Part three of our quest for quiet gaming brings us three final enclosures from Lian Li, Nanoxia, and SilverStone. Have we finally found the perfect product to silence a noisy graphics card? We’ll find out by comparing all nine contenders in today's piece.
As unlikely as it may sound, CPU overclocking was the impetus behind our quest. Although they're quieter and more effective, axial-fan graphics coolers spill heat into the case, complicating the already messy CPU-cooling situation. Blower-style graphics coolers reduce internal case heat tremendously, but instead give off large volumes of…volume. While we all like to think of ourselves as tolerant, health organizations have established measurable limits for noise tolerance.
Today we conclude our round-up with big expectations of noise dampening and no price ceiling.
In the event that you missed either Part 1 or 2 of our search for the perfect quiet cooling case, check out the links below; they're our analysis of the first six enclosures in our nine-product exploration:
Quiet Gaming Cases, Part 1: Antec, Azza, And Cooler Master
Quiet Gaming Cases, Part 2: Corsair, Fractal, And Gigabyte

| Lian-Li PC-B12 | Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 | SilverStone FT02S-USB3.0 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dimensions | |||
| Height | 18.7" | 20.3" | 19.6" |
| Width | 8.3" | 8.7" | 8.3" |
| Depth | 19.7" | 20.8" | 24.3" |
| Space Above Motherboard | 0.5" | 1.4" | 0.7"^^ |
| Card Length | 10.0-14.7"^ | 12.1-17.1"** | 12.2" |
| Weight | 13.5 Pounds | 25.5 Pounds | 34.2 Pounds |
| Cooling | |||
| Front Fans (alternatives) | 2 x 140 mm (None) | 2 x 120 mm (None) | 3 x 180 mm On Bottom |
| Rear Fans (alternatives) | 1 x 120 mm (None) | 1 x 140 mm (1 x 140/120 mm) | 1 x 120 mm On Top |
| Top Fans (alternatives) | None (None) | None (2 x 140/120 mm) | None (None) |
| Left Side (alternatives) | None (None) | None (1 x 140/120 mm) | None (None) |
| Right Side (alternatives) | None (None) | None (None) | None (None) |
| Drive Bays | |||
| 5.25" External | Two | Three | Four |
| 3.5" External | None | 1x Adapter | None |
| 3.5" Internal | Three | Eight | Five |
| 2.5" Internal | One | Eight* | Five* |
| Card Slots | Eight | Eight | Seven |
| Noise Dampening | |||
| Sides | Foam | Cloth/Mat | Foam |
| Top | Foam | None | None |
| Front | Foam | Foam | None |
| Price | $170 | $120 | $260 |
| *Shared on 3.5" tray **w/o Center Cage ***By Adapter on 3.5" External Backplane ^Slots 1-6 ^^Behind top edge | |||
The biggest problem with internally-vented graphics cards is the heat that rises into the CPU cooler. But one of today’s cases is designed to circumvent this issue. SilverStone’s Fortress 2 rotates the motherboard so that all expansion slots (and the power supply exhaust) face the top panel rather than the back of the case, thus expelling all heat in a natural upwards direction. While this non-traditional layout could make the Fortress 2 a perfect solution for axial-fan GPU testing, fairness demands consistency, and so every case is tested using the exact same hardware configuration. Just something to keep in mind as we're comparing enclosures.
First up today is Lian Li's PC-B12. Let’s take a look.
- Nearing The Quiet Gaming Goal?
- Lian Li PC-B12
- Inside Lian Li’s PC-B12
- More PC-B12 Features
- Building With The PC-B12
- Nanoxia Deep Silence 1
- Inside Nanoxia’s Deep Silence 1
- More Deep Silence 1 Features
- Building With The Deep Silence 1
- SilverStone Fortress 2 USB 3.0
- Inside The Fortress 2 USB 3.0
- More Fortress 2 USB 3.0 Features
- Building With The Fortress 2 USB 3.0
- Test Settings
- Heat, Noise, And Heat Versus Noise
- Quality And Value: Part 3 Cases, Analyzed
- Quiet Gaming Case Quest, Series Conclusion
Thanks for that; I was wondering when it would arrive.
He is running dual AMD 5850's with axial fans and a Corsair H50 water cooler cooling an AMD 8150, it's very quiet even at full fan.
In my P280 I have a OC Intel i7-3770k with an Antec 920 water cooler and 2 scythe 2k rpm fans, with the scythe at full power and the 920 on aggressive thermal settings it keeps he 4.7ghz oc under 50 deg c under almost all loads while not being excessively loud.
It would be interesting to repeat the tests with an axially-cooled graphics card. After all, that style of cooler would be the choice of someone building for low noise. Of particular interest would be the resulting temperature differences, especially of the Silverstone.
Toms, thanks for doing this series it was really nice to see the time and in depth detail put into this. I will be bookmarking these for reference on my future builds.
Half finished building with it last night. Once you get th R4, you can tell that a lot of thought went into building this case. I'm still a novice when it comes to cable management, but FD makes it real easy. For $80, IMO, you're getting a steal.
Yea this competition combined with the killer R4 price is a no brainer for me. I was going to get the corsair 550d but not now.
I'm disappointed that the Corsair did so poorly with noise reduction, I thought from previous tests elsewhere that it did fine with that but had some cooling issues that could be resolved by removing the HDD cages and loading up all the fan postions. Unfortunately it seems that it would be louder still in that configuration.
Nice review, guys. I appreciate it...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rv02-e-lian-li-sonata-iv,2946-6.html
P183 ould have been interesting alternative. It should be more silent than p280? but harder to build because of dual chamber solution. Still it would be nice to see it compared to P280, if there are any real differences. If I am building silent gaming machine the case can be even a little bit more expensive if it can achieve good results. You can get gaming casis really cheaply, but they are definitely not silent...
What are you referring to?
(just curious...)
Maybe ask for your money back?
Sorry, but it bugs me when people whine so much about such minutiae. You're getting a lot of informative content for free. How do you think they feel after doing all this testing and writing to see snarky comments like these?