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Six Low-Noise, Performance-Oriented Cases, Tested
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1. Helping Define The High-End Experience

Some of us remember how automotive reviewers panned the Lamborghini Countach for being hot, extremely noisy, hard-riding, and difficult to control. And yet teenagers often dreamed about how the car performed under ideal driving conditions. Meanwhile, automotive enthusiasts with the money to purchase a Lamborghini typically bought a different, more refined performance-oriented car.

More recently, Chris Angelini revealed similar problems in his article AMD Radeon HD 6990 4 GB Review: Antilles Makes (Too Much) Noise and went on to praise a competing product for being detuned to help mitigate those issues. Of course, the most efficient way to quiet a high-performance PC is by choosing a better case.

While many of our readers still get hit with those teenage dreams of ultimate performance as they click through the pages of high-end hardware reviews, more have already passed that phase where, after living with one or two unbearably noisy systems, they're willing to pay a little extra for a combination of slightly-reduced cooling performance with dramatically improved acoustic performance.

Not all of the cases in today’s comparison are specifically marketed towards noise-sensitive buyers though, as each company instead sent us the lowest-noise gaming cases they could find. That could be an issue when gaming boxes are asked to compete against acoustic foam-lined products, but we also know that design plays as much of a role as material in noise reduction. Before we jump to any conclusions, let’s take a closer look at the hardware each of these systems supports, and then see how easily some of that hardware can be installed.

(Ed.: In case you missed it, a couple of weeks back we posted an extensive picture story with these six enclosures in a number of compromising poses. If you'd like to see more angles of each chassis, check out In Pictures: Six Low-Noise Performance-Oriented Cases.)

 Antec
Sonata IV
Bitfenix
Colossus
Fractal Design
Define XL
Lian Li
PC-B25S
NZXT
H2 Classic
SilverStone
Raven
RV02-E
Dimensions
Height17.3"22.6"22.2"21.4"18.4"19.8"
Width8.1"9.6"9.2"8.3"8.4"8.3"
Depth18.9"23.2"22.5"19.6"20.6"
Space Above
Motherboard
0.7"2.5"0.1"0.3"0.2"0.8"
Card Length11.2"13.2"13.2"11.6"12.2"12.2"
Weight20.2 lbs*34.5 lbs27.6 lbs17.0 lbs20.6 lbs20.0 lbs
Cooling
Intake Fans
(alternatives)
None
(None)
1 x 230 mm
(None)
1 x 140 mm
(2 x 140 mm +
1x 120 mm)
2 x 120 mm
(None)
2 x 120 mm
(None)
3 x 180 mm
(None)
Rear Fans
(alternatives)
1 x 120 mm
(None)
None
(1 x 140 mm,
1x 120 mm)
1 x 140 mm
(1 x 120 mm)
1 x 120 mm
(None)
1 x 120 mm
(None)
None
(None)
Top Fans
(alternatives)
None
(None)
1 x 230 mm
(1 x 140 mm,
2 x 120 mm)
1 x 180 mm
(None)
1 x 140 mm
(None)
None
(1 x 140 mm)
1 x 120 mm
(None)
Side Fans
(alternatives)
None
(None)
None
(None)
None
(1 x 140 mm,
1 x 120 mm)
None
(None)
None
(None)
None
(None)
Drive Bays
5.25" ExternalThreeFiveFourThreeThreeFive
3.5" ExternalNone1 x Adapter1 x Adapter1 x AdapterNone1 x Adapter
3.5" InternalFourSevenTen***SixEightFive
2.5" InternalOneSeven**Ten***NoneEight***One
Card SlotsSevenEightSeven +1EightSevenSeven
Price$165**$169 $150 $212 $100 $173
*case only **with power supply ***shared on 3.5" tray
2. Building With The Antec Sonata IV

The finished Sonata IV looks pretty good for a steel-and-plastic model, even though we did not apply the one-inch-square logo sticker to the appropriate place on its door (designed to hold standardized builder logos of yesteryear).

Getting to this point was fairly easy with a support kit that consists mainly of screws. Antec also adds a 3.5” bay adapter, power cord, cable ties, and door panel keys.

Optical drive rails are stored inside the cover of each bay, preventing loss. The rails make it easy to remove and reinstall drives, but they still require four screws.

Note that each rail has several holes at the center and a slot at the rear. The below rail alignment provides a flush fit between the optical drive’s face and the case panel’s face.

Antec includes four M3-0.50 thumb screws for attaching a 2.5” drive directly to the side of the 3.5” drive cage. While that part of the build worked fine, it was impossible to attach cables to the drive. This is because the folded edge of the drive cage protrudes directly into the path of the cable, directly beneath the end of its connector. We left our 2.5" SSD attached for looks, without cables, during testing.

