Silent PC? Antec, Raven or something else?

[netmask254]

1. Low noise (high insulation)
The RV02 and FT02 (also the RV01 and FT01) are extremely quiet due to very little direct pathways for the sound to escape from inside the system to the user (unless you are standing right on top of it).
The HDD cage has grommets and the case is built out of steel. The main fans are 180mm and certainly are very quiet because they do not need to turn that fast.

I'm neutral and interested on the noise part. Generally I prefer negative air pressure over positive pressure, and think the former requires less fan or fan speed than the latter. I agree it is promising that Silverstone employs very large fans for this model (don't understand why P183 doesn't implement the similar 20cm top fan as P180 mini), but there are too many fans (I remember there are 3 bottom fans on Raven 2) to me. If allowing only one case fan is turned on, just like most silencer here did, I'm wondering whether its cooling performance will be down dramatically. To me, FT01 may be an ideal choice, only using top fan (18cm) as exhaust direction Anyway, let's wait for the review.

BTW, I used to place the case under my large desk, though I don't stand on it. Therefore, I somewhat dislike the direction of the emitted noise, also the dust.

[EsaT]

3. Enough expansion possibility for HDDs (could go up to 5 or more HDDs)
The FT02 offers room for 5 HDDs, so that fits my needs.

5. Easy mounting of HDDs
Hot-swappable HDD case, really easy to use.

If you have more HDDs than in every second slot there goes their cooling... That cage system of Silverstone is restrictive already without HDDs.

I don't think there's SATA backplane there... which isn't bad thing because it would require stricter positioning of HDD and give one possible vibration conduction path more.

So nice designy outside due to the aluminium, but anti-vibrating steel on the inside

Rubber construction would be better at preventing vibration from getting to "outer shell" than hard well vibration conducting steel...

[SST Guy]

If you have more HDDs than in every second slot there goes their cooling... That cage system of Silverstone is restrictive already without HDDs.

Hi EsaT, thank you for offering your inputs, really appreciate it. But I feel that Bit-tech article on the FT01 you linked is a bad example. The graphics card they used to test is a rare passively cooled Radeon HD3850 card with heatsink on top as opposed to the usual bottom spot. There are over 30 other review articles on the FT01 and none have as bad of a result as Bit-tech had with the GPU cooling performance (in fact, SPCR's own review showed FT01 performing very well in this regard).

The hard drive cage does introduce some restrictions to airflow, but we have designed the 180mm fan blade geometry to focus on air pressure so combine this with an overall positive pressure scheme, it is more than sufficient for most systems. To give you an idea, when we were developing the FT01 in early 2008, our testing rig consists of the following components:

Dual AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 CPUs (TDP 125W each)
ASUS L1N64-SLI WS motherboard
Dual NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra in SLI
Two Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10,000rpm hard drives
Three Western Digital Caviar GP 1TB hard drives

We expect all of our shipping FT01 cases to be able to handle a system like this in stock configuration. Cooling can be better still of course with the removal of hard drive cages (which is very easy to do), but we suspect most people will find the FT01 to provide excellent cooling quietly without any changes.

[krosan]

Thanks for that reply SST Guy, it's really interesting to have someone around who is actually working on these cases!

As EsaT pointed out, the HDDs seem to have some cooling issues on the FT01, however, do you happen to know if there has been any further development to solve that problem regarding the FT02?

Also, EsaT mentioned the conduction between the inner shell en outer shell of vibrations. Is this something your crew thought about? Personally I think the steel inner body conducts less vibrations than an all-aluminium case, although wouldn't EsaT have a point?

For my last question, I read on HardForum from a colleague of yours (Tony Ou) that the FT02 shipping date has been postponed to September. Have you got any idea when exactly these cases will be available?

Thanks in advance for your time and input!

[EsaT]

Personally I think the steel inner body conducts less vibrations than an all-aluminium case

It's steel's two times higher mass which dampens vibrations.
But case would still have to be made of "real steel" (something you can't bend with just hands) instead of sheet to really stop vibrations: Before that open front Stacker I had Chieftec's heavy steel full tower which must have weighted ~20kg because previous owner had put bitumen mats to it and despite of ~4mm bitumen lining on side panels some seek vibrations of hard mounted HDDs could be still felt.

The graphics card they used to test is a rare passively cooled Radeon HD3850 card...

Hence the full reliance on airflow of the case for cooling.
I admit it's rather extreme test and not very real world... but it shows if there's lack of airflow in that area.

Dual AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 CPUs (TDP 125W each)
Two Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10,000rpm hard drives
Three Western Digital Caviar GP 1TB hard drives

Dual socket ATX size board? Must be rare model... But agree about CPU area cooling being able to handle lot because of direct intake there and equally direct exhaust.
Idle consumption of Raptors fits fully inside variation of normal 7200rpm drives but 5400rpm WD Greens idle below 4W which is half of normal drives so that makes heat output as "3.5 drives".

[krosan]

For my last question of previous post I received a reply on HardForum from Tony Ou, a representative of Silverstone:

As stated previously, we are aiming for September/October timeframe, which likely means you will be seeing the case in retail channels by mid-October.

