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SilverStone TJ08


Date
: 05/4/06 – 04:58:57 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cases

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
SilverStone Technology

Price:
$99.99

It was my turn for a SilverStone case review when they came knocking this month and I couldn't be more excited. The quiet elegance that SilverStone creates enclosures with is second to none. Every single case looks like a piece of art and the design behind them give functional a new definition. With the re-invention of the desktop form factor as a suitable HTPC enclosure most system builders are opting for that design for most media PCs. There is, however, another design to consider when looking for a small size enclosure.

SilverStone does in fact have many desktop style cases but a new trend for the desktop market is what I like to call the micro mid-tower design. Take a mid-tower case and cut about half out of the midsection and drop it to just over a foot tall. This style of case is just as wide as a mid-tower so ATX power supplies and full size expansion cards fit without issue but the short stature of the case allows for greater freedom of placement in your office. This is exactly what the TJ-08 is.

The TJ-08 is the latest enclosure in the great Temjin line and first to cross over into the Micro ATX or mATX form factor. This exciting new type of enclosure is being made widely available due to the resurgence of micro ATX motherboards and the integration of the computer into the digital home entertainment center. With dual 120mm fans, this one-of-a-kind case has me biting at the nip to get started…time to get micro!

Page 2 : Package & Contents

The petite TJ-08 comes in a comparably small box. I received my review sample direct from Silverstone in the retail outerwear without being double boxed and the package arrived in pristine condition.

Unlike many other cases, there clearly isn't much to the box that the TJ-08 comes in. There is just a large SilverStone logo in the upper portion with the TEMJIN series logo on the bottom.

Again, the sides are vacant of anything significant aside from contact information for SilverStone. I have seen various SilverStone reviews with packages that were printed with designs and images, not just plain brown so I was caught off guard slightly by it. Either way, the package is small and light which means the case is sure to be as well. The absence of a power supply explains the unusually light weight of the box.

The baron exterior of the package is complimented by a simple interior to the package. Nothing but the case, the bag it is wrapped in, and two pieces of foam to keep the box safe. I like the third bar across the middle at the ends of the case were the foam is. This combined with the small size of the box overall make it very sturdy in shipping. I would feel free to order this case from an on-line retailer with reputable shipping…if there is such a thing.

Having nothing else inside the box but the case itself, we get directly to the meat and potatoes of this review. Overclockers Online readers, meet the SilverStone TJ-08 from the Temjin family of Hamburg. Right away the SilverStone appearance shows up in the buttons, the sharp corners, and firm lines of the enclosure. It is hard yet soft with just enough round corners to take that rigidity out of it a small amount.

As stated, there were no other immediate contents in the package but inside the case there was. The small manual and small package of hardware that accompanies most if not all computer cases these days. It usually contains a motherboard speaker for diagnostic codes, a package of screws/standoffs/washers and other hardware of that sort. With both fans mounted in place and no power supply, there really are no other accessories required. Let's have a closer look at the specifications of the case before scowering the exterior.

Page 3 : Specifications

Some manufacturers make it difficult to get any type of feeling of what a case looks like based on their web site. This is not the case when it comes to SilverStone, pardon the pun. A full gallery of photos showing the interior, front, and rear complimented with plenty of detailed photos of features almost makes the need for reviews obsolete…well, maybe not. There are also plenty of details about the TJ-08 and we will start with the chart borrowed from the SilverStone web site:

If you haven't seen an interior photo of this case yet and just happen to read this specifications sheet you are probably thinking that the double 120mm fan setup is a misprint when in fact it isn't. That is correct, someone finally designed a short tower case with two 120mm fans to keep the case remarkably cool but also quiet. Coupled with a quiet CPU cooler and passively cooled microATX motherboard we could have a heck of a system with very little noise penalty.

SilverStone is also quote aware of the benefit of having two 120mm fans run in a front to back push-pull manor. The above is a small extraction from the description on their web site. The dual 120mm fans are at the top of a small list of features listed that includes the premium bezel and removable motherboard tray.