Also notice in the above photo that the 3.5” drive bay rails are already screwed into their bays. Removing the thumb screws allows these to be attached to the drive via shoulder screws, which are also factory-installed within silicon grommets to dampen vibrations.

The optical drive slides into its bay until a “click” is heard from its latches, and the hard drive rails slide back into place with the hard drive attached. From there, we simply followed the steps outlined in our How To Build A PC guide.

One thing not covered in our how-to guide is the installation of the USB 3.0 pass-through cable, which connects to the motherboard’s I/O plate. We’re certain that anyone who has come this far knows how to plug in a USB cable.

Also notice that we changed power supplies from Antec’s included unit. Today’s heat and noise results demand that we use the same power supply in every build, so we decided to grab our latest standardized part.

3. Building With The BitFenix Colossus

Double panels give BitFenix more than just noise reduction; they also add a place for LED lighting. The light controller allows users to select soft red or gentle blue, slow pulsating or constant brightnes, and of course off.

A few screwless installation features mean fewer screws in the Colossus installation kit. The kit also includes two three-piece hold-down straps for expansion cards.

Some readers will need to adjust the brightness and contrast of their monitors to see how BitFenix’ optical drive latches work. Pushing the latch button in forces drive engagement, and sliding it to one side locks the engaged position. BitFenix leaves the drive’s second set of screw holes accessible.

The Colossus includes seven slide-out drive trays with grommet-mounted location pins. Spreading the rails of the tray allows a 3.5” drive to be inserted, while 2.5” drives like our test SSD rely instead on screws.

The Colossus' card-holding straps wouldn’t fit our hardware, no matter how we tried to install it, as various other components (such as the CPU cooler and the graphics card’s power connectors) were in the way. We didn’t feel a big loss by not using these, however.

Remaining component installation followed the layout of our How To Build A PC guide, with exception of the USB 3.0 pass-through cable. We were forced to run that through one of the case’s four liquid-cooling egress holes before plugging it into the motherboard’s I/O panel.

One of the few modern cases that doesn’t include a fan on its rear-panel mount, BitFenix added a pair of its quiet 140 mm fans to its shipment for additional evaluation. As an alternative configuration, the LED fan mounts as a rear-panel exhaust, while the white fan acts as a bottom-panel intake.

4. Building With The Fractal Design Define XL

Fractal Design beautifies its steel-and-plastic case with a textured finish and aluminum door insert.

USB 3.0 is made possible on this case via a $10 upgrade part. Fractal Design is the only company in today’s test to use the now-universal internal USB 3.0 interface, and almost qualifies for an “automatic design win” because of that, if not for the fact that this part must be purchased separately. Unfortunately, it's not yet available, though Fractal Design says it'll go on sale in June through Newegg.

The included installation kit contains a wide variety of screws, a fan controller, cable ties, and a 3.5” front-panel adapter plate. The drive adapter itself is factory-installed in one of the 5.25” bays.

Each drive tray comes with rubber dampers, used with shoulder screws in the installation kit. These dampers may be moved to alternative holes, depending on how the drive tray is oriented. No dampers are used for 2.5” drives, since the option is intended to support noiseless SSD drives.

Optical drives screw directly into the Define XL’s 5.25” bays, following the methods discussed in How To Build A PC.

Fractal Design felt that its case didn’t need additional fans in order to do its job, but nonetheless provides additional fan mounts in its design. The company sent along a 120 mm and 140 mm fan to be used as intakes in an alternative test configuration, using the case’s 5.25” bay adapter and side-panel mount.

5. Building With The Lian Li PC-B25S

Lian Li knows style. Lian Li knows aluminum. Put those two things together, and the PC-B25S makes for a fairly sharp-looking PC.

The company's installation kit is somewhat larger than most, including an exhaust fan duct and power supply hold-down, in addition to screws, cable adapters, cable ties, and drive grommets.

Drive grommets fit onto shoulder screws, which are then screwed to the sides of a 3.5” drive. The drive then slides into one of the case’s six internal bays. A sliding bar on the side of the removable drive cage prevents the drive from sliding back out.

Note that we also found a place for our SSD, even though 2.5” bays aren’t listed as a PC-B25S feature. We believe Lian Li removed that bullet point from the spec sheet because the keyholes face the wrong direction, causing the drive to pop out when cables are plugged in.

We found shoulders screws for our SSD in Antec’s mounting kit, and took added precaution when connecting cables to the drive.

Lian Li uses a flip-out bracket with locator pins to quickly connect a 5.25” drive.

