Dang, I've read first five pages of the article, but IE hangs when loading the most interesting part, the sixth page. I've disabled flash plugin that causes the problems most of the time but it still does it. I guess I'll have to wait till I get home to read it all.

*this is not an inviation to bash IE*

The label for the second picture on page five reads "The power supply goes a separate bracket."

Should that be "gets a separate bracket"?

My gut feeling is that the intended airflow plan for the upper chamber is backwards. I can't help but wonder that the front top fan is hurting more than it's helping--the negative pressure it creates will suck air indiscriminately from all intakes, and yet its pulling the air toward an area with no components whatsoever.

It just seems to me to make more sense if the airflow is more P180-like. By that, I mean having the rear fans and rear top fan exhaust, and removing the front top fan entirely. That would balance intakes and exhausts, and have all air pass through the CPU heatsink before immediately exhausting out of the case. Of course, that horribly restrictive top grill has got to go.

I dunno...this case looks like it has potential, but you'd have to throw the intended airflow plan out the window.

Long time lurker, first time poster...

I recently bought this case, and while mostly happy with it, I'm not satisfied with its accoustic properties. Using the stock fans, I've found the best setting is to disable both back intake fans and only run the top exhausts and the HD cooler fans. This gets the best compromise between cooling and noise, but it's still not where I want it to be.

I wish the review had tried replacing the back intake fans, as they are really the biggest problem in terms of noise. The top exhaust fans are mostly okay; I think most of their noise could be removed by modding the top mesh grill to be less restrictive. The HD cooler fan is almost silent, no problem there.

Any one else with this case have any tips for improving its quietness?

Greetings & welcome to SPCR,

In all likelihood, some Scythe DF 1600RPM 92mm fans would be quieter than the stock units? Also, I wonder if the tight screens on the top exhaust fans is making more noise than the wire grills? Maybe, with quiet 92mm fans, it might be better to just let the top vent be passive?

Having owned this case for a couple of months i have to say its very good to work with, much, much more spacious than a P180. The 120mm fans are okay but spin too fast stock, the 92mm fans are horrible. So i dont run any fans at all, everything that needs cooling is watercooled with the Res, including the HDD, and the passive Phantom stays cool enough. Ill put a thread about it in Gallery once im finished..

Can't help but notice that every time there were better temps (for the CPU or GPU) the power consumption was tangibly lower. This can't be only because of the respective VRM's also running hotter (less efficiently), can it?

Is this to say that if you want to make a pc with the lowest possible power consumption, you need to cool it really well?

Read the article at home, can't say I didn't expect it. I owned Temjin TJ-03 which is an absolutely wonderful case, IMO the most stylish case up to date beating all of the recent offerings by Silverstone, LianLi and Coolermaster. The front panel was crafted beautifully from solid aluminum. However it had exact same problems as TJ-07 reviewed here. The side panels were waaaay too flimsy, they did not even lock securely in place so they wobbled like crazy. Whenever I would find a stable position for the side panels, they would inevitably start vibrating, it could happen in 5 minutes, it could happen in a couple of days. I guess the inherit vibrations of the case would displace them from their stable positions and they start vibrating. Same goes for the motherboard tray. I didn't have stickiness problem but the tray also wobbled once locked in position. It is mind boggling that that engineers paid so many attention to design creating an absolutely spectacular looking case and left so many oversights like vibrating panels and motherboard tray. You'd think it's the problem of all aluminum cases, but at least side panels of CoolerMaster stacker lock into place which helps reduce vibrations, TJ-03 panels do not lock into place. I ended up selling my TJ-03. While it was a beautiful case, it had hard mounting hard drives, abysmal front air intake and ultimately it would have required too much work to make it even somewhat quiet. So when someone comes out with a $350 aluminum case forgive me for being skeptical...

Well this was definitely a less than stellar review. I'm rather disappointed. Considering the price point, and much hyped build quality, I thought the case would earn top marks.

And although I have been considering this case, this review doesn't completely diminish my enthusiasm for the case, in fact one point makes it possibly MORE worthwhile. So I want to get a clarification. Since the case can be completely disassembled, are all the panels of the case in fact ALL ALUMINUM without steel rivets? Because if they are, then I could disassemble the case and then take it and get it anodized a different color. I think the case would be gorgeous in blue, red or maybe purple.

As far as the resonances, and rattling, that’s NBD to be me, since I would Acoustipack and Sorbothane the bejeezus out of the thing.

I bought a Chenbro Gaming Bomb II, and it had almost identical complaints as you have for the TJ-07. But after plenty of Acoustipack and some Sorbothane, it’s pretty damn quiet. But I want a purty aluminum case. In something other than silver or black, please. The GBII has steel rivets that unfortunately would be dissolved by the acid bath during anodizing. I seriously considered getting the thing powder coated, but was repelled by the $300+ price quotes.

I presume you mean our findings disappointed you, not that the review was done poorly.

AFA we can tell, yes. There are no steel parts except for a bit of the HDD mounting, mentioned in the review.

Absolutely! VERY thorough review.



Well excellent, then I might have to take a stab at getting one.

Personally, it could cancel out all noise and smell like a rose at the same time, but I would not want it. It is just too big.

Yes, that is what we are saying. This will be one topic in our long-delayed article on VRM efficiency.

