or samsung spinpoint ecogreen).

    GL -

    Next time, buy antec 100 or Sonata .. this case is a piece of crap (never had to remove a hdd cage, and you have no Gfx Fan (helps with the noise).
  • antef - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link

    I wanted mATX, and a small one at that, not an mATX only in name that's actually just as large as an ATX mid-tower. The cases you listed are too big.
  • MadMan007 - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    1) Noise levels versus the TJ08-E without a GPU (and especially a top of the like one like the GTX580) may be more representative of the difference between these cases - namely the open fan front panel on the TJ08-E versus the P180-like door and side intakes on the PS07.

    The noise level of the former changes very little with the GPU, the latter changes quite a bit. This tells me the GPU has more influence on the sound level of the PS07 making it a good candidate for quieter computing for those not looking to use monster GPUs or who might use quieter or even passive GPUs.

    2) A reversal in the PSU type recommendation versus the TJ08-E. In the TJ08-E review you said "I also strongly suggest builders use modular power supplies wherever possible and here it might actually be a requirement. There's clearance behind the tray for routing cables, but unfortunately routing everything was just a little bit too fraught, and so our end testing build winds up feeling more cluttered than I'd like and I'm sure more than SilverStone would prefer." but in this review you say to avoid modular PSUs and that there is good space behind the motherboard tray for routing cables.

    So which is it? I can see how a modular PSU might actually be worse when it comes to clearance for the optical drive because of modular connectors adding length, but the complete opposite statements and recommendation has me confused. Can you comment please?
  • Brutalizer - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    Micro-ATX bears to many compromises. I dont want to compromise. I need a ATX case. But the smallest possible ATX case, with just room for a few disks and a decent gaming graphics card. Todays disks are so large, 4TB that you dont need raid anymore. You also dont need the biggest gaming card to get decent performance.

    MicroATX does not have many expansion ports enough.

    What is the smallest ATX case?
  • aesnt - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    This one's a decent size full ATX tower, but won't fit longer graphics cards:
    COOLER MASTER Elite 360
    17.30" x 5.80" x 14.20" from Newegg
  • Death666Angel - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    What do you mean by expansion ports? Do you mean PCIe slots? Or SATA/USB? I can find enough mATX boards with 6 or 7 SATA ports, 16 USB ports and SLI/CF capability. Unless you really need 7 PCI(e) slots, I don't see what advantage ATX has for you :-).

    As for small ATX cases, the smallest I see unfortunately come from mediocre brands:
    http://geizhals.de/?cat=gehatx&xf=534_ATX~550_...
    and a lot of them get their smallish volume from being quite thin, so you would run into issues with large CPU heatsinks.
  • Brutalizer - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link

    I am talking about at 4-5 PCIe slots or so. The mini/micro ITX cases I have seen, have room for 2-3 PCIe slots.

    I also suspect that when using such a small mobo and case, I must compromise. For instance, I can not any longer buy standard cpu coolers, nor power supplies. I must buy much smaller ones, costing more, and restricting the hardware I can use.

    If you know of a small micro/mini ITX with Xeon cpus, ECC RAM, and 4-5 PCIe slots, and a decent graphics card - then I am happy to read more about that model.
  • somedude1234 - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link

    Nearly every uATX board I've seen has 4 PCIe slots. MiniITX limits you to a single PCIe slot. Every uATX case I've seen also has room to support a motherboard with 4 PCIe slots. Now, if you're going to be installing a double-width GPU, then you're going to burn two of your slots.

    If you're looking for a great uATX board for a Xeon server, the SuperMicro X9SCM-F is a good choice. It's based around the C204 chipset for SB Xeons, so you get ECC support. You'll get two PCIe 2.0 x8 and two PCIe 2.0 x4 slots (four total). The "-F" version of the board also gives you an on-board BMC with full IPMI 2.0 support.

