Silent XA SFF "silent 4-in-1 thermal jet"

Info & chat about quiet prebuilt, small form factor and barebones systems, people's experiences with vendors thereof, etc.

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Lifecycle
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Silent XA SFF "silent 4-in-1 thermal jet"

Post by Lifecycle » Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:51 am

Has anyone seen or heard of this Silent XA barebones? It's socket 754 A64 (Via K8T800).

There's also the Silent I barebone which is socket 478 (865G).

Both claim to have a spiffy Silent 4-in-1 thermal jet which seems to be a reasonable effort at single fan cooling for the whole SFF, although it looks like a slim 15mm 92mm fan, rather than a standard one.

The Silent XA looks particularly slick to me, aesthetically speaking, although obviously I'm mainly concerned about that cooling system which is effectively trying to cool both the CPU and PSU in one go and the "silent" claims that go along with it. If the supplied fan is quiet and thermally controlled or could be replaced with something like a full size 92mm Nexus (and keep the whole thing cool), this looks like it could be a winner if fitted with a 2.5" disk and passive graphics.

I'm not considering buying one or anything, just noticed the slick design and wondered about how great (or not) the "4-in-1 thermal jet" is and what people thought. I don't know how original this single fan design is for a SFF - probably not very, I'd imagine.

I've found this retailing on a couple of UK sites for around the £210 mark (inc. VAT), which is neither fantastically cheap nor extortionately expensive.

scotty6435
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Post by scotty6435 » Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:36 pm

Probably quite good but I just couldn't get over the blatent PS2 styling rip-off!

Lifecycle
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Post by Lifecycle » Wed Feb 16, 2005 12:45 am

Probably quite good but I just couldn't get over the blatent PS2 styling rip-off!
Very true but it still looks good IMHO... even if it is shamelessly copied... :P

Really I was wondering about that single-fan cooling solution. Does Shuttle do something similar or do all their (internal) PSUs still have nasty little 40mm whiners?

scotty6435
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Post by scotty6435 » Wed Feb 16, 2005 10:31 am

They all still have 40 or 50mm fans which are a right biatch to quiet. That system looks pretty good but I'm sure that it wouldn't be able to handle say a 6800GT with a prescott. Should give shuttle some ideas anyway :)

Lifecycle
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Post by Lifecycle » Thu Feb 17, 2005 2:21 am

They all still have 40 or 50mm fans which are a right biatch to quiet.
I'm not sure it does. I can't seem to find any pics of the internals, though so I'm not sure :x

It certainly doesn't look like there is a 40mm whiner in the PSU, which seemed nice (and different to most Shuttles). If there is a northbridge fan, I'm sure that could be modded.

The single 92mm fan design appeals to me from a noise perspective. Are there are other SFF's built with the same single-fan design?

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Post by Tom P » Thu Feb 17, 2005 7:49 am

BTW, looks like what is sold in the US as the Chenming "Game' barebones.

Lifecycle
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Post by Lifecycle » Thu Feb 17, 2005 8:14 am

BTW, looks like what is sold in the US as the Chenming "Game' barebones.
Yes - well spotted. Looks like there is also a S462 version available too (nForce 2, though). Would be great with an XP-M, if it supports it. Northbridge looks passive.

I am now getting a little tempted but can't seem to find this in the UK anywhere :(

scotty6435
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Post by scotty6435 » Thu Feb 17, 2005 10:30 am

Sorry, I was saying about the shuttle PSUs. They all have 40 or 50mm fans in. That looks like it's got an 80mm above the heatpipe CPU cooler in the PSU. This then blows out sideways of the PSU. Good system but I'd hate to see PSU temps :shock:

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Post by David Mitchell » Sun Feb 20, 2005 9:22 pm

Lifecycle wrote:
BTW, looks like what is sold in the US as the Chenming "Game' barebones.
Yes - well spotted. Looks like there is also a S462 version available too (nForce 2, though). Would be great with an XP-M, if it supports it. Northbridge looks passive.

I am now getting a little tempted but can't seem to find this in the UK anywhere :(
Thanks; now I'm tempted, too. I don't know that I'd want it for myself, but it'd be fun to play with!

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