 Wonderful case, any heatsink recommendations? |
| Review Date: January 16, 2010 |
| Reviewer: C. Earl, Atlanta, GA USA |
It is a wonderful case that is great for novices, I would in general recommend highly.
My one peeve is that Amazon recommends the a Coolermaster CPU cooling kit which does not really fit the enclosure. That was a drag |
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| Review Date: September 25, 2009 |
| Reviewer: S. Rawal, Central NJ, USA |
I purchased this case roughly one month prior to writing this review. As such, I have gained a good deal of experience using it and will share my opinions:
Price: Initially upon seeing the price, I asked myself: "What will this case offer that similar sized, cheaper cases (IE: Thermaltake Armor) won't?" Well as the rest of my review will show, this case proved to be a great value for the money because of the well though out design/engineering, build quality, features, and ease of use. Ultimately, price will not scale linearly as a sub hundred dollar Armor ultimately house the same computer and keep relatively the same temperatures as this case; if you value ease of swapping components, good design and features, amongst other premium features, this case is worth the extra cost.
Build Quality/Design: This case features a much higher build quality throughout the case, and this is readily noticeable when pulling out hard drive trays and motherboard tray amongst other things. You notice the edges are nicely tapered and even the internal components are painted and are constructed out of the same quality metal as the more visible components. The plexiglass window is resilient to scratches. Every component has a very solid feel (door hinges, port bay on top of the case, drive bay door) and all the pieces align with precision, leaving no unsightly gaps. The CD drive bays are an example of the level of quality in this case: The blank doors that need to be removed are held in via 2 screws as opposed to the breakable doors included on cheaper cases. Also, the case stands/feet are of the same fit and finish as the stands/feet on high-end home theater components. The only design flaw is that hiding the wires behind the case is very difficult without a dremel to remove part of the vertical support bar; without making this modification, the right-side door will not close without flexing. Also, one warning towards build quality I have is that the paint used on the case scratches relatively easily. I placed a 17 inch Samsung LCD monitor on it for 5 minutes (plastic base) while connecting the wiring to the rear and upon lifting it, small scratches were left and had to be removed using Menzerna Final Polish II with a Flex polisher.
Features: This case has almost every feature you could want in a full tower (or supertower) case. It supports ATX (in a pseudo-BTX power supply at the bottom configuration), Extended ATX, Micro-ATX, and SSI motherboards. It includes all the accessories you need for building a quiet PC such as vibration dampeners and quiet fans. The only thing missing that some may need is an eSATA port on the top mounted port headers. The case has a very nice nVidia color theme of black and green (with the exception of the blue LEDs) and the well engineered fan placement creates ample airflow that leads to equalized case air pressure and temperatures. Also, the case is relatively light weight (not flimsy) which makes moving the case less painful. (NOTE: If you value ESA as a feature, Silverstone makes a version of this case with ESA support)
Ease of use: Between the removable motherboard, easy to install expansion card slots (a nice pass through hole to insert your screwdriver through), removable hard drive bays, pre-installed fans, and multi-configuration motherboard headers...this case makes putting together a new PC a very easy and fun ordeal.
Conclusion: Overall, I give this case a 92/100 (Highly Recommended) and if I had to make my purchasing decision again, I would go with this case again!
Additional Notes: Worth checking out is the Silverstone TJ-07, as it has many similar features, but has more of the Apple/Lian Li case look which many people prefer. |
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| Review Date: June 10, 2009 |
| Reviewer: D. Fisher, Gig Harbor, WA |
Part of me feared that I was nuts to spend the amount of funds that I spent on this computer case, but after it arrived, and I installed my X58 SLI motherboard into it, I was delighted to discover all of this case's well thought-out features. It was truly a luxury to slide out the motherboard tray from the chassis and install my motherboard onto just the tray itself. Note that you must install the spacer screws into the tray first so that your motherboard does not make contact with the chassis.
The main reason that I purchased this computer case is that I wanted to cool down my nVidia GTX 295 card that was running at 75 degrees celcius in my old, cheap, single-fan computer case. After installing everything into the SilverStone TJ10B-WNV case, my GTX 295 ran at 49 degrees celcius! The five fans that are included with the SilverStone case reduced the operating temp of my video card by 26 degrees celcius!! I WAS going to invest in an expensive water-cooled system to cool down all of the boards, but now I don't have to!
One thing that you should note before purchasing this case is that it is not only tall, but also very deep! At first, I tried placing this case under my computer desk, where my former case resided; but this SilverStone case stuck out five inches in front of the desk even though I had pushed the case all the way to the back of the desk. I wound up placing the case to the side of my computer desk instead of under it. The extra space is well utilized, however, as that is how the case keeps the airflow moving and the hot power supply and disk drives away from the boards.
The bottom line is that I am happy to own the SilverStone TJ10B-WNV, and I love the nVidia theme that is silkscreened on the case. I also don't regret spending the extra money on this case as it is the Rolls-Royce of computer cases! Considering that you can cool down all of your boards with just this case instead of buying an expensive water-cooling system, you actually get a lot of bang for your bucks.
P.S. The up-charge for the nVidia theme is more than made up for by the inclusion of five (5) fans instead of just two (2) fans like the non-nVidia-themed version of this case. (i.e. the SST-TJ10B-W) |
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