Cooling And Dust Protection
The Dead Silence's basic design centers on a two-chamber approach. The top level houses the motherboard, with all of its heat-generating components plugged into it, while the bottom is reserved for the power supply and storage.
Armed with a 200 mm intake fan and 120 mm exhaust, the Dead Silence includes the accessories needed to keep enthusiast-class hardware cool in a purposely cramped space. The larger front fan promises a nice, wide airflow that should push air across most of the installed components. As mentioned, both fans spin slowly, and the benchmarks will show if they're powerful enough to keep up with a high-end gaming system. Both fans are compatible with three- and four-pin power connectors.
Since the case features smooth, unbroken surfaces, air enters via slits cut into the front cover's sides. You can see them in the shot below. These go almost all the way around the front, from one side of the top cover all the way to the bottom, over to the other side, and all the way up again to the top.
Unfortunately, the case doesn’t have a dust filter covering the front fan, even though there would have been enough space for it. We can only hope that fewer dust particles will enter, compared to cases with lots of mesh up front, due to the placement of those small slits.
The power supply's air intake does feature a dust filter, which can easily be accessed by pulling it out of the back of the case.
The Dead Silence can be optionally equipped for airflow through the case's top panel. Removing that cover reveals space to install two 120 or 140 mm fans.
In order for the optional fans to do their work, the Dead Silence's top cover is replaced with one that features openings and a dust filter. This option comes in handy as you start stepping up to hotter hardware that dissipates power inelegantly (AMD's Radeon HD 7990 and Nvidia's GeForce GTX 690 are good examples).
Water Cooling
You can also use the space below that optional mesh top to house a 240 mm radiator for water cooling. First, the 5.25” and 3.5” external drive cages, which are held in place by screws, need to be taken out. From there, you even have enough space for a radiator sandwiched by fans. And the motherboard is installed horizontally, not vertically, so you won't have to worry about potential clearance issues.
