AZZA Silentium Case Review: Knowing the Limits
by Dustin Sklavos on January 29, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- quiet
- AZZA
Conclusion: Know What You're Using it For
AZZA's Silentium offers some of the best acoustic padding I've ever seen on a case. With our stock testbed, the Silentium proves to be one of the quietest cases I've ever tested while offering middling thermal performance. If you're going to run your hardware at stock and you just want to muffle the noise, the AZZA Silentium is definitely worth considering.
I like a lot of what AZZA has done with the exterior of the Silentium, specifically the flip-down door for the optical drive bay that allows you to leave the front door of the case closed. Venting is also well hidden by the extruded fan intake at the bottom of the face. The case also winds up being much more spacious than it looks due to the extruded side panels and soft acoustic foam.
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Where the Silentium runs into trouble is both a messy interior design (due to the wasted motherboard headers and the lack of a routing hole for the exhaust fan header and AUX 12V line) and, more seriously, with competing case designs on the market. At the same price, I like the BitFenix Ghost better. It has a similarly attractive design (if a bit chintzy looking in places, just like the AZZA), but is more feature rich and has better expandability. Closed loop coolers are often a good choice for users who want quiet, efficient CPU cooling, and the Silentium only allows for a 120mm radiator while the Ghost, Fractal Design Define R4, and Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 offer much more in the way of options.
Unfortunately the last two make things even more complicated. If the DS1 never makes a successful landing on US shores, the Silentium and Ghost both still have to contend with the Fractal Design Define R4. At $10 more, the R4 is a better built and better looking case, and it offers an integrated fan controller which is useful for tuning fan performance to exactly where you need it. Of course, if the DS1 does make it to the States at $119, it will land like an atom bomb and wipe out the majority of competing cases within $40 of it in either direction.
There's a place in the world for the AZZA Silentium, but it pretty desperately needs a price cut. This case feels like it belongs at $79 (which is incidentally where it resides with rebate at the time of this writing), where its shortcomings are easier to forgive and it's out of striking distance of the competition. At $79, the Silentium is one the least expensive quiet cases you can buy, and has a strong value offering that makes it a stronger competitor to cases like the Ghost and R4. If you see it for that price and it suits your needs, it's certainly worth the recommendation, but at $99 I'd shell out the extra bread for an R4 or DS1.
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Stuka87 - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
But do you plug those drives into the front of your case? I plug my drives into the rear, and if I have a temp drive to transfer data to/from, then that one drive will plug into the front.cjs150 - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Need better thought than this.Because I have no need for a full ATX board, Silverstone could do a fantastic silent case.
Take the TJ08, widen it slightly to allow room for dampening material (and cable management), maybe a revamp to the front so that (so similar to Antec 180), look at PSU mounting (lots of silicon dampening) and my personal bug bear - will someone please include some anti vibration mountings for optical drives!
Grok42 - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
First, simply don't install an optical drive and it will add 0dB of noise to your system. If you can't handle not having "lasers" inside your computer then realize that spinning a 16g polymer plastic disc at 10k+ RPM is going to make enough noise that any vibration transmitted to the case will be incidental.ShieTar - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
How is the Ghost doing the "best job", if the DS1 outperforms it in almost every single measurement?
And how does the R4 start to look like a better deal, if it is noisier than the AZZA with higher GPU temperatures, while being more expensive?
It seems like those conclusions were written without looking at the measurement results at all.
Hrel - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Man I want that to case to come over here.UNhooked - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Given how we have so many All in one watercooling solution it would be nice if you started to incorporate a small section for watercooling with the mainstream coolers. Corsair H100, H80 etc.Ananke - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
I look at the picture, I read till " it's cheaper to use a single USB 3.0 port and a single USB 2.0 port by a couple of bucks" and decided that this is a $19-29 market case at best. At $99 it is a joke. My Dell workdesk PC is dead silent regardless its canny thick case. There is no reason this AZZA plastic POS to be $99 expensive.Beaver M. - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Seriously, dont do it. Buy a case which is not like Swiss cheese and do it yourself accurately.Even cheap cases will turn into sound eating monsters (especially weight-wise).
Plus they will be completely air tight, so the air flow of the case fans will be excellent without any increase in temperature.
Sure, getting off the side panel and back on, will be more work, but it will really eat sound like nothing and will be more than worth the 12 hours spent to get it done. I can actually run my fans on much higher speeds before I hear them and I never have issues with other noise. You wont believe how quiet my DVD drive is.
Pre-insulated cases are placebos.
althaz - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Whilst an air-tight case would definitely be quieter, it's not an option for most people as they don't wish to replace their entire computer every day after it is damaged from excessive heat.If there's not fresh air coming in, your computer will gradually get hotter and hotter until something in it melts.
A closed design case will be quieter than an open design, but even closed designs need to allow for sufficient air to flow out of and especially into the case.
Tech-Curious - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
I think he meant air-tight except for the fan vents. ;)"Plus they will be completely air tight, so the air flow of the case fans will be excellent without any increase in temperature."