be quiet! Silent Base 800 Review
Category : Cases
Published by Luca Rocchi on 12.03.15
At a first glance, the Silent Base 800 from be quiet! is a well thought and good looking case. Although the manufacturer is rather new to the case business, the Silent Base 800 appears to be very interesting silent case, which has been equipped with thick and effective soundproofing material.
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Today, we will be checking out the latest mid-tower PC case from be quiet!, the new Silent Base 800. Optimized for low noise levels and made from high quality materials, the Silent Base 800 is a serious contender in the mid-tower PC case market.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - Installation |
| Page 2 - Preview | Page 6 - Ventilation options |
| Page 3 - Bundle | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - Product overview |
Preview
Specifications
| Model: | Silent Base 800 | |
| Case Type: | Mid-tower | |
| Dimensions: | 226 mm (W) x 559 mm (H) x 559 mm (D), 9.31Kg | |
| Material: | Steel | |
| Color: | Black | |
| Drive Bay: | 5.25": | 3 |
| 3.5": | 7 | |
| 2.5": | 4 | |
| Expansion slots: | 7 | |
| Form factors: | ATX, mATX, Mini-ITX | |
| Cooling: | Front: | 2x 140mm (be quiet! Pure Wings 2 - 1'000 rpm) |
| Rear: | 1x 120mm (be quiet! Pure Wings 2 - 1'500 rpm) | |
| Top: | 2x 120/140mm | |
| Bottom: | 1 x 120/140mm | |
| Side: | 1x 120mm | |
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - Installation |
| Page 2 - Preview | Page 6 - Ventilation options |
| Page 3 - Bundle | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - Product overview |
Bundle
Overview |
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| The Silent Base 800 box comes in a pretty
simple box. It is made out of cardboard and lists all the most important features of the
Silent Base 800. Inside the box,
there is the case itself, protected by a plastic cover. To ensure that nothing is going to break during shipping, be quiet! used two big pieces of plastic-sponge which is more than enough to protect the Silent Base 800.
The bundle is quite simple but complete
as you get a user manual, a great number of screws, zip-ties and an
orange HDD sledge. |
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| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - Installation |
| Page 2 - Preview | Page 6 - Ventilation options |
| Page 3 - Bundle | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - Product overview |
Product overview
Overview |
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The Silent Base 800 features a simple and
neat design. be quiet! manufactures this case from high quality metal and plastic.
The front door comes with a black panel which covers three 5.25" slots
located at the top of the case as well as two front fans. There are also removable
and washable dust filters, which have been placed on a plastic frame. In
these frames be quiet! hides one 140 millimeter fan each. The door and
both side panels, are equipped with thick sound-absorbing material,
which has become a trademark for every silent cases. The I/O panel features two USB 3.0, two USB 2.0
ports, the power and reset buttons as well as the standard audio jacks. On both sides of the front panel there are
a few small openings, which allow the front fans to
pull fresh air into the case. The side panels, even if they look quite simple, are actually the most important piece of the soundproofing system as they've both
been equipped with soundproofing material, which is actually pretty heavy and
does a good job at absorbing noise. |
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| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - Installation |
| Page 2 - Preview | Page 6 - Ventilation options |
| Page 3 - Bundle | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - Product overview |
Installation
Overview |
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| The
interior
of the Silent Base 800 is clean and simple, and it features a classic
design and layout. There is space for up to three 5.25" devices, seven
3.5" and four 2.5" drives. All of them can be put on orange sledges or behind the motherboard's tray.
