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SilverStone TJ09


Date
: 11/14/07 – 08:27:18 PM

Author
:

Category
: Cases

Page 1 : Overview

Manufacturer
: Silverstonetek Co.

Price
:
Black: $230-$280 at Shopzilla
Silver: $230-$280 at Shopzilla

SilverStone have always seemed to do things their way, luckily for us, their way is usually very, very good. In this review I'll be looking at their TJ09 tower chassis. This case was designed from the ground up with cooling in mind, there's a special mid-section fan to cool the graphics card area, loads of drive space, and a cavernous interior. While there is also their new TJ10 chassis, it's based on the TJ09 design, and offers choice, rather than competition, amongst the two top aluminum cases they produce. Please read on and find out if the TJ09 is the case to house your next high-end rig.

Page 2 : Package

The case is housed in the typical Silverstone black box. The long sides have nice photos and the short sides of the box list specs and other features of the case. Internally the case is protected by a thin plastic bag and two fitted foam caps. Along with the case, you get a few media cable extenders, a manual, and four bags of screws/standoffs.

Page 3 : Specs & Features

The specs as they're listed on the SilverStone website:

The key features listed on the SilverStone website:

Page 4 : Exterior

The first thing you notice about the case is the size; it's not so much the width or height, it's the length. This is great news if you have one of those long video cards, but more on that later.

The next thing you notice is just how slick the case actually is. It looks solid and sleek, though as usual from Silverstone, it's got a classic look, no bling; this is a good thing. I've never been much of a fanboy for fancy chassis design, opting for quiet functionality instead; I still use a beige case from 10 years ago, so I'm happy that Silverstone has chosen to maintain their elegant image. But don't get me wrong, this is no beige case, it's all brushed aluminum goodness with an understated case badge and small blue LEDs.

I like easy access to the optical drive bays and a clear view of the hard drive activity LED. I also like the big round power button and the not-too-small reset button.

Both sides of the case appear identical, a clean aluminum surface broken solely by the mesh vents which act as the air intake for the central, internal fan. For those keeping tabs on these things, this is the left side vent.

Moving around the back we're greeted with more clean lines, but a lot of options. We have square vent holes at the top, with the rear I/O mount hole on the left and the included 120mm fan on the right. Below this we have the add-in cards slots on the left and additional square venting with two pre-installed, water-cooling, tube holes. I'm not currently using a water kit, so unfortunately I was unable to test out the relative merits of this feature. This entire midsection makes up the back panel of the removable motherboard tray. Finally, at the bottom, we have the power supply mount. The particularly useful feature here is the mounting plate. This plate allows you to switch the orientation of the plate depending on which side up you mount your power supply. This is an awesome feature, I found quite useful as I was forced to use two different power units during this evaluation, each using a different orientation.

The top of the case has a huge mesh panel that covers the two internal 120mm blow holes. Forward of the mesh vents we have the difficult to lift "pop-up" panel.

While I appreciate the relative merits of having additional USB ports (plus Firewire and audio) available at the front of a chassis, I've never been much of the pop-up style. They're just too fussy for the benefit of hiding the ports. On the TJ09 the implementation is not too offensive, but the unit requires enough force to open that you feel like something is going to break. I think I'd rather have ports available just along the top edge of the case. However, everyone has different preferences, and I'm just nitpicking here.

Finishing up the tour, the bottom of the case sports an additional two mesh vents along with four adjustable feet. The feet adjust with a simple twist.

The front mesh panel covers the hard drive cage, while the rear covers the power supply.

Page 5 : Interior

With the removal of three thumb screws we have access to the vacuous interior of the chassis. I thought I initially heard an echo as this thing is so big.

Here's the side interior in all its glory.

Starting out tour at the top right we find the fixed optical drive bays; pretty standard stuff here, a three and a half inch bay below the four, five and half inch bays.

Moving down the front of the chassis we find the pair of hard drive cages. These are of particular importance to me as I never replace drives and simply continue to add new ones to my existing box. Thankfully, these bays are simply, and simply excellent. Each cage houses three drive bays which are each dampened by a strip of rubber. There is ample clearance between each drive, more than any other cages I've seen. And it's a good thing too, as the cooling for the drives is one 120mm internal fan mounted directly between both cages. This either pulls or pushes air over the drives and the air is refreshed by the large vents on either side of the case.

Directly behind the drive cages we see the new mid-chassis cooling solution Silverstone uses. I frequently have jammed a fan in exactly the same spot on other cases, but it's nice to have the more polished solution here, along with the extra benefit of the arrangement pulling in air directly from the outside. The Silverstone fan comes pre-installed.

Looking towards the bottom, rear of the case we see the power supply housing. Along with the screws at the back of the case, you have a simple plastic clip to hold your power supply in place. Again we have some rubber dampening strips, this time along the bottom rails; these are raised sufficiently above the mesh chassis floor, enough to allow for a bottom facing fan plenty of breathing room. However, even more than with other bottom mounted power supply configurations, you might want to be careful with this unit, as you don't want to be pulling dust from the floor directly into your power supply. Obviously in this instance, a downward-facing exhaust fan would be fine. You can also see the power supply mounting bracket mentioned in the section above. Above the power supply you have the slide-out motherboard try.

