Silent Base 601 review: ua-cam.com/video/jKJDqqkDTGI/v-deo.html Find the article here: www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3391-airflow-vs-silent-cases-noise-normalized-thermals-silent-base-601
Sure, you normalised for the case fan noise but did you normalise for the overall noise including the cpu cooler and gpu cooler noise as well? If not that’s a serious flaw in your methodology as a lot of times the cpu/gpu cooler fans contribute to the overall noise more than case fans do, especially when we are talking about air coolers and not water coolers (as in your tests) that can utilise intake case fans as radiator fans. (and vice versa). I would imagine that a cpu/gpu air cooler running with a more aggressive fan speed profile would cool the cpu /gpu better and being inside a silent case would still be more silent than the more open airflow case with slower cpu/gpu cooler fan speeds.
"type of noise" is very important with this topic, I think everyone prefers low humming noise over high pitched whistling noise (coil whine, grinding fans, hdd).
smoked_out had a question hoping you or others can help me. I bought a used 1070 and has bad coil whine if I don't put on v sync do u think then it'd be worth to get a closed off case like the corsair 270r to limit noise?
Half of the reason why I switched from Corsair AF fans to Arctic ones. I have more fans in my system now, but the sound is *MUCH* lower-pitched and easier to drown out or get used to. They're in a Phanteks P400 TG, for what that's worth.
Some may also be wanting to get rid of noise that doesn't come from case fans. For example you may have a video card with a louder blower style fan or one with coil whine. Also other component noise such as pump noise and mechanical hard drives.
I bought the RL06 just because of you and I'm honestly amazed how pretty much nobody else has talked about how great it is for someone who's after a high airflow case on a budget. Pretty much everyone reviews cases these days by focusing more on how they look instead of how much bang for the buck they offer.
Thank you for highlighting this. Best money I spent on my current rig was the overhaul to all Noctua fans and coolers. I have significantly less noise and better thermals than when I started. I did manually adjust my fan curves to find that noise to thermal sweet spot.
That is a nice demonstration. I concur that fan noise is fairly easy to eliminate jut by using quality fans. To me the major advantage of these noise isolated cases is high frequency noise dampening, and particularly the sound made by hard drives. I am very picky about noise, but this convinces me even further that once I get rid of all that spinning rust, I might get to use an open case again.
i put my case out in the hallway on a side-table & run the KB/mouse/monitor/audio wires through a wallplate. i can hear the lightbulbs in my office hum, & crickets 3 houses down, but not my PC. still running an AF case with loads of fans at low RPM & custom baffles inside to direct the air, so it's pretty quiet anyway. ...105f desert heat at 3am will make your brain come-up with some nutty solutions.
I love that you actually did this to prove the point you've brought up many times. The frequency thing is pretty important, but I do believe you when you said you guys couldn't really tell a difference. I'd still love to see some spectrum analysis, or frequency curves to get a visual representation of each cases sound profile. Easy to do with something free like Audacity, although, I'm guessing you guys also have Audition. Still, thanks for doing this!
I totally agree. However, frequency perception being highly subjective (varies from one individual to the next, even curve "A" grading isn't perfect just a good approximation), and spectrum charts being hard to translate into "imagined sound" (especially without experience reading those), a pretty simple solution for any subjective measurement would be to just "show" it, like you basically video/photo shoot a product and then let people decide if they like how it looks, maybe highlighting some aspects: thus, simply record the sound of each machine, upload the files in lossless format (links in the article) and let people listen and decide if they hear a difference and care / prefer whichever. Maybe tell people what to listen to, e.g. "notice high-freqs on this one", "we only hear a low-freq hum in this case" etc.
It is not thorough. Actually the opposite. A case with noise insulation is built to shield the user from the noise inside so the test should be with hard drives, coil whine and water pumps. Things that makes noise. In this test he puts components without those traits inside the case. That is not what the be quiet is designed for.
How about using the same fans and configuration. 2 intake and 1 exhaust Noctua fans in all cases. Equalizing fan and placement would showcase the case's true noise dampening.
A more sealed case attenuates more EMI/radiation, which is very important in many professional environments such as people working with audio, video, and scientific instrumentation. Electro-magnetic interference causes more issues for me than fan noise by a huge margin.
The noise level you normalized for is way too high, of course a silence focused case is beaten when it's set up to be as loud as it gets. there is no way to get an airflow case to get as quiet as a closed one with low rpm fans on both, unless you remove the fans completely. pretty sure an airflow case with no fans would not be able to compete on thermals with anything that does have fans.
There is a thing called passive cooling.... Like there are entire cases designed around the idea of no fans also and utilize boiling liquid to move the heat.
I may have missed it (He is talking so damn fast) but i dont think we even know at what distance. It could be extremely quiet if its at 20cm. If its at 2m its really loud. Interesting as a comparison but i still have no idea how loud it really is.
6:10 he mentions they are measured at 20 inches. the test includes the 100% fan speed as well as the "level 1" low noise setting on the be quiet case and then they adjusted the other case to match.
I think in a sound studio the Be Quiet case makes a lot of sense. I went for airflow with a H500M and a H115i Pro and the case is really darn quiet, enough to record with microphones. But I can definitely hear a very quiet noise created by the overall system, basically every bit adds up even having the quietest fan speeds, quiet pump, silent exhaust. Having a BeQuiet robust case with open front and have the front not to point to the user will probably result on a further reduction of noise to nearly inaudible.
Fan cutouts affect the noise generated by fans as well. If you have a case, that has large honeycomb (or similar) patterned holes for rear fans, used fans there would be quieter, than case with small honeycomb (or similar) pattern on the back. Solution for this is actually very simple and should be pushed to manufacturers - they should adapt using wired grills instead of dense honeycombs or any other patterns with thick spacing between holes (as Fractal design did with current gen of PC cases). I´ve cut my rear fan honeycomb grill on my Phanteks enthoo Pro (i used the nibbler-cutter tool and i recommend it only to people, that know, what they are doing) and changed it for wired grill. The noise generated by the back fan went down significantly and the fan itself (Noctua P14 Redux 1200 PWM) makes less noise, than before. As for structural integrity, the wired grill helps with this as well, because wired grills are sturdier, than any honeycomb-cut piece of metal. AFAIK, i ever saw only Corsair utilizing wired fan grill in the back of the case, with their Air 540 PC case. I did the same thing with my Synology DS218play, which has very noisy fan by default, but the fan itself is only half of the issue. While the stock fan has very noisy motor, airflow generated by it runs through their stock plastic grill, which instead of only protecting the fan, acts as an active airflow barrier and creates lots of noise. After swapping the plastic grill for wired metal grill, NAS itself became very silent. As for the looks, it doesn´t look as well, as the original honeycomb meshes and cutouts, but since the back of my case is way back under the table, i don´t care.
Type of noise is less subjective than you might think... it can be expressed with a simple sound clip or with a screen capture of a FFT. I recently got a CLC for my system hoping to make it a bit quieter... yes and no. The noise floor is lower but there is something up higher now. The robust whirr of a noctua fan was much more comfortable.