The installation of all drives is tool-less. Unlike many other manufacturers, be quiet! didn't
make any mistakes related to the HDD cages, as infact, they are
completely removable and you will be able to reconfigure the internal
layout to suite your needs. The motherboard tray is made of solid steel,
and it features a big cut out behind the socket,
which allows the user to install aftermarket CPU coolers without having
to remove the motherboard beforehand. The tray features nine openings with rubber grommets to create a neat cable management. Between the motherboard tray and the right
side panel there is enough space to hide
plenty of cables. The whole interior, except for the top and bottom panels,
has been equipped with soundproofing material to reduce system noise. In order to check compatibility, we've used an ATX motherboard and a Dark Rock 3 cooler from be quiet!. As you can see from the pictures there is more than enough space to install even high-end components. A closer look at the specs regarding the height of coolers reveals that models that measure up to 170 millimeter in height can be installed. In the case of graphics cards, they can measure up to 298 milliemter in length. In order to install our massive Club 3D R9 290X GPU we had to remov one HDD cage, but we are sure that in the 99% of the configuration you won't have to remove any of the HDD cages. |
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| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - Installation |
| Page 2 - Preview | Page 6 - Ventilation options |
| Page 3 - Bundle | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - Product overview |
Ventilation options
Overview |
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| The Silent Base 800 offers
plenty of spots for fans and inside the delivery you will find two
models measuring 140mm in diameter and another 120mm one. You can
install up to two 140mm fans in the front, one 120mm in the rear and up to
another two 120/140mm fans at the top. Despite the fact, that the side panels have been equipped with a thick layer of soundproofing material, you also have the option to install fans at this place. A well though rentention system allows you to do so. If you are a fan of watercooling you will be happy to know that the Silent Base 800 is also perfect for this type of cooling. Thanks to the fact, that there is plenty of space and there are modular hard drive cages, you will be able to mount a 280mm radiator at the front and a 240/280mm at the top. |
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| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - Installation |
| Page 2 - Preview | Page 6 - Ventilation options |
| Page 3 - Bundle | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - Product overview |
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| The be quiet! Silent Base 800 is a well thought, mid-tower PC case where a lot of attention has been paid to noise insulation features. At this point the engineers have really been working hard on effectively reducing the overall noise level. Furthermore, we also liked the two removable hard drive cages as well as the modular approach in general. Since orange is not everybody's favorite color, be quiet! offers three different color schemes with this case, where one is black and orange, which we've had for review and the other two are black and silver or black and black. |
- Price
- Design |
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| Manufacturing quality / Ergonomics | + | - | |
| Overall, the build quality is on a very good level. be quiet! didn't make the mistake to go for thin side panels in order to save weight. They used solid metal sheets which have been paired with noise insulation material. This combination guarantees for very high stability and stiff side panels. Furthermore installing hardware is simple and straightforward. We also appreciated the fact that there are several holes in the motherboard tray to route cables to the backside of the board. In addition we also like the two hidden 2.5" slots placed behind the motherboard tray, which can be just perfect if you want build a "stealth rig". | - High quality materials
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| Design / Layout | + | - | |
| As far as the design is concerned, we think that nobody could ever say something negative about the Silent Base 800, mainly because it features a simple look, and has neither strange details nor aesthetic flaws. It is a simple case, with elegant looks, that could fit in any kind of environment and as we already mentioned it's available with two different color schemes. Apart form the classy and elegant design, the Silent Base 800 offers good internal cooling and there is plenty of flexibility for building high-end liquid cooling systems. The only thing that could possibly be criticized concerns the size of this case, since it's rather tall for a midi tower. | - Design
- 3 pre-installed fans - Dust filters - Aircooling / Watercooling |
- Too tall for being a mid-tower | |
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| The Silent Base 800 from be quiet! is a case we definitely recommend. If you're looking for a mid-tower PC case with pre-installed acoustic insulation material as well as silent fans this is a great choice. With this case it is really easy to build a silent rig. The be quiet! Silent Base 800 is available on Geizhals for 107 Euro excluding shipping costs and it's available also in black/orange, black/silver and black/black color options. |
- Silent-PC |
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| Rating | |||
| The be quiet! Silent Base 800 gets good 4.5 out of 5 stars. | |||
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - Installation |
| Page 2 - Preview | Page 6 - Ventilation options |
| Page 3 - Bundle | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - Product overview |