There is no mention any ware about restrictions to components size on the web site and this means there is generally no concern for it like more of the traditional HTPC case designs. Being a shrunk mid-tower design, the TJ-08 acts like its larger older brother as far as hardware goes.

Page 4 : Exterior

We had a sneak-peek of the case in the contents section but there is plenty more to look at and see from the outside of this box, we start at the front.

The front panel is brushed aluminum and looks extremely stunning in the black finish. The large meshed front grill takes command of the front of the case drawing all the attention leaving the silky buttons and front panel connections to blend into the background. We see the backside is smooth with no venting or obstructions until the handle at the end.

At the very bottom of the front panel we get our front panel connections which include 4 USB, a FireWire, and audio connections. The 4 USB sounds like overkill but with more and more electronics being integrated into our lives, the additional connections up front may be handy. Also considering that this case is the perfect candidate for an 'on desk position' then the bottom mount of these connections is perfect.

The top, much like the side panel on the rear, is smooth with no obtrusions in its surface. The front panel may appear busy with the front panel connections, buttons, and air intake, but it leaves the rest of the case to be completely clean. Looking head on at the case I notice some small gaps of light coming through the drive bay covers. Once components are installed and in place, this probably won't be an issue but I will be sure to check after installation. Despite the large mouth bass like air intake, the TJ-08 is a very elegant little case that really looks great from all angles.

The only exception to that statement above of the case exterior being completely clean is this side intake vent that will allow video cards to draw fresh air in for better cooling. It is also just another way to introduce some cool air into the case at the bottom to be washed over the components before exhausting out the rear at the top.

The rear of the case provides a dead giveaway that a 120mm fan is back here. Not only is it back here, but it is grilled instead of having half of the path blocked by cutouts in the case metal. This rounded grill provides much less resistance to exhausting air and that means more air with less noise. If one was so inclined, you could remove that grill without having to cut the case like you normally would. Small things like this separate the upper echelon of case manufacturers.

From this angle it is tough to see what is so different about this case. The 4 expansion slots provide the clue into the actual height and then the 120mm fan stands out. I still am not sure how much of an HTPC enclosure this may be but it certainly is shaping up to be one monster of a small tower that you can put anywhere…including on your desktop.

The underside is the last of places to get looked at why not. All there is to see is the feet. I was hoping for some softer rubber feet perhaps black but was greeted with very basic hard plastic beige ones. They probably do the job just fine but with hardwood and a glass top desk I would have preferred soft rubber ones. So far SilverStone has impressed me with the typical cleanliness of this case. The interior should be no different so it is time to remove the side panel and have a look.

Page 5 : Interior

The interior tour of this case should not take us all afternoon but we might as well get started quickly. Removing the side panel reveals a very basic, un-cluttered, yet powerful looking interior to the SilverStone TJ-08.

As expected, a front mount fan means no hard drive cage to the floor so that leaves only 2 hard drive spots are available for use. I guess if one was so inclined they could mount a couple more hard drives in the floppy bays as those will likely never see a floppy drive of any kind.

<insert tangent>
Can manufacturers please understand why they need 4 USB front connections…for the thumb drivers that made floppy drives obsolete. The last of us floppy users are the uber wannabe cool guys that run a RAID setup of some sort. There is no need for it but we do it because we can. We just pull a floppy drive from the cupboard when windows needs to be installed and rarely need to keep one in a case. I suppose the whole accessory market for 3.5" external drive devices wouldn't appreciate those bays being covered completely and killed off but to have a proper 4 hard drive mounting system would secure this case with true home-theater powerhouse stature. Plenty of cooling for power and plenty of space for GBs upon GBs of data.
</end rant>

The rest of the interior is pretty straight forward with the drive cages up and out of the way so the two 120mm fans can do there thing and move all that fresh air from front to back.

The other important half of the whole front-to-back airflow design is this fan. The rear fan is exactly the same as the front one and comes with both sides covered in a non-restrictive fan grill.

A view from behind the case peering through the now vacant power supply hole reveals the front mount 120mm fan. This design sure is promising to keep a case cool with plenty of fresh air.