"less subjective than you might think" you say? So how do you quantify 'the robust whirr of a noctua fan'? I don't think it's as easy as having a quick glance at a FFT spectrum. And a sound clip doesn't make it less subjective either, as I have seen many YT comments about audio issues on videos, which I simply can't hear.
You can quantify the sound using psychoacoustic measures such as: Loudness (done here) Sharpness Roughness Tonality to noise ratio This is all great but the software used to measure this is all incredibly expensive However quite possibly the easiest measure would be “prominence ratio” as it is spelled out in standards ECMA 74 in annex D. But what I was trying to say is that an annoying sound to one person is almost definitely an annoying sound to someone else- unless that other person has been listening to it for a while and masks it - which doesn’t make it “not annoying” it just makes it “not annoying anymore” and “annoying only for all guests using the room”
@@markamber1480 I see. I have to say, you provided some interesting reference points for further reading. I didn't expect that. Well, maybe Steve will have a look.
Wherever there’s a subjective measure there’s an academic somewhere who has figured out how to quantify it. Actually I learned much of the above running sound for a John Deere meeting where a team of engineers was trying to sonically design the cockpit.
a case like the be quiet would hide noise from water pumps, multiple HDDs, noisy GPUs .. but you would have to have one or some of those to even need a case like taht ..
I mean, this is pretty much exactly what I did with my build. Fractal Design Meshify C, and I added a number of Cryorig QF Silent Fans. Great airflow and the thing is really quiet.
Tbh i think these Charts are often very confusing and missleading. Sometimes you compare some stuff, but something completely different is highlighted. Also some cases do have a noise Level stat in the big Charts and some don't. Some got Fan Upgrades and some didn't. It's kinda useless if there is such a big gap in stats in these Charts.
Hmm. So get an airflow case and tune fan speeds, and be able to crank fan speed up for more cooling if needed. Or get the silence case and pop off the front panel if more cooling is needed (assuming the front panel is easy to remove). Airflow cases are cheaper though, so I think I'll tune fans.
Hey GN. I'm not really one for leaving a comment but it has to be said the content over the past for months has surpassed your already excellent content. What ever you are doing keep doing it. You deserve a whole more praise that can be put in to a short message but I want to a least say something #teamgnrocks
Nice, this is what I normally do with builds, use and open case with good slow fans, the system is then cool and quite. You do have to deal with more dust than a more closed case I find, but the better cooling for the same noise is worth it in my opinion.
A silence-focused case is very useful to get rid of component noise, which is not temperature related. Most common: HDDs (idle/access)! If you don't use a mechanical HDD (like in this testing), there is really no need to use them. Have good fans, have a smart fan controller (most mainboards have them nowadays) and select components (GPU, PSU, CPU-Cooler) that have a very low idle noise (maybe even fan stop) and you are good to go.
It's really all about hard disks. If all your noisy components are relative to thermals, then good airflow will win easily. But if you have thermally independent noise-creation, like you do with hard disks, you should prefer something like the Silent Base cases.
This is an excellent theory, and I really appreciate you testing it. I think you chose a poor example of a quiet case. I think the Antec P101 Silent is better than the Silent Base 601. Reasons I believe this: 1) Tom's Hardware rated it better: "even though there are three 120mm intake fans, the small vents in the front of the chassis did not impeded performance as much as we had expected." On "acoustic efficiency, also referred to as cooling-to-noise ratio" the P101 scored better than the SB 601. 2) The airflow arrangement on the P101 makes much more sense to me: The P101 has three intake fans. More fan surface area = slower fans = quieter, right? The intake area seems pretty well sealed, so that intake air pressure isn't going to just leak right back out around the intake fans. The SB 601 has one intake fan, in the middle of a huge mesh screen. Lower fan surface area = faster fan = noisier. It looks like all that intake air pressure is just going to immediately leak back out the front of the case. Do you feel like testing this? I ordered the Antec P101. Should I also order the SilverStone RL06, and test the noise normalized temperatures myself, using a sound meter app on my phone? I know that won't give ideal results, but I think it would be better than nothing.
@@darxustech2883 Great oldschool way - no bullshit build in silenced case. I like that way more than Jean Michel Jarre's concert in the pc case. I'm curious about few things. How would you describe noise of case fans using build in fan controller? Is Low hearable? Is High nosier than other components? And how are the temps when you choose middle one - fans turned off? Will it handle webbrowsing without other fans starting being noisy? And how's that X570 fan? Is it hearable in Antec anytime? Because there're a lot opposite opinions about these damn fans.
@@stanisawkowalski7440 thanks. I never hooked the fans up to the case's fan controller. I plugged them into the motherboard fan headers, which can control DC (non PWM) fans. With custom fan curves. It stays real quiet for web browsing. I've never noticed the X570 fan, and I've run loads with the case open to pay attention to fans, but wasn't specifically listening for that fan. At max speed, these fans are noisy, which is what I'd expect on the case fan controller's top speed. My guess is, with the case fan controller, you'd use low most of the time, and medium for gaming, and that would work fine, but why not use automatic motherboard control? I think I will probably eventually replace the case fans with Noctuas, once the NF-A12x25 comes out in black. These aren't bad, but I intend to have this case for a long time, and I might as well.
@@darxustech2883 Fan controllers are for noobs ;) But I wanted to know, in case of recomending that case to some noobs. Because noobs like fan controllers :] Like I said, to me it's best priced silent case on the market and from brand, which has bigger experience in producing them than Fractal, bq! or Nanoxia. Reviews are great, scores are good, so it must be great. If we talk about fans, I wouldn't go with Noctuas. A12x25 are maybe the best fans for radiator, but for a case not so much. Cheap way are Arctic's P12/P14 PST - top of the world performance and really quiet. But cheap fans mean cheap inside - sometimes make specific noise on some lower rpms and I woudn't expect long life without degradating. But 5 of them costs like 1 Noctua. Great midrange and kinda quality are Fractal's X2 GP12/14, but I don't know if they make big difference and are rather a little less efficient than Arctics. I recommend Silent Wings 3 - great performance, great inside, sound just best. They are a lot of comparisons of fans in the web, so see for yourself, but look for methodology - I've seen guy who test them in Define case using only one as exhaust, so it's worthless. Add to this that every other test with the same fans gives completely different results and you will have hard choice. If you don't see a problem with paying premium, just go with SW3 PWM. And in general beware of fast (>1000rpm) 3-pin fans - their start is definitely higher than 4-pin, so they're always rather noisy (in case you don't know that).
BQ 601 stock fans config is not good, everyone who knows what they are doing add at least one more fan, like in 801. Would be great to test silent case with good fans config.
