Quiet Gaming Cases, Part 1: Antec, Azza, And Cooler Master

Azza Silentium 920

Azza goes right for this throat in this round-up, which emphasizes quiet computing, by adding bulges to the side panels of its Silentium 920. The bulges are padded with noise-dampening foam, which helps suppress noise, but doesn't create any extra room for components.

The Silentium 920 is the shortest case in today's comparison, and we imagine that it's intended to sit up on top of your desk, and probably to the left side. With your PC in that position, it's easy to open the drive door, reach all of the drive bays, and access front-panel ports.

Although they are exposed neatly, the I/O accessible up front is pretty scant. You get just one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 port, plus a couple of 1/8" audio jacks. Otherwise, you'd need a 3.5" drive bay adapter to bring more connectivity up from a motherboard header. Oddly, the case’s lowest 5.25” bay actually is 3.5” internally, requiring the use of a 3.5” adapter cover (fortunately, it's included).

If you'd rather keep that front bay door shut, you'll like the smaller door on the top 5.25" drive bay, which is supposed to drop when you hit your optical drive's eject button. The tray on our Plextor drive was too wide to fit through the access hole, though, so we had to remove it.

Two grommets on the back of the Silentium 920 allow the passage of tubing for external liquid coolers, while one 120 mm exhaust fan removes heat from the CPU zone. That noise-supressing foam bulge on the left side is also present on the right.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
  • jrayx
    I like the Silencio 650 features, but the airflow is restricted in the front and bottom. And no one sells that case in my country.
    Reply
  • James296
    sweet, been looking for a quiet gaming case =)
    Reply
  • dthesleepless
    I'd like to see how the Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 compares in your testing.

    In my testing I found it to be the most efficient silent case I've ever had on my workbench.
    Reply
  • EzioAs
    Things I love about silence optimized case: Simple, elegant look. Nothing tacky and doesn't looks like it was made for some 12 years old

    Things I hate about silence optimized case: Usually doesn't cool well (poor airflow) and isn't really that much quieter compared to non silence optimized case

    It 's really hard to find the right balance but I'm loving the Antec P280. Exterior and interior looks good and seems spacious enough. Price isn't so bad either.

    Any chance you could review the Nanoxia Deep Silence 1? Heard a lot of good things about it .
    Reply
  • JOSHSKORN
    I'd like to see the Fractal Design Define R4 (and/or XL if it's not out of stock, which it currently is) reviewed and compared at some point. It's suppose to be a quiet case. Gaming, not sure about that one.
    Reply
  • There is also the Corsair 550D to look at for the quite gaming experience.
    Reply
  • killerclick
    As usual, Cooler Master is mediocre at best. What pathetic company, the only thing they seem to do good is marketing to budget-conscious consumers.
    Reply
  • EzioAs
    9540164 said:
    As usual, Cooler Master is mediocre at best. What pathetic company, the only thing they seem to do good is marketing to budget-conscious consumers.

    I disagree. A lot of their chassis are good (HAF, Elite). I like their storm stryker/trooper. Most of their peripherals have great quality and reasonable price compared to something like Razer. Their coolers are also great as well (Hyper 212/212+/212 EVO). I just find their power supply unit to be the 2nd grade components, almost all of them I wouldn't use or recommend to other people
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    ^ except for the high-end cooler master PSU's. They are quite decent, probably because Seasonic actually makes them.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    dthesleeplessI'd like to see how the Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 compares in your testing.In my testing I found it to be the most efficient silent case I've ever had on my workbench.JOSHSKORNI'd like to see the Fractal Design Define R4 (and/or XL if it's not out of stock, which it currently is) reviewed and compared at some point. It's suppose to be a quiet case. Gaming, not sure about that one.Perhaps you will...has anybody ever noticed the resemblance between those two?
    Reply