SilverStone Precision PS07: Temjin For Less?
by Dustin Sklavos on January 3, 2012 12:20 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- SilverStone
- MicroATX
- Mini-Tower
Assembling the SilverStone Precision PS07
Once again, the SilverStone Precision PS07's assembly was another exercise in deja vu. SilverStone includes an instruction manual that details a very specific way to assemble the enclosure from start to finish to make things as easy as possible, and for the most part it's on the mark. Their cases often feel like puzzles with very specific solutions, and thankfully you don't have to figure them out on your own.
The PS07 comes apart in a few different places. You won't have to remove the front fascia, but the side panels, top panel, motherboard tray, and drive cage all come out. You don't necessarily have to do all of these things, but they can help. SilverStone includes standoffs built into the motherboard tray that makes mounting the board a breeze, but I found locking the tray back into place to be on the awkward side. When I assembled the TJ08-E I opted not to remove the tray to install the board, and that turned out to be the right choice. With the more easily removable drive cage it's simply not necessary.
While ordinarily the power supply is one of the last things I'd install, it pays to pop it into the PS07 early. One of the last things to go in should actually be the optical drive, as you run the risk of dealing with some cable clearance issues in the PS07. Theoretically you can get a 180mm power supply into this enclosure, but honestly you'll want to use a 160mm unit instead like I did for this review build. This is also a situation where using a non-modular power supply may actually be beneficial; there's space behind the motherboard tray to stash excess cables, and modular connections in the PSU can add to the overall length of the unit.
If you're using a tower-style cooler for the CPU heatsink, you'll have to remove the hard drive cage to install 3.5" drives. There's a mount on the bottom of the enclosure for a single 2.5" drive (SSD, naturally), and the ports of the drive line up with the anterior of the motherboard tray nicely, making it reasonably easy to wire. Finally, getting a card like our GeForce GTX 580 in may require some work depending on your motherboard layout, but I found most of the effort involved was the result of our Zotac board packing things in too close to the PCI Express x16 slot.
Given the close quarters of the PS07, the build remains nonetheless surprisingly clean. This isn't the easiest case in the world to assemble, but for its somewhat unusual design there's still a clear logic to how things come together. It's a sharp contrast against some of the Lian Li enclosures I've tested recently, where Lian Li's engineers seem to have their own internal logic they're going to work off of whether the rest of us understand it or not.
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DanielW - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link
If you spend the money and time, two 120mm fans can be significantly quieter than the air penetrator.JMS3072 - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link
What are your thoughts on getting the PS07, and then spending a bit more to upgrade the fans to quiet models?ezorb - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link
I wish Noctua would make a 180mm fan, I would buy 3 for my FT02, I think that the 180 size is perfect, but the Silverstone is too loud and unreliable I have had 2 fail on me.SunLord - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link
I can't even hear the 180mm fans in my FT02 the 6870 in it masks all the noise in my case save the dvd drive.. I did notice a few weeks ago frozencpu has a non-silverstone 180mmx25mm fanSamus - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link
I agree, the 180mm fans in my FT01 are amazingly quiet for moving over 150CFM of air each. Unfortunately the factory-included models both broke after a few years (the motor separated from the housing because of the startup-torque) and forced me to replace them with newer models that hopefully have a corrected design. $30/ea for basic 180mm fans is not what I'd call cheap.Morg. - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
I have tested a few 180mm fans, and the best one I've seen is this :http://www.aquatuning.de/product_info.php/info/p11...
Really nice and silent.
I also bought the Silverstone (just for testing) . and it was a bit worse.
For the long term I have no clue as I haven't been running those full-time.
Morg. - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
Oh and . the case showed here is a piece of crap that's overpriced . you don't get vga cooling and it's just overall worse than an Antec one hundred that costs much less.antef - Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - link
Hi all,I haven't read the whole article yet, but I just wanted to post since I JUST bought this case and assembled a system in it over the weekend. I chose it because I wanted a nice mATX case, and was afraid the Temjin would be a little too loud with the large fan and open front grille. With the shipping cost on Newegg, I actually paid the same thing the Temjin would've cost with free shipping, but I don't mind because I wanted this case with the 2 front 120mm fans instead.
It's a GREAT case, very high quality all around, and the manual explained things well. I did have a hard time routing some cables. It was a tight fit behind the motherboard, and certain cables like the main motherboard power wouldn't fit at all with the hard drive cage in place due to the sleeving and not a lot of flexibility so I just removed the cage. It's not the cleanest cable job in the world but it's fine. But I think it's a good, really nice looking case.
Regarding acoustics, it's not really too loud, but not whisper quiet either. I don't know if the Temjin would've been any quieter on the low fan speed setting. I added one Scythe Slipstream 120mm fan in the rear. I'm not sure yet if I want to replace the front fans with anything quieter. I could buy two and end up hearing pretty much the same thing. Or maybe I don't even need two front fans at all? My hard drive is also pretty audible, but I don't hear it much because my primary is an SSD. I was considering hard drive suspension somewhere, but maybe this is just as quiet as this drive's going to get.
Anyway, if anyone has any questions about this case, feel free to ask.
Morg. - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
if you wanted silence you should've taken a sonata.However. slipstreams around 1k rpm are silent enough, and a green drive would be silent (WD caviar green or samsung spinpoint ecogreen).
GL -
Next time, buy antec 100 or Sonata .. this case is a piece of crap (never had to remove a hdd cage, and you have no Gfx Fan (helps with the noise).
antef - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
I wanted mATX, and a small one at that, not an mATX only in name that's actually just as large as an ATX mid-tower. The cases you listed are too big.