I know you live in a different universe already, but for us folks with a bunch of HDDs, could you do this test with 4+ HDDs? (preferably from different manufacturers so there's more potential for them getting some added resonance ;)) I got a Fractal R6 and I can hear a big difference even between open and closed front door, not just the airflow from front fans, but the drives buzzing. That's why I switched from a mesh front+top+panel case (with only the back fan running at all) to this one. Temperatures are awful in comparison, but the noise actually improved. (I'm working on improving the thermals in the R6, ordered myself a bequiet! BL071 for the back and the idea is to make it silent in idle, but make a hurricane when it gets hot) Maybe there will be a day when multi-terabyte SSDs are affordable enough, but for now some of us really benefit from those silent cases. So I'm sure more of us would love a more realistic comparison, normalizing the noise with a bunch of unmatched HDDs stuck in there :)
I have a Vega 64, a card legendary for it's coil whine.. and completely got rid of it 100% just by capping my system framerate at 200 with rivatuner. Using 'quiet' hot box cases to fix issues like coil whine is like painting a window to hide a crack in the glass.
Coil whine in different places (GPU, MB, SSD, PSU), HDD works, bad PWM or worn ball-bearing fans you can't easily replace. That's what closed Silent PCs are for. Note that Steve admitted they just tested noise level, not frequency responses, and he didn't trashed the whole kind of cases. To me it's a small win comparing to his claim in the Silent Base 601 review.
PM01 with a D15 and it's the quietest build i've had (even compared to h440 and R4) and it's acceptably cold. This thesis is one hundred percent based in reality. I use it in a studio tracking room where noise is of utmost importance. Everyone should do it.
@@peterjansen4826 absolutely. They're both stellar there isn't much to it aside from availability and price. Here in aus the D15 is a better purchase and it also happens to be easier to install.
@@Jay2097 Here the price difference is small, like $6-7. The problem with the DRP4 for me is that it has less metal (given that I have a case which fits the D15...), I would like to see a somewhat lower price for it, around $65, because of that.
@@peterjansen4826 Why do you think be quiet has better fans. This is the closest fans I was able to find be quiet silent wings 3 140mm high speed vs noctu nf-a14. 1600 rpm vs 1500 rpm 131,79 m^3/h vs 140,2 m^3/h 2,16 mmh2o vs 2,08 mmh2o 28,1 db(a) vs 24,6 db(a) Seems to me the noctua is tiny bit better.
@@petrkinkal1509 Better is a bit subjective in this case, I claimed that because of the pitch of the sound. If your speakers are good enough then you could watch the Science Studio comparison (beQuiet, Noctua and two other brands). The pitch of the bq-fans is in my opinion less annoying and Greg thinks the same. I guess that it is possible that other people might prefer the pitch of the Noctua fans. I prefer the bqSW fans for that reason. Anyway, I will be buying a Zen2-CPU 1-2 months from now and I wil probably choose between the D15 and DRP4.
I bet now there's going to be a new airflow oriented case line at be quiet!. Someone who works there will see this and as a result we'll get even quieter products from them.
i've been waiting for this kind of video for a long time, it's more logical that lowering the rpm of the fans (so noise itself) will be more effective at reducing the noise to airflow ratio, not simply blocking the airflow with a solid front panel... but apparently not to case makers and a lot of people
I would love a additional chart for all of your case rewiews, which shows the Temperatur at a set noise level, with high end fans, so you only have the case design as a factor for the performance of set case.
Meshify C with Noctua 120mm high pressure fans set at 40% and you're golden. I have this set up cooling an 8086K running at 5.2GHz on all cores @ 1.42v. Highest temps from the Intel Extreme Tuning app were 70c. Idle is 34c with barely any noise.
Glad you pointed out high end liquid cooling! Although the thesis is based on air cooling, but good for you for pointing it out. I dont feel left out now. =P
For me the deal is easy. the lowest baseline in noise wins. if i need the airflow i can open the front, install more fans (i have 5 bq fans running at ~400 rpm idle and gaming load (1080ti @ 0.9V @ 1850 mhz @ ~200W) its ~550 rpm. But I cant close the front with an airflow focused case. silent focused gives more options then open ones, which you also pay for :)
The data shown pretty much proves that old rules of thumb are being phased out. Yes, a BeQuiet case is engineered quiet but in a way that would've been better 10 or more years ago. As of now we don't have the same type or amount of noise coming from your home desktop. Old mechanical drives were loud, disc drives were very loud, and on top of that add in lower quality sheet metal products vibrating. The BeQuiet series would have been great but with only fans making up a majority of the noise we hear now means the only true way to lower noise is change the airs movement.
I ended up putting the PC in a bordering room, drilling a hole in the wall for the cables to my desk. Sounds drastic, but it wasn't that much of a deal. All you need is longer cables. My office area is quiet now, and as an added bonus the ambient temperature doesn't go up anymore (you'd be surprised how much one or two PC's can heat up an area).
Why not also test with an extra fan in the 601? You know, a fan that blows at the CPU cooler... Moreover, you did try the RL06 with better fans, but you didn't try making any alterations to the 601. Why? If there is one thing someone might do when buying a case, it's getting an additional extra fan. So that should be the first thing you should try. Seems really weird to me that you didn't test that.
Now this is a very intresting video, even more than normal *thumps up*, thank god for tech jesus! The RL06 with be quiet fans surprised me the most, gpu temps on the other hand were surprising as well, is that because of the power supply shroud? ps. looking forward to the fan/air cooler tests ;) (especially air vs aio in a closed case)
Would it be possible in future cases to test for perceived loudness? In audio engineering you can check the volume both by the overall actual noise but also by the perceived loudness as high pitched sound is actually heard louder to our human ears than deep bass tones. I think in many ways it's more important to know that than the actual overall noise floor in many uses.
Now we need a test to show whether noise dampening foam is any use at all. Take the RLO6, stick the foam on both side panels and (assuming the side panels then shut!) redo the tests concentrating not just on volume of noise but its quality as well. It would be highly amusing to find that the RL06 out-performs the 601 both in quality and volume of noise simply be changing the fans and adding foam (although in fairness the foam in the 601 looks very high quality)
This test is flawed due to a key nature of pressure: The DarkBase has 2 fans in the front leaving the remaining slot open and exposed for backflow recirculation of air inside the front panel. This happens naturally until the pull of airflow through the intake vents and recirculation reaches a pressure balance. You are then testing this against a case with a fully-loaded front intake with far less potential for recirculation. It's like comparing the cooling performance of one fan vs three. Obviously the three will win. Retest without the pressure imbalance.