As I stated, both fans are identical and appear to be SFA1225LU-12A model fans. A Google search found nothing but a link to a TJ-07 review with these fans saying there were no specifications available. The production date appears to be January of 06 and no amount of searching could yield any results. They are just a 2-wire design with a 4-pin molex power connection so they won't be connected to the motherboard for fan control.

The drive cages obviously are not removable and it appears to be a tight little 2-2-2 combination with 2 slots for each optical, external 3.5", and internal 3.5" devices. This is about all you can expect from such a small case and will certainly fill the needs of this build.

We continue tearing down the TJ-08 for a better view inside and have moved to the rear of the case. The rear motherboard tray is just the type that will pop out the back of the case. I prefer this type and think it is a nice touch by Silverstone.

The rear panel is also a very well built one with large extractions that are designed to give the panel rigidity and it very much is. Of course it is also just an m-ATX motherboard and the smaller a panel is the less prone to warping it will be. Even still, this motherboard tray on the SilverStone TJ-08 is well built and finished. We can also see in the background a large conglomeration of cables which has me immediately worried about cable management.

All of those cables of course lead to that massive I/O panel on the bottom of the slick front plate. Having 4 USB 2.0, 1 1394, alongside one 3.5" Stereo out and Mic ports provides plenty of connections to run to a highly qualified motherboard. I just happen to have such a motherboard that can fully utilize all of the TJ-08s offering and will have me working hard to manage cables.

Most of the larger cables go down to the I/O panel and then the ribbon front panel connections for power, reset, and LEDs. Having that front panel ribbon instead of individual strands is also another feature one gets with building a quality SilverStone case. The other obvious standout here is that massive front intake. There is a removable foam piece that is designed to keep dust out.

This is the impressive front piece that sets off the TJ-08. Aside from the top piece and bottom piece, the entire front panel is machined from one solid piece of aluminum with the intake and other areas simply machined out at the same time. That makes this panel light, and beyond solid. You could play stick ball with this thing and the tennis ball you have been using for years won't know what hit it.

The other feature of the actual metal cage is that the entire front panel is drilled out. In the photo above we see the swiss-cheesed front area below the exterior drive panels. These holes correspond to open areas on the front panel to get fresh air. This further enhances the amount of air that potentially can enter the case and high enough up to provide some fresh air to the two native hard drive mounts.

We begin to wind up this lovely tour with the external drive bay covers. Only a single screw is used during assembly but a few extra screws can be found in the package and you can double those up so they stay solid and flat if you are a little obsessive compulsive like me. Also note at the very top of the photo a screw can be seen that appears to allow for top panel removal which eases for modding the top of the case.

The only thing left to look at before installation is the cables from the front panel. Getting familiar with these will aid during installation. We are now ready for the installation section where plenty of hardware will see the interior we just looked at.

Page 6 : Installation

The install is a basic stripped down but powerful gaming machine with a single OS hard drive and optical drive only to load games. The width of the case is no different than any mid-tower so large CPU coolers should fit just fine and the XP-120 did quite well. For the install, we start with the motherboard and the removable tray.

With the motherboard installed, mounting the tray to the case is a simple two step process of dropping the tray in the tracks and locking the panel into place by sliding towards the rear of the case. Of course installation of the rear I/O panel is required before hand. An issue came up with the XP-120 mounted to the motherboard already in my second install with this case. The support beam along the backside will not allow the XP-120 to get installed outside the case and must be installed afterwards.

Everything with this setup worked well and the motherboard lined up with the rear I/O panel with no fiddling required during installation. Most people think that a removable motherboard tray is worthless without the rear panel also including the expansion slots but in a case like this with such tight quarters. This setup is enough to allow for motherboard removal without having to pull all drives as you will see when we turn this case around.

The small footprint that the TJ-08 has and short length makes the hard drives and floppy drive cage hang over the motherboard. With some drives in there and cables everywhere, pulling the motherboard out is a hassle but not with a rear exit panel. At this point, notice how I have the cables hooked up already for the rear fan and front connections. That massive bung of cables was easy to manage and I have easily connected everything necessary maintaining a clean appearance.