In very many cases, we've seen a correlation between AC power consumption and CPU temperature. This occurs even when using "top down" heatsinks that provide some airflow to the VRMs, but the problem gets worse with tower heatsinks that blow across the motherboard.

ive had my black TJ07 for a couple of months in my office. a conversation piece, absolutely beautiful case. mine has zalman fanmate in the middle of the front panel and blue lighted silverstone vfd in the bottom slot--very understated artsy, a computer to dominate a room. my first build went flawlessly, very easy installation. The noise is another thing. since i'm a newbie consider my level of understanding low. there is no sidepannel vibration or any other sort of vibration (mb)coming out of my case. my fans are all volted to 7. idle temps if i believe the recordings stay at 44-47 C. I have a skythe katana heat sink
and silverstone 600psu, AMD4800x2, asus a8n32, corsair 3500 and 2 WD150s. the raptors are mostly dead quiet. BUT, this system is rather loud. i've tried to figure out were the noise comes from. the loudest fan is the XFX6800 videocard fan, but, i've almost concluded that its the cumulative fan noise im hearing. yet to have the time to play around with the noise. would be curious from anyone else who has the case whether you agree that there is a loud continuous hummm just short of whooshing fan noise from this case, and where exactly you believe the noise originates. this was the best tj07 review, but, expected you'd report the fan noise considerably louder than the review indicates.

well I guess one plus point would be that the HDD arrangement should eliminate the cavity resonance which can occur in P180 systems

wow. i buy the case, and while its being shipped to me an article on here is written. oh how i would take it back after reading the article.

the side panel on the left side is nearly impossible to get on and off. its getting better, but it seems like its going to break those aluminum tabs off.

i have raptor 150gb drives, and good day you can hear them seeking like nobodys business.

i went from p180 to this case, mostly to do water cooling. its great for that, just cavernous inside, but the fit/finish is horrible, loose panels, screws that want to cross thread everytime (psu bracket! @$#$F*$JK) etc.

i love the look though. man i love the look.

did i mention it weighs like steel?

philly, im convinced, if i ever get to it, i can cut the noice at least in half. and, this will be very tolerable. i was surprised the review gave decibel readings at 30 db. id swear on the bible mine are at least 40 db. a post on another forum mentioned that modding with nexus fans all around deadens things considerably, and that replacing existing with nexus is fairly simple + as in the review-ive played around with turning some of the fans off and seen little temperature variation. i fail to understand my temperature readings--after the 30 second start up the cpu tem is about 39-40C and highest is 46-49c. im presuming this is an inaccurate reading since top temps are barely 8 degrees above start up temps. so, think you can do turn off some fans for day to day use, and im going to get a passive video card. yes, when i saw those side panel slots figured u'd get HD seek noise, but, in our use, its very little bother. i suspect for a determined silencer this case could be made reasonably quiet, which is good news. i do really like this case.

I thought one of the most pertinent points in considering this case was mentioned in the conclusion of the review where it was pointed out that a case like this is almost out of place in this day and age with lowered thermals being an important consideration for newer chips. Its not clear whether this trend will reverse or continue.

I also think that for a lot of people (especially older users with wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, transgendered others) the large size ends up being a problem. If you don't live in or own a mcmansion, then the smaller cases get more appealing.

dont get me wrong. i love the case. i have switched around a few fans, the top stock fans dont really blow much air, i replaced with some others.

ive got a 120.2 BIP rad in the bottom, with one hdd holder thing. also my 1Kw psu. im thinking of tossin the 120.2, getting a 120.3, running it next to the 1kw, removing the hard drive mount (only have two raptors, nothin else they will probably make less noise up in the 5 1/4 anyway) and having 2/3 of the rad in the front, unblocked by the psu, and 1/3 blocked by the psu. probably want a wide spaced rad, with real slow fans, like yate loons.

what do you think?

my doors are fitting better, also i put some neoprene on the doors and the rail sides that may touch the doors.

1kW PSU?! what on earth do you have in there? Still, I imagine you could easily fit a dual 120mm rad in there..

1kw is just so i dont ever have problems with power. also i took one look at the internals and was sold. basically pc power and cooling said who cares what the standard size is, lets build the best psu possible. you can see the actual line from AC to DC. and there is three of them. i dont have anything that needs that now, but i will in about two months, with core 2 duo and NV80 sometime on the horizon.

i already know that a dual 120 will fit, im certain that a triple 120 will fit. just not all the fans on both sides. my dual 120 is about 50mm thick, with 38mm fans. and i still have about 25 mm space on the psu side, the other side is against the door with like 4mm to space. if i remove the hard drive rack a triple 120 will fit.

fair enough, though I wonder how much efficiency/ quietness you're giving up now, especially given the trend (in CPUs at least) towards performance per watt.

triple 120 rad sounds interesting!

well, i know this is silent pc review. but im just happy if it doesnt sound like a hurricane. the 120.3 is probably too big. i moved my psu to the rear position, and the rad is now out in front of the psu. its a tight fit, but i think i can get the pump in the bottom of the case in front of the psu now. also i have 4 120x38mm fans on the rad, in push/pull, and im getting decent temps in my hotter room. i have a fan controller on the way, as the silenx fans are rated at around 80-90 cfm and are a little loud for just internet browsing. the fan controller is configurable to turn up the fans when neccessary. i also got a bunch of the 50 cfm 120mm quiet fans that are decent airflow and very quiet (at least for me).