Sealing all gaps not meant for intake or exhaust is ideal. The fans become the only way in and out of the chassis. Take the NZXT S340 for instance. Horrible front intake design with that massive open gap below the bottom 140mm fan slot. I have it taped over to seal the intake. Changing nothing else thermals dropped significantly; especially the GPU due to the backflow recirculation of the airflow from the bottom fan getting split down that HDD cage vent and back through the front. Reason there's so little airflow into the case from the bottom intake vs the top. Everything else is an acceptable passive exhaust.
i see.. it seems to be interesting to test on my DBP900. they're quite restrictive and using 3 120mm fans seems to be leaving a few gaps. it could be sucking its own air from there
Not to sound snotty but I think the point has been missed. This is just to show that by adding good fans the a air fouced case can give similar results, ste even said that more work and money is like needed to achieve this. So you point it correct but missed pleased
@@k1dkerr1gan if what i understood from the video is correct and this is actually more a high airflow case with 4 fans noise normalised vs a air restrictive silent case with 2 fans then well duh ofc the high airflow case with 4 fans wins :P it's got easy access to air and it's got 4 fans to pull that easily accessed air. it'd be more interesting noise normalized 4 fans vs 4 fans even if you use the silverstone fans for the test it'll be more of a straitup high air flow vs silent chassis test then a high airflow build with 4 fans vs a silence build with 2 fans >.> silence hurts cooling performance this is a given so it would need more or faster fans to compensate for the cooling los, testing with less fans then the high airflow case it just stacking the odd's against it even more :P restricting the air passing through the case isn't helping anything but noise :p
I bought the RL-06, I’m going for a full airflow design. I also game with a headset on so the noise level will not effect my experience. I decided on this case after seeing your first review of it. Unfortunately I do plan on replacing all of the fans so the money saved there will be a wash😂
I'm glad you summarised the result afterwards, but I found those graphs really hard to follow. Looks like they had a lot of excess data. Personally I'd prefer only the relevant data for each point you're discussing, colour coded for clarity, then an option to see full graphs/context in a Google sheet?
Nice test! I wish you would test *all* cases normalized to 25 or 30 dB under full CPU+GPU load among other tests. I think there's a market for case with no window, full padding on both sides, top and bottom and airflow focused front and back. That would optimize the airflow in combination with maximum high frequency sound isolation. Having filtered air input with high airflow is hard to do, though.
I see that even stating clearly that this video is not taking into account the type of noise, rather just the volume level, hasn't stopped anyone from beating that particular drum. I'd love to see a comparison of different fans and speeds, side-by-side, with some sensibly placed mics. I'm sure you'd figure out a good testing methodology for that.
First time I build a pc in 2012 I focused on silence. I think I used like 7 or 8 120mm 1000 rpm fans. I also usually ran them 500-700 rpm. It was ultra quiet and never had temp problems.
would you consider doing further testing to explore the "type of noise" angle? I'd specifically be interested in GPU coil whine and whether a case with foam side panels but an open front would show significant Improvement over a side panel without foam and an open front - and compare both of that to a case with/without foam side panels and a closed off front.
as an owner of a PowerMac G5 case modded to accept PC components, i have to agree that open airflow can produce some dang quiet circumstances. my front 140s are spinning at 570RPM with my rear 120mm is spinning at 990RPM. i don't know what the equivalent dBA measurement is, but the whole rig is extremely quiet. the only items i ever hear are either of my HDDs when accessed or the GPU fans spin during gaming. i like to think that the thick aluminum acts as a bit of an intercooler as air passes thru the front panel before it hits any of the warmer components internally, although i doubt that was what it was designed for.
I have a Antec P7 Silent Mid-ATX case 2x 140mm Arctic P14 PWN fans 2x 120mm Antec stock case fans - 1 Pointed towards the stock CPU cooler attached to the ODD bay, the other exhaust I'm running R5 3600 @4.2 GHz OC and never get above 85C gaming at 1080p It runs pretty quiet with the exhaust and CPU cooler doing majority of the work while idle.
I use a silent pc case but just with the front taken off for better airflow from the front. Best of both worlds? Get a bit of that high frequencies lowered while still getting good airflow.
Wish you guys would measure sound levels during torture tests in a fully air cooled case, say near 100% GPU (various) and/or near 100% CPU. Many of us who want quiet cases want it quiet 100% of the time, not just during light workloads. When the higher end GPUs gets going in a mesh case we hear that noise on the other side of the house. Many of us also want the reliability of air cooling and as dust free a case as possible.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![What's the ACTUAL Temps & Noise difference - Airflow vs Silent PC Case? [Fractal Pop Air & Silent]](/img/n.gif)
Silent Base 601 review: ua-cam.com/video/jKJDqqkDTGI/v-deo.html
Find the article here: www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3391-airflow-vs-silent-cases-noise-normalized-thermals-silent-base-601
love the tests. I've had it go both ways, depending on fans and the case.
Great vid Steve and crew. love the new funny ad-spot. B)
Could you do a video on horizontally mounted motherboard cases? I am planning a build but I love the aesthetic of those style cases.
Great insights. Thanks Steve. Love this sort of content!
Just tuck vibration damper carpet in bolt mounting section of fan
Sure, you normalised for the case fan noise but did you normalise for the overall noise including the cpu cooler and gpu cooler noise as well? If not that’s a serious flaw in your methodology as a lot of times the cpu/gpu cooler fans contribute to the overall noise more than case fans do, especially when we are talking about air coolers and not water coolers (as in your tests) that can utilise intake case fans as radiator fans. (and vice versa). I would imagine that a cpu/gpu air cooler running with a more aggressive fan speed profile would cool the cpu /gpu better and being inside a silent case would still be more silent than the more open airflow case with slower cpu/gpu cooler fan speeds.
"type of noise" is very important with this topic, I think everyone prefers low humming noise over high pitched whistling noise (coil whine, grinding fans, hdd).
yes and the variation of the sound : if the noise is uninterrupted and invariant it's easier to forget it.
smoked_out had a question hoping you or others can help me. I bought a used 1070 and has bad coil whine if I don't put on v sync do u think then it'd be worth to get a closed off case like the corsair 270r to limit noise?
Half of the reason why I switched from Corsair AF fans to Arctic ones. I have more fans in my system now, but the sound is *MUCH* lower-pitched and easier to drown out or get used to.
They're in a Phanteks P400 TG, for what that's worth.
Coil whine happened to me..
Then i stopped cleaning my pc and it went away!.
The accumulated filth lubricated my fans.
Some may also be wanting to get rid of noise that doesn't come from case fans. For example you may have a video card with a louder blower style fan or one with coil whine. Also other component noise such as pump noise and mechanical hard drives.
You should have included an audio clip from each case. Would have been interesting to see how much they differ in noise characteristics.
This is the only channel where I actually watch the sponsor spot
Lol. Skipped it.
lol at the ad..looks like a late night home channel commercial
Thank you for explaining the joke. That definitely made it much funnier.
That Steve,its because hes worth it...
Needs more saxophone
0:45 Is that tech jesus?
is that allready keyed out and on reddit? xD
"And when they had managed a crown of cables, they put it upon his head, and a power supply in his right hand"
*Tech Gesus
Remember, he pronounces it "jif"
I love the fact that Steve is kind of enjoying it now.
TechJesus finally found his tech wreath.
It's all up to tech robe now.
I bought the RL06 just because of you and I'm honestly amazed how pretty much nobody else has talked about how great it is for someone who's after a high airflow case on a budget. Pretty much everyone reviews cases these days by focusing more on how they look instead of how much bang for the buck they offer.