    For uATX cases, they pretty much all take a standard PSU and offer four PCIe slots, the Antec NSK3480 is a nice choice.
  • Death666Angel - Friday, January 6, 2012 - link

    There is mini ITX (mITX) and then there is micro ATX (mATX/yATX since there is no easy way to type the greek letter on a normal keyboard).

    mATX mainboards can have 4 PCI(e) slots. If you need 4, you can buy that. If you need 5, you can't.

    mATX has no compromises when it comes to PSUs or CPU heatsinks, at least none that are special to it and do not pertain to smaller ATX cases as well. The TJ08-E can fit 180mm PSUs if you can cut off some space from the ODDs (but 160mm, even high powered ones for 2-3 graphics cards do not cost more! :D) and it has enough room to cool any CPU (even overclocked) quite nicely and silently.

    Supermicro has a few mATX C204 Xeon Mainboards with 4 PCIe x8 slots. But mainboards do not come with graphics cards.
  • corrion - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    Take a look at the Antec Solo II, sounds like it's right up your alley.
  • BernardP - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    The lenght of the PS07 is .6 inch more than the TJ08-E
  • Death666Angel - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    I have the TJ08-E since Christmas and am thoroughly enjoying it!

    This redesign looks very interesting, it opens up the possibility of getting high end 120mm fans, because 180mm fans are not so wide spread and they seem to have varying degrees of engine noise and other annoying small defects that result in additional noises according to a forum I visit. Although one 180mm can move more air at lower noise in theory.
    It also changes support from 200mm radiator to 240mm radiator, again, opening up competition.
    The missing external 3.5" bay won't be an issue I wager. I have thought about sticking a card reader in there, but nothing that goes in there will be a big deal if it's missing I think. 2 external 5.25" bay already provide plenty of options, only people with the need to copy DVDs on the fly seem to be stuck. :-)

    $20 can give you an additional few GB of RAM or higher clocked RAM or give you a better custom cooled graphics card or a more silent CPU heatsink. If you are on a budget that money can be well spent I think. :-)

    On an unrelated note: I would really like to see these gamer (performance) mATX chassis be tested with a more demanding set of components like the regular ATX chassis are. I understand the reason for a standardized test bed and only having 2 instead of 3, but it really is a shame not to be able to compare this or the TJ08-E with bigger chassis. :-)
  • kenyee - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    I was hoping they improved it on this.
    Once the TJ08 is loaded up, removing a hard drive that died (RAID1) is a PITA...too much stuff to unscrew to get the drive cage out :-P
  • JaBro999 - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    What was the speed of the TJ08-E's 180 mm Air Penetrator fan running at for the temp and noise comparisons (high or low)?

    Thanks for the nice review of an interesting case.
  • Death666Angel - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    The results of the TJ08-E in the comparison charts here are from the fan settings at low. The fan rotates with 700rpm @ low and 1200rpm @ high. Low is normally barely audible, most graphics cards are noisier. High is quite audible and should only be used with headphones.
  • know of fence - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    Now I can appreciate the benefits of an upside down design as much as the next guy, but having the PSU with the open side up is STUPID! That's what happens when people think about airflow and noting else.

    Imagine a little rain coming through the window a spilled soda, not to mention all the dust and crap that will fall inside.the power supply. Don't let that grill fool you, the PSU needs to go in the right way, with the fan facing the ground, or else there is a risk of shorting out your PC or even electrocution.
  • Death666Angel - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    If you have your PC next to those things and are clumsy you might want to think about it. However, here my PC is either under the desk to the rear or on the desktop and the window right next to me is never opened. So I can safely rule out death-by-electrocution ;).
  • ClagMaster - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link

    Changing an optimum case design for lower cost will result in a non-optimum case design.

    Such is the case of the TJ08-E (perfection) and the PS07(non-optimum).

    For the $20 savings, I could have purchased a Rosewill R101-P-BK (on sale) which has excellent acoustics and thermals.
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