Finally, looking upwards to the top of the case, you can see the two 120mm fan mounts. You have plenty of push-pull options here.

Page 6 : Installation

For most people I'd guess this might be one of the smoothest installs you'll ever have. For me, I always manage to make something difficult on myself. I started the installation process by removing the motherboard tray; it had been a long while since I had last used a removable tray and was eager to luxuriate in the open access. Mounting the motherboard on the included stand-offs was an easy enough job, the I/O panel fit in easily and everything lined up as it should, and although it was a slightly tight fit, the rear mounting hardware for the Thermalright heatsink I planned to use fit well enough. Next I decided to install the CPU, I'm using a Q6600 and had already decided that I'd switch the Intel heatsink for a new Thermalright SI-128SE. With the hardware already installed on the motherboard it was just a matter of tightening two screws down to secure the heatsink; you know I'm going somewhere with this, don't you? Given the front-to-back orientation I had chosen for the heatsink I realized that to line up the grills behind the rear fan, I'd need to mount the heatsink in a position that wouldn't allow the motherboard tray to slide back in, so back went the motherboard tray, so much for luxuriating. Now it was just a simple matter of tightening down the screws, simple until I realized that the screw nearest the back of the case was virtually inaccessible.

I should point out during this diversion that I'm in no way blaming my issues on the Silverstone case. It's just I realized that it would be an awesome tweak to the case if you could either drop the back panel of the motherboard tray via a hinge, or even screws if need be, or as a second, less ideal solution, be able to easily remove the top fan grill. However, this was only the first wish list item I'd had for the case at this point, and as it turned out; the only thing I'd love to see added or changed about the chassis at all.

After essentially creating a custom wrench to do the finicky job of screwing down the heatsink, I was off and running again. The rest of the installation came off without a hitch.

While I'm not crazy about the holes of the motherboard tray you need to navigate to screw down add-on cards, it negates the use of a multi-tip screwdriver, (you'll need a regular screwdriver for this case) I do appreciate the rigidity of the motherboard tray as a result of the extra bracing the strip of metal provides.

Did I mention I love the hard drive cages? They're awesome. Just be careful when inserting the hard drive that you aren't unduly rubbing up against the rubber strips as you might find they peel a little bit.

Installing the power supply was a snap with the plastic clip and modular power supply anchor.

The cabling and cable routing in the case could be a bit messy for some (me), as there are no obvious or integrated cable anchor points within the case, but with a bit of care I'm sure the super-tidy amongst you could find a routing solution to suit your tastes. For me, as long as there is ample airflow through the box, I'm happy.

All-in-all, it's a pretty glorious case to work with and excellent when compared with similar cases that use a discrete chamber design.

Page 7 : Operation, Thermals, and Acoustics

As the case does away with fancy extras there isn't much from an operational standpoint that can go wrong. The power and reset buttons have a healthy, tactile feel, and with the exception of the already mentioned, difficult to open, top I/O ports, there isn't anything much to mention about the operation of the chassis.

The temperatures for my setup have been very satisfactory; with the addition of only a fan for each the CPU and the hard drives, the 8800GTX core idles at roughly 63C and loads somewhere in the high 70C, low 80C area. I'm sure a video card with a more open heatsink design would benefit even more from the TJ09s mid-chassis fan. The CPU, the aforementioned Q6600@3.0GHz with the Thermalright SI-128SE heatsink, idles at 35C and rarely peaks above 45C. The hard drives, three WD3200AAKSs, almost always read 33C or less via the S.M.A.R.T. monitor, regardless of disk activity. All temperatures were recorded with Riva Tuner and observed while the ambient temperatures hovered around the 20C mark in the lab. While I don't have anything to directly compare these figures too, they are certainly well within my comfort zone for these components.

One of the benefits Silverstone marketing suggests about the TJ09 is it's quietness due to using only 120mm fans. While this claim is entirely reliant on the relative quietness of the fans chosen to add to the case, certainly the two fans included (I'd like to see two more variable fans included, especially given the premium price of the case) with the package are high quality and very quiet. Overall, the sound signature of the case in inoffensive and while it might not appeal to the silent computing crowd, it will certainly appeal to the vast majority of the enthusiast crowd to which the case is marketed too.

Page 8 : Conclusion

I'm very impressed with the TJ09. Silverstone have gotten everything just about right with this chassis, and more importantly, they have gotten nothing much wrong. There is no part of the case that seems poorly designed or tossed in as an afterthought. Sure, I'd prefer a different I/O panel option on the front/top of the case, I'd love even more flexible access with the motherboard tray, and I think a couple of extra fans could be included for the price, but these are pretty niggley points that are in the end, personal preferences more than meaningful criticism. Taken as a whole, the chassis is well thought out, expertly executed, wonderfully finished, and is a pleasure to use. What else is there to say?

Advantages:

• Spacious, flexible design

• Excellent build quality
• Terrific cooling potential

Disadvantages:

• Difficult to open top I/O port

• Some large CPU heatsinks might not fit into case using sliding motherboard tray
• Two additional fans would be nice

Overclockers Online would like to thank SilverStone for making this review possible.