Thank you for highlighting this. Best money I spent on my current rig was the overhaul to all Noctua fans and coolers. I have significantly less noise and better thermals than when I started. I did manually adjust my fan curves to find that noise to thermal sweet spot.
That is a nice demonstration. I concur that fan noise is fairly easy to eliminate jut by using quality fans. To me the major advantage of these noise isolated cases is high frequency noise dampening, and particularly the sound made by hard drives. I am very picky about noise, but this convinces me even further that once I get rid of all that spinning rust, I might get to use an open case again.
Really appreciate the scientific approach to this problem. Happily earned my subscription since I'm choosing a case for my new build.
i wouldve liked a sound sample at the end to compare the frequency of the noise
i put my case out in the hallway on a side-table & run the KB/mouse/monitor/audio wires through a wallplate. i can hear the lightbulbs in my office hum, & crickets 3 houses down, but not my PC. still running an AF case with loads of fans at low RPM & custom baffles inside to direct the air, so it's pretty quiet anyway.
...105f desert heat at 3am will make your brain come-up with some nutty solutions.
I love that you actually did this to prove the point you've brought up many times.
The frequency thing is pretty important, but I do believe you when you said you guys couldn't really tell a difference.
I'd still love to see some spectrum analysis, or frequency curves to get a visual representation of each cases sound profile. Easy to do with something free like Audacity, although, I'm guessing you guys also have Audition.
Still, thanks for doing this!
I totally agree. However, frequency perception being highly subjective (varies from one individual to the next, even curve "A" grading isn't perfect just a good approximation), and spectrum charts being hard to translate into "imagined sound" (especially without experience reading those), a pretty simple solution for any subjective measurement would be to just "show" it, like you basically video/photo shoot a product and then let people decide if they like how it looks, maybe highlighting some aspects: thus, simply record the sound of each machine, upload the files in lossless format (links in the article) and let people listen and decide if they hear a difference and care / prefer whichever. Maybe tell people what to listen to, e.g. "notice high-freqs on this one", "we only hear a low-freq hum in this case" etc.
@gamers nexus : thanks for the very thorough compare/review, as always - best on the net!
It is not thorough. Actually the opposite. A case with noise insulation is built to shield the user from the noise inside so the test should be with hard drives, coil whine and water pumps. Things that makes noise.
In this test he puts components without those traits inside the case. That is not what the be quiet is designed for.
You guys are absolutely killing it with the ads! ROFL
Awesome in depth video with a lot of great information!
Now, do a full on be quiet! vs Noctua fan comparison please 😁
How about using the same fans and configuration. 2 intake and 1 exhaust Noctua fans in all cases. Equalizing fan and placement would showcase the case's true noise dampening.
That wouldn’t work
That's why they swapped to BQ fans in the Silverstone case (2 intake 1 exhaust)
A more sealed case attenuates more EMI/radiation, which is very important in many professional environments such as people working with audio, video, and scientific instrumentation. Electro-magnetic interference causes more issues for me than fan noise by a huge margin.
Bro your dry humor is great - keep going
Why you are not as 2 million sub channel I will never know. Keep it metal and keep doing what you do
Best ad ever
The passion of tech Jesus!
Liked right after the ad. Let's watch the rest now.
Imho one of the most important videos you have ever made. Thanks for being awesome.
You really need to show the spectrum of the noise for comparisons. FFT pls.
Well, I agree but I can't blame them not to have the material. They made what they can with their budget and time.
You can capture a FFT with as little as an Android phone running Spectroid.
The noise level you normalized for is way too high, of course a silence focused case is beaten when it's set up to be as loud as it gets. there is no way to get an airflow case to get as quiet as a closed one with low rpm fans on both, unless you remove the fans completely. pretty sure an airflow case with no fans would not be able to compete on thermals with anything that does have fans.
There is a thing called passive cooling.... Like there are entire cases designed around the idea of no fans also and utilize boiling liquid to move the heat.
I may have missed it (He is talking so damn fast) but i dont think we even know at what distance. It could be extremely quiet if its at 20cm. If its at 2m its really loud.
Interesting as a comparison but i still have no idea how loud it really is.
@@jerkersandquist7244 As far as I know, their methodology is online and mentions the distance from which they measure. (Something around 20cm indeed.)
6:10 he mentions they are measured at 20 inches. the test includes the 100% fan speed as well as the "level 1" low noise setting on the be quiet case and then they adjusted the other case to match.
on the 32.9dba he used, the fan's were only at 530 rpm, that's as low as you'd go when doing any gaming. Any lower both cases would be dead silent.
Man where has this video been all my life
You should do Thermal-Normalized Noise tests, just for further comparability imho.
I think in a sound studio the Be Quiet case makes a lot of sense. I went for airflow with a H500M and a H115i Pro and the case is really darn quiet, enough to record with microphones.
But I can definitely hear a very quiet noise created by the overall system, basically every bit adds up even having the quietest fan speeds, quiet pump, silent exhaust. Having a BeQuiet robust case with open front and have the front not to point to the user will probably result on a further reduction of noise to nearly inaudible.
good to know, as I'm using mine in a recording studio as well. Those large diaphragm condensor mics pick up Everything!
Fan cutouts affect the noise generated by fans as well. If you have a case, that has large honeycomb (or similar) patterned holes for rear fans, used fans there would be quieter, than case with small honeycomb (or similar) pattern on the back. Solution for this is actually very simple and should be pushed to manufacturers - they should adapt using wired grills instead of dense honeycombs or any other patterns with thick spacing between holes (as Fractal design did with current gen of PC cases). I´ve cut my rear fan honeycomb grill on my Phanteks enthoo Pro (i used the nibbler-cutter tool and i recommend it only to people, that know, what they are doing) and changed it for wired grill. The noise generated by the back fan went down significantly and the fan itself (Noctua P14 Redux 1200 PWM) makes less noise, than before. As for structural integrity, the wired grill helps with this as well, because wired grills are sturdier, than any honeycomb-cut piece of metal. AFAIK, i ever saw only Corsair utilizing wired fan grill in the back of the case, with their Air 540 PC case.
I did the same thing with my Synology DS218play, which has very noisy fan by default, but the fan itself is only half of the issue. While the stock fan has very noisy motor, airflow generated by it runs through their stock plastic grill, which instead of only protecting the fan, acts as an active airflow barrier and creates lots of noise. After swapping the plastic grill for wired metal grill, NAS itself became very silent.
As for the looks, it doesn´t look as well, as the original honeycomb meshes and cutouts, but since the back of my case is way back under the table, i don´t care.
Type of noise is less subjective than you might think... it can be expressed with a simple sound clip or with a screen capture of a FFT. I recently got a CLC for my system hoping to make it a bit quieter... yes and no. The noise floor is lower but there is something up higher now. The robust whirr of a noctua fan was much more comfortable.