[netmask254]

Glad to see SST guy in this topic, I have a question regarding Raven 2's HDD mounting:

There is a feature decription mentioned that "Updated hard drive suspension system to prevent drive noise" (http://www.silverstonetek.com/raven/pro ... 2&area=usa), and some silencers here have pretty high expectation for it. But from some released reviews (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/789/5), we see a somewhat ordinary HDD mounting (a cage with rubber sorb only but still need screws) comparing with Raven 1's. Is it really more effective on reducing HDD's noise & vibration than Raven 1's? I know it will be clear after SPCR's review, but I'm still interested about your design consideration.

[SST Guy]

EsaT, krosan, thank you for your concerns regarding FT01's design. But I really don't think it has "issues" or "problems." Devon's review here at SPCR showed that this is one of the better cases availalbe thermally and acoustically:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article953-page7.html

In the conclusion he said, "One of the biggest strengths of the case is the excellent cooling for the graphics card." Also, one of the PROS listed FT01 as having "Excellent HDD mounting system"

Of course, the FT01 can be even better with improvements such as custom soft mounting of HDD via elastic rubber bands and more space in between drives, so we designed the drive cages to be easily removable for those with more critical needs. Cooling can also be improved further by upgrading to our optional speed adjustable 180mm fan to compete with cases that are louder.

If you guys like the general design of FT01 and is hesitant about it, I would encourage you to look past the Bit-tech review and give it a try for yourself.

[SST Guy]

netmask254, the RAVEN RV02's HDD rubber mounts are much bigger than those on the RV01. They do literally suspend the hard drives inside the cage and are soft enough that we recommend against shipping the RV02 installed with hard drives (unless some form of securing mechanism can be put in place during shipping for user to remove upon receiving the system).

[netmask254]

netmask254, the RAVEN RV02's HDD rubber mounts are much bigger than those on the RV01. They do literally suspend the hard drives inside the cage and are soft enough that we recommend against shipping the RV02 installed with hard drives (unless some form of securing mechanism can be put in place during shipping for user to remove upon receiving the system).

It sounds fine, thanks!

[Jipa]

I was just about to recommend the FT01, but I see you already went one better. Good choice there...

[misterd]

If you guys like the general design of FT01 and is hesitant about it, I would encourage you to look past the Bit-tech review and give it a try for yourself.

I loved my FT01 until my motherboard arrived. (Rampage II Extreme) I neglected to notice that it was slightly (2.5cm) bigger then ATX spec. I was a few mm short of it fitting, but i was very impressed with the case from a hands on (but no system inside it) point of view.

[Zygmunt]

Did you consider desktop instead of tower?
Very elegant and quiet cases are OrigenAE S16V.

Regards

[SpiralTrance]

You might not be able to run a 10.5" card in a P183 if you want to use the mid chamber fan. I have a 9.5" card, and the power adapter is at the end of the card. After plugging them in the adapters are literally lodged between the fan of the card, I can barely fit them in. So if your card is 10.5" and the power connectors are at the end of the card, you won't be able to use the fan.

I'm building a new rig with a ATI HD 5870. To install one in a P183 will I have to perminantly remove the upper hard drive cage and mount the hard drives in the lower hard drive chamber?

[JamieG]

You might not be able to run a 10.5" card in a P183 if you want to use the mid chamber fan. I have a 9.5" card, and the power adapter is at the end of the card. After plugging them in the adapters are literally lodged between the fan of the card, I can barely fit them in. So if your card is 10.5" and the power connectors are at the end of the card, you won't be able to use the fan.

I'm building a new rig with a ATI HD 5870. To install one in a P183 will I have to perminantly remove the upper hard drive cage and mount the hard drives in the lower hard drive chamber?

Very likely. From what I have read, the 5870 is 11 inches long, and may be longer if you count the space you need at the end of the card for the PCI-E power cables.

For reference, the 8800GTX in my P182 is 10.5 inches, with the power plugs mounted on the 'top' rather than the end of the card. For the fit of this card, check out the pic of my P182 without the DIY cardboard duct from the Gaming PC link in my sig. I assume the P183 has pretty much the same dimensions as my P182.

[SpiralTrance]

You might not be able to run a 10.5" card in a P183 if you want to use the mid chamber fan. I have a 9.5" card, and the power adapter is at the end of the card. After plugging them in the adapters are literally lodged between the fan of the card, I can barely fit them in. So if your card is 10.5" and the power connectors are at the end of the card, you won't be able to use the fan.

I'm building a new rig with a ATI HD 5870. To install one in a P183 will I have to perminantly remove the upper hard drive cage and mount the hard drives in the lower hard drive chamber?

Very likely. From what I have read, the 5870 is 11 inches long, and may be longer if you count the space you need at the end of the card for the PCI-E power cables.

For reference, the 8800GTX in my P182 is 10.5 inches, with the power plugs mounted on the 'top' rather than the end of the card. For the fit of this card, check out the pic of my P182 without the DIY cardboard duct from the Gaming PC link in my sig. I assume the P183 has pretty much the same dimensions as my P182.

Ok thanks.