SilverStone Temjin TJ08-E: Fat Case in a Little Coat
by Dustin Sklavos on August 4, 2011 1:50 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Mini ITX
- SilverStone
- MicroATX
- Mini-Tower
Assembling the SilverStone Temjin TJ08-E
While generally I'm a true rebel, defiantly throwing instruction manuals to the wind before diving whole hog into an assembly, SilverStone's enclosures are seldom immediately obvious, and at first glance they seem like oversized puzzle boxes. Thankfully once you understand how installation is intended to go, these puzzle boxes seem to want to be solved like big black Lament Configurations, except instead of being rewarded with Cenobites and everlasting torment (pain and pleasure intertwined, etc.) you just get a sweet case with good cooling performance.
As I mentioned on the previous page, you'll want to remove the side and top panels, but I found the removable motherboard tray, while a nice feature, wasn't necessary for our Mini-ITX testing board. The motherboard would prove to be the easiest and unfortunately the only really easy part of the installation, a casualty of how densely packed the internals of the TJ08-E can become.
Virtually nothing about the SilverStone Temjin TJ08-E is tool-less, so have a screwdriver handy, and preferably a power one. Installing the SSD meant removing two screws to take the top drive cage off, another two to remove the bottom one, and then the SSD mounts to the bottom of the enclosure. I was concerned about cabling being difficult with the SSD, but the bottom cage actually has a cutout that sits flush against the back of the SSD, allowing the ports to be easily accessed. Installing a hard drive in the top cage is fairly old school, requiring you to screw it in on both sides: nothing tool-less here. Installing the optical drive means unscrewing the drive bay shield and popping it out, and while drives can be slid in through the front of the case, you'll still need that top panel off to cable them.
Installing expansion cards is unfortunately also more involved than we'd like. Because the back of the enclosure is almost perfectly flat, an extrusion is needed to mount the cards. For the sake of looks, that extrusion is covered by a small ventilated piece attached with two screws, and that piece has to be removed before you can mount anything. I'm not necessarily sure there's a much easier way to go about this short of making the entire case a little longer and using a more traditional mounting system.
Finally, we come to the worst part: installing the power supply and routing cables. This is probably where the biggest sacrifice had to be made to fit everything into this enclosure. The power supply has to be "dropped" in from the top, and it's preferable to install it upside-down so the PSU's intake doesn't steal air from the GPU fan. Power supply clearance is at a premium, too: you'll need a 160mm PSU, period, end of discussion, and honestly you may want to see if you can find a fairly short optical drive as well. Our BD-ROM is about 185mm long and while there's enough room to cable everything, it's miles from ideal.
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.
Honestly for this build it seems like the best choice for end users may very well be to just use a single HDD and a single SSD, and get rid of the top drive cage entirely. Likewise, the Samsung BD-ROM we use for testing is a popular one and there may be smaller drives; if you can find one that might be a smart route to take too.
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MakingMonkeys - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
Looks awesome.EnzoFX - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
Maybe you're too used to oversized cases =P.The room behind the mobo is significant, much more so than a standard case, and I can do a pretty awesome job at wiring those, and YES with non-modular PSU's haha. As far as the ODD space, well, I don't use ODD so who cares lol. There are short drives out there, and maybe shorter PSU's?
The big problem for me was brought up by SPCR, that structural integrity is a bit lacking, most noticeable when you remove the top section.
Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
It's true I've gotten used to cases like Corsair's line (every one of which I've tested has been moronically easy to assemble), but the Temjin is cramped, no way around it, and you really are going to want to put it together in a very specific way. My major beef was with wiring everything; the clearance between the PSU and the ODD is bad and unfortunately largely unavoidable due to the needs of the TJ08-E's design.And while it's true YOU may not use ODDs, some of us still need them. I master blu-rays on my desktop, and I watch them on my media center. You might suggest just ripping them, but wouldn't that still require an ODD? Also, the PSU is pretty much as short as they come and was sent by SilverStone specifically for that reason.
SPCR may have felt the structural integrity was lacking, but that was not a problem that I experienced in testing the TJ08-E. Also, the top section is held on by six screws and really only meant to be removed once, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's probably fine.
Havor - Saturday, August 6, 2011 - link
I also seriously don't get your complaint's about lack of building space!I just build for a friend a LAN-PC using this same case.
Parts used:
* Asus ROG Maximus IV GENE-Z (for the PCIe 4x SSD slot)
* Core i7 2600K
* Antec KUHLER H2O 920
* Sapphire HD6990 (A seriously big card ;-)
* Corsair TX750 V2 (not modular!)
* Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 3TB
* OCZ RevoDrive X3 240GB
* Drawer handle (on top for carry the case to and from lan's)
And I have really no complains about space, and even with a non-modular PSU my build looked a lot cleaner then yours.
TyRaps, stick-on TyRap points and the space under the mobo plate are really your friend!
And a friend of us, even water-jet out the side panel for a window, as it is a sweet looking clean build, specially for suds a small case.
Total actual building time less then 30 min.
I installed all the parts, and PSU last, then pulled all the cables to the right side of the case in the blind space you have there, and there is really a lot of space for all your extra cables and cable lengths next to the PSU, there is even a TyRap point there to zip them all up there!
(do it would had bin nice if they had made more TyRap points there)
http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/1256#3
szimm - Tuesday, August 9, 2011 - link
Hahaha, an HD 6990... I always chuckle a little when I see someone choose one of those overpriced hunks of junk for their build. Any 2x GPU card really. And unless you are overclocking, you should have settled for the i7 2600, not the K model. Or even the i5 2500, if it's strictly a gaming box. Meh, overkill.Havor - Tuesday, August 9, 2011 - link
A HD 6990 is just as fast as a HD 6970 CF setup, and both solutions cost the same.And the 2600 vs 2600K is 20 Euro difference
So how cares for a couple of Euro's on almost 2000 euro PC.
Meh, don't care.
piroroadkill - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Eh, if you have the money, there's nothing wrong with a 6990.I7 2600K, definitely. Don't get the non-K.
Wieland - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
The design is strikingly similar to that of the old Lian Li PC-A05N (and new PC-A05FN). Same inverted motherboard and similar front-to-back hard HDD carriage. The Lian Li is a bit longer, but it can fit a full ATX motherboard. It's a much more practical design in my opinion.Menty - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
I had a coupl've issues with the A05N which I think the TJ08 has solved. Namely that the exhaust fans were much closer to the user, making the A05N quite noisy, and that the exhaust from the PSU had a tendency to get recirculated back into the case. It also had very poor GPU cooling, with warm air tending to get trapped at the top of the case.superccs - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
I have that same case, but the one large problem is that the front ventilation is not sufficient if you have the front cover on. The cover prevents waaaaay to much air flow. I also installed a 120mm fan above the GPU slot to clear out stagnant air that gets trapped above the GPU. Over all thought the PC-A05N is very similar.