"less subjective than you might think" you say? So how do you quantify 'the robust whirr of a noctua fan'? I don't think it's as easy as having a quick glance at a FFT spectrum. And a sound clip doesn't make it less subjective either, as I have seen many YT comments about audio issues on videos, which I simply can't hear.
You can quantify the sound using psychoacoustic measures such as:
Loudness (done here)
Sharpness
Roughness
Tonality to noise ratio
This is all great but the software used to measure this is all incredibly expensive
However quite possibly the easiest measure would be “prominence ratio” as it is spelled out in standards ECMA 74 in annex D.
But what I was trying to say is that an annoying sound to one person is almost definitely an annoying sound to someone else- unless that other person has been listening to it for a while and masks it - which doesn’t make it “not annoying” it just makes it “not annoying anymore” and “annoying only for all guests using the room”
@@markamber1480 I see. I have to say, you provided some interesting reference points for further reading. I didn't expect that.
Well, maybe Steve will have a look.
Wherever there’s a subjective measure there’s an academic somewhere who has figured out how to quantify it. Actually I learned much of the above running sound for a John Deere meeting where a team of engineers was trying to sonically design the cockpit.
a case like the be quiet would hide noise from water pumps, multiple HDDs, noisy GPUs .. but you would have to have one or some of those to even need a case like taht ..
I mean, this is pretty much exactly what I did with my build. Fractal Design Meshify C, and I added a number of Cryorig QF Silent Fans. Great airflow and the thing is really quiet.
Tbh i think these Charts are often very confusing and missleading.
Sometimes you compare some stuff, but something completely different is highlighted.
Also some cases do have a noise Level stat in the big Charts and some don't.
Some got Fan Upgrades and some didn't.
It's kinda useless if there is such a big gap in stats in these Charts.
Yes, I've been looking forward to this. And based on the description I think I'm going to like it!
Hmm. So get an airflow case and tune fan speeds, and be able to crank fan speed up for more cooling if needed. Or get the silence case and pop off the front panel if more cooling is needed (assuming the front panel is easy to remove).
Airflow cases are cheaper though, so I think I'll tune fans.
Very good analogy, I like the idea of great airflow and quiet sounding computers. Great video...
Hey GN. I'm not really one for leaving a comment but it has to be said the content over the past for months has surpassed your already excellent content. What ever you are doing keep doing it. You deserve a whole more praise that can be put in to a short message but I want to a least say something #teamgnrocks
Nice, this is what I normally do with builds, use and open case with good slow fans, the system is then cool and quite. You do have to deal with more dust than a more closed case I find, but the better cooling for the same noise is worth it in my opinion.
A silence-focused case is very useful to get rid of component noise, which is not temperature related. Most common: HDDs (idle/access)! If you don't use a mechanical HDD (like in this testing), there is really no need to use them. Have good fans, have a smart fan controller (most mainboards have them nowadays) and select components (GPU, PSU, CPU-Cooler) that have a very low idle noise (maybe even fan stop) and you are good to go.
As a tech man who used to have very long hair, I feel your pain, bro. My hair used to get snagged in things far too often. It was annoying.
It's really all about hard disks. If all your noisy components are relative to thermals, then good airflow will win easily. But if you have thermally independent noise-creation, like you do with hard disks, you should prefer something like the Silent Base cases.
This is an excellent theory, and I really appreciate you testing it. I think you chose a poor example of a quiet case. I think the Antec P101 Silent is better than the Silent Base 601. Reasons I believe this:
1) Tom's Hardware rated it better: "even though there are three 120mm intake fans, the small vents in the front of the chassis did not impeded performance as much as we had expected." On "acoustic efficiency, also referred to as cooling-to-noise ratio" the P101 scored better than the SB 601.
2) The airflow arrangement on the P101 makes much more sense to me: The P101 has three intake fans. More fan surface area = slower fans = quieter, right? The intake area seems pretty well sealed, so that intake air pressure isn't going to just leak right back out around the intake fans. The SB 601 has one intake fan, in the middle of a huge mesh screen. Lower fan surface area = faster fan = noisier. It looks like all that intake air pressure is just going to immediately leak back out the front of the case.
Do you feel like testing this? I ordered the Antec P101. Should I also order the SilverStone RL06, and test the noise normalized temperatures myself, using a sound meter app on my phone? I know that won't give ideal results, but I think it would be better than nothing.
How's that case? That Antec seems to be the best priced silent case on the market and definitely better than SB601.
@@stanisawkowalski7440 I'm very happy with it. I posted a video of my recent build with it.
@@darxustech2883 Great oldschool way - no bullshit build in silenced case. I like that way more than Jean Michel Jarre's concert in the pc case. I'm curious about few things. How would you describe noise of case fans using build in fan controller? Is Low hearable? Is High nosier than other components? And how are the temps when you choose middle one - fans turned off? Will it handle webbrowsing without other fans starting being noisy? And how's that X570 fan? Is it hearable in Antec anytime? Because there're a lot opposite opinions about these damn fans.
@@stanisawkowalski7440 thanks. I never hooked the fans up to the case's fan controller. I plugged them into the motherboard fan headers, which can control DC (non PWM) fans. With custom fan curves. It stays real quiet for web browsing. I've never noticed the X570 fan, and I've run loads with the case open to pay attention to fans, but wasn't specifically listening for that fan.
At max speed, these fans are noisy, which is what I'd expect on the case fan controller's top speed. My guess is, with the case fan controller, you'd use low most of the time, and medium for gaming, and that would work fine, but why not use automatic motherboard control?
I think I will probably eventually replace the case fans with Noctuas, once the NF-A12x25 comes out in black. These aren't bad, but I intend to have this case for a long time, and I might as well.
@@darxustech2883 Fan controllers are for noobs ;) But I wanted to know, in case of recomending that case to some noobs. Because noobs like fan controllers :] Like I said, to me it's best priced silent case on the market and from brand, which has bigger experience in producing them than Fractal, bq! or Nanoxia. Reviews are great, scores are good, so it must be great.
If we talk about fans, I wouldn't go with Noctuas. A12x25 are maybe the best fans for radiator, but for a case not so much. Cheap way are Arctic's P12/P14 PST - top of the world performance and really quiet. But cheap fans mean cheap inside - sometimes make specific noise on some lower rpms and I woudn't expect long life without degradating. But 5 of them costs like 1 Noctua. Great midrange and kinda quality are Fractal's X2 GP12/14, but I don't know if they make big difference and are rather a little less efficient than Arctics. I recommend Silent Wings 3 - great performance, great inside, sound just best. They are a lot of comparisons of fans in the web, so see for yourself, but look for methodology - I've seen guy who test them in Define case using only one as exhaust, so it's worthless. Add to this that every other test with the same fans gives completely different results and you will have hard choice. If you don't see a problem with paying premium, just go with SW3 PWM. And in general beware of fast (>1000rpm) 3-pin fans - their start is definitely higher than 4-pin, so they're always rather noisy (in case you don't know that).
