Computer case : Arctic Cooling Silentium T2 Pro

[CougTek]

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/pc_case2.php?idx=118

The first generation of Arctic Cooling Silentium cases received good reviews and praises for its quietness. But it only came with a 350W PSU. Now I can get the T2 Pro model with a 500W power supply. Of course, it has Active Power Factor Correction. I hope it will be easier to assemble a system inside it than in the first generation of Arctic Cooling cases. I'll receive one tomorrow and I'll share my view of it later.

The MSRP is 149U$. If anyone is interested, I can ship those cases anywhere in North America (I could elsewhere too, but the shipping cost would be prohibitive). I haven't seen it available elsewhere (odd, I shouldn't be able to get it before Newegg and ZipZoomFly), so it's hard to evaluate what price I should ask for it. I'm thinking 125U$ plus shipping for forum members. That's cheaper than an Antec Nine Hundred, but it includes a damn good power supply with it.

If the enclosure can kill noise (ok, attenuate) like the P180, I'll be happy.

Does anyone here has the first generation of Arctic Cooling Silentium case? Owner thoughts wanted.

 

[Mercutio]

That is a nice looking case. Have you actually built one yet?

 

[CougTek]

Nope, later today. Comments coming probably this evening.

 

[Bozo]

Does the power supply blow the hot air into the case or out the front?

Really dumb power supply placement.

Bozo :joker:

 

[ddrueding]

Does the power supply blow the hot air into the case or out the front?

It looks like it blows out the bottom? So it's sucking in hot air from the GPU (not a good idea) and trying to blow hot air down (also not a good idea)? I hope I'm wrong interpreting the diagram. Taking cool air in from beneath the chassis and exhausting it out the front would be preferable, except for the open path for noise out the front...

 

[Mercutio]

It looks to me like there's an exhaust port on the side of the case, rather than the front.

The name of the case is "Silentium" so maybe they are doing something really interesting with that design. I wish there were photographs, rather than the diagrams.

Hey, speaking of interesting cases, has anyone used an Antec NSK2400 yet? I should be seeing some in the next week. Looks like a really exciting product for HTPC applications.

 

[CougTek]

You can read a fairly detailed review of the Silentium T2 350W (first generation) at SPCR.

What has changed in the new T2 Pro from the older model is this :

• 
  The front audio cable is longer so it will no longer be problematic to connect on motherboards where the front audio panel is located at the other edge of the mainboard.
  
  The noisy 80mm duo fans cooling the PSU have been replaced by a single 120mm fan.
  
  There is a short plastic air duct below the two 80mm fans for the rear hot air exhaust. But as shown in SPCR's review, it won't help much (although it certainly doesn't hurt).
  
  There's a side heatsink plate that is designed to be screwed to the hard drive. The original design wasn't bad for cooling the hard drive and the new side heatsink will not make things worse.

Overall, the size of the enclosure hasn't changed from the original Silentium model. It means you won't be able to fit an extended ATX motherboard inside it. It's a pretty small case. There's enough clearance to install regular stuff inside though.

The manual states that it is possible to remove the side panel without removing the base, but the base is so tight to the side panel that I would rather not try. The base is fixed with two screws and is easy to remove, but you need a screwdriver.

I do have a problem though : I don't know what to install inside. I don't want to put something with a noisy fan (otherwise, what would be the point of a quiet case?). I have a lot of spare DDR2 memory, a spare DVD-RW, but no loose motherboard and CPU. I have an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro sitting on the tablet too. Maybe I could assemble something around a cheap Athlon 64 X2 on an Asus M2A-VM, but that's the stuff I put in 500$ computers. It would brreak my heart to waste a 125$ enclosure with low-end parts. Higher-end Athlon 64 X2 aren't competitive with similarly priced Core 2 Duo once overclocking is included in the equation. Core 2 Quad will drop halfway in August and AMD's Phenom processor isn't there yet.

And no, I have no picture. I don't have a camera. Maybe I will borrow a Quickcam Fusion this week-end and give you a few pictures later on.

 

[CougTek]

The manual states that it is possible to remove the side panel without removing the base, but the base is so tight to the side panel that I would rather not try.

Well, I did try and the manual is right. The side panel can be removed with the base on. It's not even hard.

 

[Mercutio]

Is the PSU still a proprietary design in the updated case? Or did they just make an easy mod to a standard power supply?

 

[CougTek]

No, it's still proprietary. It is the same width as the case, so there's more room inside for the airflow. From a ventilation point of view, this is a good thing, but of course, in the event that the power supply blows, it is a drawback. High quality power supplies have a far better life expectancy than average or cheapo power supplies. I'm not even worried about the proprietary design.

 

[CougTek]

I have pictures of the case, if anyone wants to see it. I would have posted them online, but my plans to have a web site for my company went down yesterday. I founded my company in August 2002. Back then, I didn't need a web site. Recently, I felt I needed to be online so I looked if there was a dot com with my company name. Nope, no web site, but the name is owned by some fucktards since May 2003. They never created a web site, they just pay for the name. The lease was supposed to expire Sunday and it was supposed to be a non-renewable registrant. But Sunday afternoon, when I went to see if the .com was finally free, some bastards leased it for another year. And there's still no web site at that address!

WHY IS IT ALLOWED TO DO THIS?!? I suppose this company does this hoping I'll contact them and then they'll tell me that if I want my domain name, I will have to give them a few hundred or thousand dollars. What a bunch of motherfucking bastards! They should be hung by the feet and have pro baseball players play piniata with their heads, using a shovel. What they're doing is plain extortion and it should be prohibited.

 

[P5-133XL]

One valid reason could be they use the domain for Email or other internet service rather than a web site. I own www.TurnerComputer.com and I just use the domain name for business Email with no real need for a web site to advertise my company. I'm sure that some other poor person is feeling the same frustration as you ...

 

[ddrueding]

I did the same with ddrueding.com until I switched it to google's free hosting. Now it has some crap on the website.