Does anybody have any experience with either of these computer cases? Last piece of the puzzle for my PC. Both look promising, although the Cosair only has combo drive bays for 2.5" ssds. Probably not a problem, but this is my first pc build, so I’m in a bit of unknown territory.
thanks in advance!
I’m actually considering a Silent Base 800 (or the 600 if they release it soon). I’m not sure yet, it seems the Define R5 or Silverstone Fortress seem better options for my particular needs, but I’m still undecided.
I hadn’t even seen the corsair one yet, adding it to the list…
Edit:
just out of curiosity, this is my shopping list. What are you planning to get?
(with a Crucial SSD instead of the OCZ one). This is €775,- here, (+35 for firewire expansion which I already have, and I may buy a graphics card down the line to support more monitors.)
Wow, that’s an expensive build! I wish I had that amount of money to spend 
Why the expensive graphics card?
WD blacks can be very noisy I heard, woulnd’t that be a problem?
Well, I’m lucky enough to have my company paying for it The graphics card is because I’m in sound for games and I’m going to be running game development software which generally needs pretty powerful gpus. It’s kind of a downer because the gpu will probably be a bit noisy, although the MSI is supposed to be the most quiet of the 960s.
That’s a great point on the WD blacks! Honestly I hadn’t done research on the quietest mechanical drives. Are the blues that you’re ordering supposed to be significantly quieter?
thanks!!
Cool, which developer are you with?
As for mechanical harddrives: I’ve been researching it but it’s hard to find very concrete data. What I did find is that many people complain about the noise of blacks. I also found that drives with variable RPMs are not recommended so that rules out greens, reds and purples. That leaves blues, which are not as fast as blacks but not nearly as noisy. I actually switched to a Toshiba drive instead of a WD blue, because the performance of the blue is quite a step down from a black. The toshiba should be somewhere in the middle.
In your case you might want to look at the enterprise level WD Enterprise drives (I believe they’re called RE). Too expensive for me personally but they’re supposed to have ‘black’ performance with less noise and more reliability. Don’t take my word for it though, I didn’t really look into those because of their pricetag.
Nice, thanks for the advice! I’m actually transitioning right now. Was working for a small company in Chicago called Phosphor, now going to be doing work with Microsoft.
You’re right, there’s not a ton of info on the quietest hhds. Silent PC Review backs you up on the blues, but seems to be specifically at the 1TB model. Hopefully that holds true for the 2TB model as I need the hd space 
Some of these cases also have very good hd decoupling so hopefully that’ll help enough.
FWIW, I’ve also come across the P193 V3 on the Pro Tools forums. Also seems promising, although some people have replaced the fans with Noctua fans…
In that case the Silent Base might be a very good pick, with the silicon harddrive trays.
I went with the Fractal Design R5 after all, everything should arrive wednesday so I can give you some personal experience after that if you’re still deciding
Thanks, would love to hear it (also, I should have called this thread, best PC case, ha!)
After a lot more reading and research, I think I’ve narrowed it down to what you originally suggested, either the Fractal R5, or the Fortress FT02. In the end they’ll both be fine cases, I’m sure, just like to make the most educated decision possible. Great that the new rig is on it’s way!
SilentPCReview is great isn’t it.
I decided on the R5 simply because of cost. The fortress and R5 were both equally viable options I thought, so I might as well save myself €50,- on the difference.
I’ll let you know once I’ve got everything running!
I think you can still change the topic title btw 
Just to chime-in!
I have a Silverstone Fortress FT02, and while it is a great design for keeping your components cool… It is far from silent!
Because of its open top design… if the box is located near your listening environment, you are likely to hear the fans!
I have a Noctua NH-D14, and no stranger to the Silent PC Review website!
One of the noisiest fans in my case is the power supply fan (SeaSonic 1050W), even when I switch it to passive mode!
I also have a Caviar Black, and I don’t notice it as much as the fans, but contemplating switching it out for an SSD… lower heat means less need for fans!
Al
Awesome, good to know and thanks for the reply! Did you ever change out the power supply? The most powerful fanless power supply I could find was 500w and I was worried it would be enough juice.
Thanks for reporting MoPro!
500W might be fine actually. Check the power requirement of that graphics card, add 100 for the CPU and another 50 or so for other things and you know roughly what you need. If it’s a reliable PSU that can deliver 500W continuously under load then it may just be enough.
But I’ve had CoolerMaster PSU’s in my previous 2 PC’s and they’re not fanless but very quiet. Granted I haven’t tried them in a studio room but in my current living room PC I can hear the 2 casefans that spin at 50% speed, but never the CPU. (In a CM silencio case, which is quite silent already)
No! Even though I hear it sometimes… it really doesn’t get in the way of what I’m doing.
I’ll preface this by stating that I realize that the OP may have very different electrical resource requirements for a newer platform than I have!