BQ 601 stock fans config is not good, everyone who knows what they are doing add at least one more fan, like in 801.
Would be great to test silent case with good fans config.
I know you live in a different universe already, but for us folks with a bunch of HDDs, could you do this test with 4+ HDDs? (preferably from different manufacturers so there's more potential for them getting some added resonance ;))
I got a Fractal R6 and I can hear a big difference even between open and closed front door, not just the airflow from front fans, but the drives buzzing. That's why I switched from a mesh front+top+panel case (with only the back fan running at all) to this one. Temperatures are awful in comparison, but the noise actually improved.
(I'm working on improving the thermals in the R6, ordered myself a bequiet! BL071 for the back and the idea is to make it silent in idle, but make a hurricane when it gets hot)
Maybe there will be a day when multi-terabyte SSDs are affordable enough, but for now some of us really benefit from those silent cases. So I'm sure more of us would love a more realistic comparison, normalizing the noise with a bunch of unmatched HDDs stuck in there :)
New to GN, but that's the first time I laughed at a sponsor-spot - nicely done good Tech Jesus.
First time I've ever enjoyed an ad xD Thank you tech jeebus.
because fan noise is the only thing that matter
chuck a gpu with some bad coil whine and a bunch of hard drives and tell me which case is quieter
I have a Vega 64, a card legendary for it's coil whine.. and completely got rid of it 100% just by capping my system framerate at 200 with rivatuner. Using 'quiet' hot box cases to fix issues like coil whine is like painting a window to hide a crack in the glass.
We talked about that aspect in the video.
Coil whine in different places (GPU, MB, SSD, PSU), HDD works, bad PWM or worn ball-bearing fans you can't easily replace. That's what closed Silent PCs are for.
Note that Steve admitted they just tested noise level, not frequency responses, and he didn't trashed the whole kind of cases. To me it's a small win comparing to his claim in the Silent Base 601 review.
@@anasevi9456 Id rather cap with frequency/voltage tuning, Rivatuner will not work for anti cheat games.
@@anasevi9456 why don't you use radeon chill for this?
this changes everything, THANK YOU
0:41 We knew you were Jesus all along! You only needed your robes... xD
PM01 with a D15 and it's the quietest build i've had (even compared to h440 and R4) and it's acceptably cold. This thesis is one hundred percent based in reality. I use it in a studio tracking room where noise is of utmost importance.
Everyone should do it.
D15 or BQDRP4, both are great coolers. Noctua has the better tower, bequiet the better fans.
@@peterjansen4826 absolutely. They're both stellar there isn't much to it aside from availability and price.
Here in aus the D15 is a better purchase and it also happens to be easier to install.
@@Jay2097
Here the price difference is small, like $6-7. The problem with the DRP4 for me is that it has less metal (given that I have a case which fits the D15...), I would like to see a somewhat lower price for it, around $65, because of that.
@@peterjansen4826 Why do you think be quiet has better fans.
This is the closest fans I was able to find
be quiet silent wings 3 140mm high speed vs noctu nf-a14.
1600 rpm vs 1500 rpm
131,79 m^3/h vs 140,2 m^3/h
2,16 mmh2o vs 2,08 mmh2o
28,1 db(a) vs 24,6 db(a)
Seems to me the noctua is tiny bit better.
@@petrkinkal1509
Better is a bit subjective in this case, I claimed that because of the pitch of the sound. If your speakers are good enough then you could watch the Science Studio comparison (beQuiet, Noctua and two other brands). The pitch of the bq-fans is in my opinion less annoying and Greg thinks the same. I guess that it is possible that other people might prefer the pitch of the Noctua fans. I prefer the bqSW fans for that reason.
Anyway, I will be buying a Zen2-CPU 1-2 months from now and I wil probably choose between the D15 and DRP4.
I bet now there's going to be a new airflow oriented case line at be quiet!. Someone who works there will see this and as a result we'll get even quieter products from them.
Really useful video, thanks. I’m about to change my case and have been considering this.
ubber props for the methodology and kind of tests themselves, first time i see a chart with equated db
i've been waiting for this kind of video for a long time, it's more logical that lowering the rpm of the fans (so noise itself) will be more effective at reducing the noise to airflow ratio, not simply blocking the airflow with a solid front panel... but apparently not to case makers and a lot of people
That was an interesting comparison. Thanks guys!
lol tech jesus with crown of thorny psu cables...nice
There's a lot of things to consider, that's for sure.
I would love a additional chart for all of your case rewiews, which shows the Temperatur at a set noise level, with high end fans, so you only have the case design as a factor for the performance of set case.
Thank you for making this video, this kind of comparison and in depth trade-off analysis is what I'm looking for.
Meshify C with Noctua 120mm high pressure fans set at 40% and you're golden. I have this set up cooling an 8086K running at 5.2GHz on all cores @ 1.42v. Highest temps from the Intel Extreme Tuning app were 70c. Idle is 34c with barely any noise.
Glad you pointed out high end liquid cooling! Although the thesis is based on air cooling, but good for you for pointing it out. I dont feel left out now. =P
The ad gives me life
For me the deal is easy. the lowest baseline in noise wins. if i need the airflow i can open the front, install more fans (i have 5 bq fans running at ~400 rpm idle and gaming load (1080ti @ 0.9V @ 1850 mhz @ ~200W) its ~550 rpm.
But I cant close the front with an airflow focused case. silent focused gives more options then open ones, which you also pay for :)
The data shown pretty much proves that old rules of thumb are being phased out. Yes, a BeQuiet case is engineered quiet but in a way that would've been better 10 or more years ago. As of now we don't have the same type or amount of noise coming from your home desktop. Old mechanical drives were loud, disc drives were very loud, and on top of that add in lower quality sheet metal products vibrating. The BeQuiet series would have been great but with only fans making up a majority of the noise we hear now means the only true way to lower noise is change the airs movement.
I ended up putting the PC in a bordering room, drilling a hole in the wall for the cables to my desk. Sounds drastic, but it wasn't that much of a deal. All you need is longer cables. My office area is quiet now, and as an added bonus the ambient temperature doesn't go up anymore (you'd be surprised how much one or two PC's can heat up an area).
@GamersNexus
Now we need a comprehensive fan roundup, like only GN can provide! :)
This is the kind of content i like a lot, thanks!
Great video -- hasn't dawned on me
Why not also test with an extra fan in the 601? You know, a fan that blows at the CPU cooler...
Moreover, you did try the RL06 with better fans, but you didn't try making any alterations to the 601. Why? If there is one thing someone might do when buying a case, it's getting an additional extra fan. So that should be the first thing you should try.
Seems really weird to me that you didn't test that.
Since our ears aren't linear when it comes to frequency, you could measure the frequencies and see how they relate to the Fletcher-Munson curves.
thank you for your comparative : It is very interesting
That cable crown though 🤣🤣🤣
Now this is a very intresting video, even more than normal *thumps up*, thank god for tech jesus!