There is a nice small space back here to route and hide these connections. It really was easy to get a clean install started and the case was the reason for it. Next up would be to introduce the power supply and see if the clean cables can continue.

Starting at the rear both fans borrow a molex connection from the upper 5.25" drive bays. The majority of the excess cables from the power supply will go in the 5.25" bay under the optical drive. If you do plan on mounting two optical drives in this case then you better be ready for a cable nightmare or have a well designed modular power supply.

For the stock component installation I was reviewing the PowerColor X1900XTX so I figured why not fit that monster in with the stock cooler setup. As you can see, there is plenty enough room and more than enough fresh air being supplied to it. This card should actually run cooler than in most any other case with a setup so perfect. The only thing missing at this point was the optical drive in the top bay. I didn't have one at the time but I did when I built this second machine.

After the aforementioned XP-120 install issue which was easily remedied by installing the heatsink after the motherboard was installed, I could put the power supply back in and hook everything up again. The video card will be my trusty HIS X800GTO and a different kit of memory.

This time in my possession is a silver NEC 3550A, so that is going in for this build despite that it is not black. As you can see there is no fittament issues with the power supply but there certainly isn't any room for a longer power supply with a standard length optical drive in there. The front of the drive lines up nice and flush with the face plate but I won't expose you to the front again because the silver looks horrible.

There is just one last thing about hard drive installation I would like to discuss. If you are using this setup or something similar, mount your hard drives before your CPU cooler because the hard drives have to be able to go straight in to the cage. This would go for all 4 internal 3.5" drive bays.

Page 7 : Testing

Here are the system specs of the machine when it went through thermal testing:

Heat was generated in the case by running Stress Prime 2004 for 3 hrs. At that time temperatures for the CPU, MB, HD, and Chipset were taken from Speed Fan. A temperature probe placed at the top of the case behind the power supply was also recorded at that time. Stress Prime was then stopped and the system idled for another 3 hrs and the Idle results were recorded in the same fashion. The exact same setup was run outside of the case on my desktop with no fans cooling any components. Room temperature remained a balmy 23C for testing.

There is no way I could run this CPU with the stock CPU cooler in or out of the case. That is why there are no stock cooler results. This case shows absolutely no heat buildup anywhere. The case temp never reached 30C in one of the hottest spots of the case and the hard drive remained relatively cool despite no active cooling. All the major components faired well and generally ran cooler in the case than out which means the airflow definitely gets felt by the components.

The noise generated by this mini monster was remarkably little. With passive chipset fans and only 3 120mm fans running around 1500RPM each, there isn't a lot of noise to be created and the case seemed to hold most of it. A lot of air is moving, however, and you hear a bit of that but it is very reasonable. With the cooling fan on the X1900XTX the case did an admirable job of keeping that noise stifled but it didn't fare well with that hover motor being heard well away from the case during heavy operation. After all, that vent doesn't just let fresh air in.

The front audio port and microphone jack worked flawlessly and let the solid onboard sound of the Foxconn motherboard work its magic. I never tested bandwidth through the front USB 2.0 port but all ports tested fine and seemed to transfer at standard USB 2.0 rates with my shuffle and card reader. I was un-able to test the firewire port as I lack an external hard drive.

Page 8 : Conclusion

These Mini ATX cases are starting to really find their market. Micro-ATX motherboards are coming out quicker than video card models and with more features than ever before including total HD audio/video solutions. The recent overclocking results on these motherboards, including the one used in this review, show that these cases can be used as full systems as well. The SilverStone TJ-08 would succeed at both of these tasks.

The TJ-08 is quiet, cool, and the perfect size to play any role it may need to take on. Whether it be a home theater system, desktop publishing powerhouse, or easy to move gaming system; the TJ-08 excels with quiet function and incredible cooling. The only drawback or downside as some would put it is the lack of storage space but that can be offset with a single large hard drive and a 80GB drive for your system and programs.

Advantages

• Esthetically pleasing, belongs on the desk not under
• Built to perfection…every seam is perfect
• Quiet operation with correct components
• m-ATX is all the rage

  Disadvantages

• Lack of hard drive space

  Overclockers Online would like to thank SilverStone for providing the review sample.