With the exception of the USB 3.0 pass-through bracket and power supply hold-down bracket, installation followed our How To Build A PC article. The power supply bracket engages a slot in the motherboard plate behind the power supply and locks down like a boot buckle, while the USB 3.0 pass-through bracket requires no explanation (it’s a slot cover with a hole).

6. Building With The NZXT H2 Classic

NZXT adds a little style to its H2 Classic with an aluminum insert on its face panel. The finished PC doesn’t look expensive, but neither is its case at $100.

NZXT nicely separates the screws of its installation kit in re-sealable bags to prevent future loss, and even includes a #2 Phillips head socket for its hexagonal motherboard standoffs.

Optical drives are held in place by pins on a flexible retainer. Pulling the tab out from the left edge unlocks the drive, while sliding its latch to the left locks the tab.

NZXT offsets its 2.5” drive screws to the side of the drive tray to align the connector identically with 3.5” drives. That would make sense if the case had a backplane, but it doesn’t. The downside is that the 3.5” drive mounting pins must be removed in order to install a 2.5” drive on the tray.

Installing the 3.5” drive is accomplished simply by spreading the sides of the flexible tray to align its mounting pins with the 3.5” drive’s screw holes. Both drives then slide into position through a removable fan tray in the case's front panel.

Installation of the motherboard, graphics card, and power supply follows the standard practices outlined in How To Build A PC.

NZXT installs the H2 Classic’s USB 3.0 extension cable in an egress hole, requiring nothing more than the effort of plugging it into a motherboard’s I/O panel jack.

7. Building With The SilverStone Raven 2 Evolution

Designed to attract gamers, the Raven 2 Evolution (RV02-E) borrows enough features from its "high-end" Fortress 2 sibling that SilverStone decided to present it for our performance-to-noise comparison. Oversized, low-speed, bottom-mounted intake fans are the key design feature that void heat without presenting a front-panel hole by which noise would otherwise be directed at the user.

The RV02-E includes a Velcro power supply support strap, radiator mounting brackets (that reduce supported graphics card length), a combined bag of screws, a 3.5” panel adapter for its 5.25” bays, 3.5” external drive brackets, a fan power splitter, a power supply corner brace, a 2.5” drive mounting plate, and five re-usable cable ties.

Optical drives simply screw into their bays, as outlined in How To Build A PC.

The RV02-E uses slide-out drive rails exclusively for 3.5” devices, but adds a separate 2.5” bay adapter for installation elsewhere. Silicon bushings reduce the transmission of vibration from 3.5” drives to the chassis, while shoulder screws prevent those bushings from being crushed.

The 2.5” drive adapter screws to the side of the 5.25” drive cage, blocking access to the screws of two bays. The tray mount is offset from the drive bay beneath to allow any drive behind it to use standard screws, rather than the longer thumbscrews that SilverStone prefers for convenience.

The RV02-E places the motherboard and power supply in traditional orientation relative to each other, yet flips the entire tray on its face compared to most other systems. With the power supply now hanging from what would have been the back panel, SilverStone adds a removable plastic corner brace and Velcro strap for additional support.

Readers with good spatial reasoning will instantly recognize the similarities and differences between the RV02-E and more conventional builds.

8. Test System Configuration
Test System Configuration
CPUIntel Core i7-2600K (Sandy Bridge) 3.40 GHz, 8 MB L3 Cache
O/C to 4.50 GHz (45 x 100 MHz), 1.35 V
CPU CoolerThermalright MUX-120 w/Zalman ZM-STG1 Paste
MotherboardAsus P8P67 Deluxe, P67 Express IPCH, BIOS 1502 (03/02/2011)
RAMKingston KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX (8 GB)
DDR3-1600 CAS 9-9-9-27
GraphicsNvidia GeForce GTX 480 1.5 GB
700 MHz GPU, GDDR5-3696
Hard DrivesSeagate Barracuda XT 2 TB, 7200 RPM, 64 MB Cache
Samsung 470 Series MZ5PA256HMDR, 256 GB SSD 
SoundIntegrated HD Audio
NetworkIntegrated Gigabit Networking
PowerSeasonic X760 SS-760KM
ATX12V v2.3, EPS12V, 80 PLUS Gold
Software
OSMicrosoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64
GraphicsNvidia GeForce 270.61 WHQL
ChipsetIntel INF 9.2.0.1019


Performance users usually prefer SSDs for their OS and frequently-used programs, yet those SSDs are rarely large enough to store all of the files a user wants to have on-hand. We added Seagate’s 2 TB Barracuda XT to Samsung’s 470-series 256 GB drive to address both performance and capacity needs.

Because Antec’s 2.5” mount was located in a manner that prevented any cable connection to the SSD, we were forced to load software on the slower HDD in today’s test.