The RL06 with be quiet fans surprised me the most, gpu temps on the other hand were surprising as well, is that because of the power supply shroud?
ps. looking forward to the fan/air cooler tests ;) (especially air vs aio in a closed case)
Very useful video. Thanks!
Thank you for video. Before watching I already want to buy some fans by be quiet for intake and Noctua for outtake.
Would it be possible in future cases to test for perceived loudness? In audio engineering you can check the volume both by the overall actual noise but also by the perceived loudness as high pitched sound is actually heard louder to our human ears than deep bass tones. I think in many ways it's more important to know that than the actual overall noise floor in many uses.
Now we need a test to show whether noise dampening foam is any use at all. Take the RLO6, stick the foam on both side panels and (assuming the side panels then shut!) redo the tests concentrating not just on volume of noise but its quality as well.
It would be highly amusing to find that the RL06 out-performs the 601 both in quality and volume of noise simply be changing the fans and adding foam (although in fairness the foam in the 601 looks very high quality)
10/10 would ad again
I love my TT f31 Suppressor glass edition. It has it all, even a couple drive bays for a rom drive and fan controller
This is why you guys need to design a case. It would be the best one on the market in both thermals and acoustics.
you can also get the o11 air in there with 12 fans, would be interesting (maybe more competitive if you switch out the stock mesh)
This test is flawed due to a key nature of pressure:
The DarkBase has 2 fans in the front leaving the remaining slot open and exposed for backflow recirculation of air inside the front panel. This happens naturally until the pull of airflow through the intake vents and recirculation reaches a pressure balance. You are then testing this against a case with a fully-loaded front intake with far less potential for recirculation. It's like comparing the cooling performance of one fan vs three. Obviously the three will win. Retest without the pressure imbalance.
what if we close the gaps? is it good or bad?
Sealing all gaps not meant for intake or exhaust is ideal. The fans become the only way in and out of the chassis.
Take the NZXT S340 for instance. Horrible front intake design with that massive open gap below the bottom 140mm fan slot. I have it taped over to seal the intake. Changing nothing else thermals dropped significantly; especially the GPU due to the backflow recirculation of the airflow from the bottom fan getting split down that HDD cage vent and back through the front. Reason there's so little airflow into the case from the bottom intake vs the top. Everything else is an acceptable passive exhaust.
i see.. it seems to be interesting to test on my DBP900. they're quite restrictive and using 3 120mm fans seems to be leaving a few gaps. it could be sucking its own air from there
Not to sound snotty but I think the point has been missed. This is just to show that by adding good fans the a air fouced case can give similar results, ste even said that more work and money is like needed to achieve this. So you point it correct but missed pleased
@@k1dkerr1gan if what i understood from the video is correct and this is actually more a high airflow case with 4 fans noise normalised vs a air restrictive silent case with 2 fans then well duh ofc the high airflow case with 4 fans wins :P it's got easy access to air and it's got 4 fans to pull that easily accessed air. it'd be more interesting noise normalized 4 fans vs 4 fans even if you use the silverstone fans for the test it'll be more of a straitup high air flow vs silent chassis test then a high airflow build with 4 fans vs a silence build with 2 fans >.>
silence hurts cooling performance this is a given so it would need more or faster fans to compensate for the cooling los, testing with less fans then the high airflow case it just stacking the odd's against it even more :P restricting the air passing through the case isn't helping anything but noise :p
I have the dark base pro and I open and close the front panel depending on how much I care about the little bit of extra fan noise.
exactly, I do the same with my old Antec P182 case. Just open the front when gaming.
Yes! Thank you! Please add 33dbA noise normalised thermals to your standard case testing. :)
Most interesting video in long time
That ad takes Tech Jesus to the next level!
i came across your vids not long ago and hated the way you talk at first, and now i can't get enough of it...
I bought the RL-06, I’m going for a full airflow design. I also game with a headset on so the noise level will not effect my experience. I decided on this case after seeing your first review of it. Unfortunately I do plan on replacing all of the fans so the money saved there will be a wash😂
I'm glad you summarised the result afterwards, but I found those graphs really hard to follow. Looks like they had a lot of excess data.
Personally I'd prefer only the relevant data for each point you're discussing, colour coded for clarity, then an option to see full graphs/context in a Google sheet?
you're doing God's work Steve
The foam gets rid of certain type of noise that can be eminated by certain components, wish you guys would record the noise coming from both cases.
Nice test! I wish you would test *all* cases normalized to 25 or 30 dB under full CPU+GPU load among other tests.
I think there's a market for case with no window, full padding on both sides, top and bottom and airflow focused front and back. That would optimize the airflow in combination with maximum high frequency sound isolation. Having filtered air input with high airflow is hard to do, though.
Case category specifically designed for high frequency noise *doesn't test for it*
I see that even stating clearly that this video is not taking into account the type of noise, rather just the volume level, hasn't stopped anyone from beating that particular drum.
I'd love to see a comparison of different fans and speeds, side-by-side, with some sensibly placed mics. I'm sure you'd figure out a good testing methodology for that.
First time I build a pc in 2012 I focused on silence. I think I used like 7 or 8 120mm 1000 rpm fans. I also usually ran them 500-700 rpm. It was ultra quiet and never had temp problems.
would you consider doing further testing to explore the "type of noise" angle? I'd specifically be interested in GPU coil whine and whether a case with foam side panels but an open front would show significant Improvement over a side panel without foam and an open front - and compare both of that to a case with/without foam side panels and a closed off front.
the best way to quiet and cool, as much fans as you may install in case, 6x fans at low speed makes the same job that x2 fans at 100% speed
as an owner of a PowerMac G5 case modded to accept PC components, i have to agree that open airflow can produce some dang quiet circumstances. my front 140s are spinning at 570RPM with my rear 120mm is spinning at 990RPM. i don't know what the equivalent dBA measurement is, but the whole rig is extremely quiet. the only items i ever hear are either of my HDDs when accessed or the GPU fans spin during gaming. i like to think that the thick aluminum acts as a bit of an intercooler as air passes thru the front panel before it hits any of the warmer components internally, although i doubt that was what it was designed for.
I have a Antec P7 Silent Mid-ATX case
2x 140mm Arctic P14 PWN fans
2x 120mm Antec stock case fans - 1 Pointed towards the stock CPU cooler attached to the ODD bay, the other exhaust
I'm running R5 3600 @4.2 GHz OC and never get above 85C gaming at 1080p
It runs pretty quiet with the exhaust and CPU cooler doing majority of the work while idle.
I use a silent pc case but just with the front taken off for better airflow from the front. Best of both worlds? Get a bit of that high frequencies lowered while still getting good airflow.
Wish you guys would measure sound levels during torture tests in a fully air cooled case, say near 100% GPU (various) and/or near 100% CPU. Many of us who want quiet cases want it quiet 100% of the time, not just during light workloads. When the higher end GPUs gets going in a mesh case we hear that noise on the other side of the house. Many of us also want the reliability of air cooling and as dust free a case as possible.