I have a Sandy Bridge E platform, which is known to be power hungry anyway, so a 500W power supply probably wouldn’t cut-it for me!
Yea… I guess there should be a balance between power and efficiency, but I don’t want to fall short at a critical time while working, or not have the flexibility to upgrade to a more power hungry system, such as adding a larger GPU, or more storage if necessary!
I went with a larger power supply because I was of the idea that having a larger power supply meant less likely to run hot, and some can even be unstable and downright inefficient at the top end of their range. So, following that less heat means less need for large movement of air will also probably mean an overall quieter system!
Whether that’s true, or not probably has more to do with the quality of the power supply rather than size!
However, what I’ve found in practice… is that although there is a passive (Hybrid) mode on my particular power supply… and it is engaged, the fan will still spin-up if needed, which also can be more distracting than if it were just spinning all the time!
Another idea we might consider when building a new system is that Cubase, as well as other DAW’s single most bang for the buck performance booster comes from a faster CPU clock speed! I don’t mean to imply that that’s all that’s involved, but if you scan around I’m sure you will notice that many DAW users overclock their systems!
You may also notice that it is required that you disable most or all of the power saving features, as not to create a bottleneck in the background while Cubase is running…
Well… when you do that, you may find that your non-governed overclocked beast is way hungrier than that spec sheet suggested!
Just Sayin’
Al
Fair points!
I’m halfway building right now, at least for building the R5 is great. Very spaceous inside and very good build quality.
I don’t think I’ll get to stress testing it today, but I’ll update when I know more
I just completed the build. The case is very comfortable and spaceous so I had no trouble getting everything in, and cable management is very easy. The fact that you can mount the harddrives and SSD’s to trays is very neat, no fiddling with small screws in awkward corners. Removing the unneccesary drive bays was also very quick.
As I mentioned, I now have the 2 Fractal Design 140mm fans as intake fans. The CPU cooler has 2 120mm fans by Scythe, and the PSU is a Be Quiet! with a 140mm fan.
That’s 5 fans total, 3 of which are connected to the fan controller on the front panel of the case, the other 2 (the first cpu fan and the PSU) are automatically regulated based on temperature.
Whether the lowest setting on the fan controller provides enough cooling remains to be seen, but the case is very quiet in that setting. Sure I can hear the fans when I put my ear to the case, but of all cases I’ve built in the past, this has to be the quietest one.
The noise dampening material is very heavy and works very well. The difference when opening the front door is very noticable so it definitely works.
I’m lucky I don’t need a graphics card with a fan because they are smaller and thus louder. How well the harddrive vibrations and sound are dampened I haven’t tested yet, Gotta install windows first . The hard drive bays do have some room to move about, but the rubber grommets that hold the actual drive do absorb a lot of vibrations and movement so I imagine the hard drive bays won’t actually move when in use.
So far I’m very happy with the case, it’s great for my purpose at least! The same goes for the CPU cooler (Scythe Mugen 4 PCGH), it’s VERY quiet. A bit finicky to install like most CPU coolers but once it’s in place it’s great. It’s quite large though. It fits in the R5 just fine, but make sure you install your RAM, system fan and cpu fan before installing the cooler because you can’t really reach those once it’s mounted. I also had the 2nd CPU fan nearly touching the system fan which is why I moved that fan to the front as intake instead.
Great update Strophoid! I decided to go with the R5 as well based on some reviews that said the fortress was very good at cooling, but not necessarily the most silent. Also the R5 was a bit cheaper . I’m ordering a cosair liquid cooler, so hopefully that will be pretty silent.
Curious about the Be Quiet! PSU. I ended up going with a SeaSonic X650 w based on both my power needs (500 w just seemed like it was cutting it too close, after estimates, my system was going to need about 450 w not including an external sound cards and other usb powered devices.) Also Silent PC recommended this psu as being pretty quiet.
I’m not sure when my rig will come - as I mentioned it’s being bought for me (very luckily!) by my company, so the timing is a bit out of my hands. I’ll report back as soon as it’s in!
cheers
The Be Quiet was supposed to be the quietest in the 500W range so I went with that one over the Cooler Master I considered earlier.
Do update once you’ve got your build ready, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Where will you install the liquid cooler? In the front as intake, the bottom as intake or at the top?
I tried not to use the top airvents because I think it’d be at the cost of noise… On the other hand using them as intake means the temperature of the air inside your case will be higher which might make the cooling of other components harder/louder.
Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be fine, you’ve got your hands on a beast!
Not sure yet. (Can’t recall if I mentioned this at the top of the thread) but this is my first PC build. I’m in the middle of a major jump from the last 15 ish years of a Mac and Pro Tools to PC and Nuendo, so I’m in new territory here .
Will definitely update as soon as I get the components and get everything sorted out!!