Kingston’s 8 GB DDR3-1600 CAS 9 kit provides adequate performance and good value among high-density modules.

Asus' P8P67 Deluxe holds our Core i7-2600K processor stable at 4.5 GHz, even under less-than-ideal thermal conditions.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 480 supplies the two things a case review needs in mass quantity: heat and noise. Sparkle was kind enough to supply a sample.

Benchmark Configuration
Prime95 v25.864-bit executable, Small FFTs, seven-threads
FurMark 1.6.5Windowed Mode, 1920x1080, 4x AA, Stability Test
Maximum temperature
RealTemp 3.40Average of maximum core readings at full CPU load
Galaxy CM-140 SPL MeterTested at 1/4 m, corrected to 1 m (-12 dB), dBA weighting
9. Benchmark Results: Noise And Heat

The primary goal of a performance case is to reduce heat, while the primary goal of a quiet case is to minimize noise. The cases in this review were designed to deliver the best combination of both attributes, muffling the ruckus of extra-hot parts.

Of course, SilverStone’s gaming-oriented case presents us with the lowest temperatures. This is, after all, a chassis designed for enthusiast-class hardware that happens to have some noise-reducing features. More specifically designed for noise reduction, Fractal Design’s Define XL takes second place in thermal management.

The hottest configuration in our first chart, NZXT’s H2 Classic at low fan speeds, tops our noise-suppression chart. What happens when we compare noise to heat?

The average temperature of the CPU and GPU in our first chart was 62° Celsius over ambient, while the average noise level of our second card was 33.1 decibels. Dividing each case’s average temperature by the average of all cases gives us a relative temperature score, with the coolest case on top, while dividing the average noise of each case by the average of all cases gives us a relative noise score, with the noisiest case on the bottom. The resulting acoustic efficiency table below is also relative, since its class average refers only to the configurations in today’s test.

With bottom-mounted intake fans its only real noise-reducing feature, SilverStone’s non-insulated RV02-E takes a surprise win. Of course, that only happens when its fans are turned to the lowest setting. But that lowest setting also took second place in our thermal tests. In other words, we suggest the RV02-E owners maintain their sanity and use the lowest fan speed whenever possible.

Just as surprising is how Fractal Design’s noise-optimized design takes second place only when we add a side-intake fan and a second front-intake fan. Of course, the opened-up side hole made this the least-attractive option at full GPU load, so we’d probably choose the stock configuration instead.

10. Conclusion

If you asked us which "quiet PC” case we’d buy following today’s test, our answer would technically have to be "none of them." But that’s only because the case that won this comparison is not explicitly marketed as a quiet PC component. Deliberately aimed at gamers, the SilverStone Raven RV02-E gets its noise-reducing features via alternative fan placement that coincidentally blocks-in noise at the same time. SilveStone even supplies moderately-noisy fans to bolster the case’s gaming potential, yet wisely adds a set of fan-speed selectors to reduce its noise from a dull roar to an acceptable hum. It’s this low-speed configuration that tops our charts.

Yet, as a gaming case, the Raven 2 Evolution may not fulfill the aesthetic or storage needs of some computing professionals. For that we have the second-place case, Fractal Design’s Define XL. It really surprises us that this server-sized part capable of holding ten hard drives and four optical drives is simultaneously more than 10% less expensive than SilverStone’s consumer-oriented part.

Antec offers the best value, but only if we subtract the price of its included power supply from the total cost of the Sonata IV. In other words, Antec’s Sonata IV provides the best value to buyers who also want a Neo ECO 620C power supply. Buyers who don’t want Antec’s power supply might prefer NZXT’s sub-$100 price tag.

Lian Li’s PC-B25S achieves middle-of-the-road thermal and noise results, in spite of the company’s application of acoustic foam to the interior side of nearly every exterior panel. Perhaps the foam was too thin, or perhaps it was simply the wrong material for the task, but we would have liked to see a case this attractive place higher on our performance charts. This particular chassis is so pleasing to the eye that we might even use it in one of our office PCs—along with specifically-selected low-noise parts.

That leaves the BitFenix Colossus as the odd man out in today’s comparison, meaning that the two gaming cases in our roundup place first and last, while enclosures specifically intended to serve as quiet cases fill the middle. We thought the Colossus’ double panels would reduce noise and, after feeling them, we’re fairly certain that the drive door was at least partly effective in that regard. Unfortunately, the outer skin simply isn't thick enough to deaden the drone of our CPU and GPU fans. The Colossus might have finished best in show if this were a design showcase, but is otherwise best-placed in our upcoming eight-slot gaming case showdown.