Review: be quiet! Silent Base 800

by Parm Mann on 18 November 2014, 09:00

Tags: be-quiet

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaclgb

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Specification and Test Methodology

be quiet! Silent Base 800 specification

Form Factor Mid-Tower
Motherboard Support ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX
Dimensions (H x W x D) 559mm x 266mm x 495mm (with stands)
542mm x 230mm x 495mm (without stands)
Drive Bays Front 3 x 5.25in
Internal 7 x 3.5in split across two HDD cages (4+3)
2 x 2.5in on rear of motherboard tray
2 x 2.5in inside HDD cages
Cooling Front 2 x 140mm Pure Wings 2 1,000RPM (included)
Rear 1 x 120mm Pure Winds 2 1,500RPM (included)
Top 2 x 120/140mm (optional)
Bottom 1 x 120/140mm (optional)
Side Panel 1 x 120mm (optional)
Radiator Support Front 120/140mm radiator
Top 240/280mm slim radiator
Rear 120mm radiator
Expansion Slots 7
I/O Panel 2 x USB 2.0
2 x USB 3.0
Headphone and Mic
Power Supply Standard ATX (not included)
Clearances CPU Cooler 170mm
Power Supply 290mm
Graphics Card 290mm (400mm with drive cage removed)
Weight 9.3kg
Materials 0.7mm SEC
ABS covers
Nylon Fiber
MSRP £99

Test System Configuration

Motherboard Asus Sabertooth Z77
CPU Intel Core i5-3570K @ 4.4GHz
CPU Cooler Arctic Cooling Freezer 13
Memory G.Skill Ripjaws-X 8GB (F3-12800CL7D-8GBXH)
Memory Speed and Timings 1,600MHz, 7-8-7-24-2N
Graphics Cards 2x Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC in CrossFireX
Storage 120GB SanDisk Extreme SSD
Optical Drive Pioneer DVR-S19LBK DVD Writer
Power Supply Corsair HX1050W
Monitor Philips Brilliance 272P (2,560x1,440)

Our Z77 test platform consists of an ASUS Sabertooth motherboard, an Intel Core i5-3570K processor overclocked to a modest 4.4GHz, an Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 cooler, 8GB of high-performance G.Skill Ripjaws-X memory and two factory-overclocked Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC graphics cards in a CrossFireX configuration.

To find out how well the chassis can cool this particular setup, we record the CPU temperature during a 15-minute stint of the Prime95 small-FFT stress test. In order to provide a stabilised reading we then calculate an average temperature across all cores from the last five minutes of testing.

To get an idea of GPU cooling performance, we then record the highest GPU temperature after 15 minutes of running Aliens vs. Predator with maximum image-quality settings at 1080p. Last but not least, we also measure chassis noise by using a PCE-318 noise meter to take readings when idle and while running Aliens vs. Predator.

All chassis are tested only with the standard manufacturer-supplied fans (any/all of which are set to 'silent' in the Asus BIOS or low-speed using a fan controller if present), and to take into account the fluctuating ambient temperature, our graphs depict both actual and delta temperature - the latter is the actual CPU/GPU temperature minus the ambient. For the record, room temperature while testing today's chassis was recorded as 19.6ºC.