The Be Quiet! Silent Base 600 is a magnificent looking mid tower case that melds together style and minimalism perfectly. The case comes pre-installed with a 140mm Pure Wings 2 fan in the front and a 120mm Pure Wings 2 fan in the rear. The optional fans are another 140mm (front), 2 x 140/120mm (top), 1 x 140/120mm (bottom) and a 120mm on the side panel. It features the ability to have 3 x 3.5” HDD’s and 3 x 2.5” SSD’s, and there are 3 x 5.25” bays included as well. The peripheral connections on the front of the case are 2 x USB2.0 and 2 x USB3.0; also included are the standard front panel audio jacks. Both side panels and front door of the case feature a thin yet dense foam that acts as a sound dampener that does its job in keeping the case very silent. During normal operation and gaming I have yet to hear much noise coming from the case, even at full load. The Silent base 600 can be found for around $134.99 in Canada.
The top and front panel are both plastic but doesn’t feel cheap like most cases with plastic do. The main chassis is strong, enough for me to sit on it without worry and the design of the side panels help reinforce that sturdy design with a decent thickness of aluminium. Each side panel features sound dampening foam, that I mentioned above, which helps a bit with keeping the cases’ overall premium feel. I find that drive bay doors get damaged easily (or even snap off) but the one on the Silent Base 600 is strong and doesn’t feel like it will break off anytime soon. There were a lot of ‘cheaper’ cases back in the day where the door was so heavy that it would break when transported to LAN events. They even went as far as not overlooking the window, it features a double pane of acrylic and is properly attached to the side panel. They went with the double pane to help with sound dampening and it clearly works. I really liked the way they did the fan grill on the top of the case as well, it felt well hidden while still keeping great air flow.
The case was a dream to build in. The motherboard mount had a cut out on it to access the back of the board to either add a support panel for air or water cooling. To access the interior you remove the two (or four if you need both sides open) standard thumb screws and pull the panels off. I was happy to see that the hard drive tool-less mounts were a rubber rail instead of the usual plastic, this minimizes vibration from the hard drives which helps dampen any unwanted noise. It would have been nice to see a removable cage included that could be setup between the bottom hard drive cage and 5.25″ bay for more hard drive space if needed but it seems they went with relocatability instead. You can move the cage around, you just don’t get another one included. I checked their webpage to see if you can buy one, but there is not one listed. Running all of my cables was very easy as well. There are rubber grommets that are conveniently placed beside the motherboard and by the PSU for easy routing behind the motherboard tray. The back side panel fit perfectly and did not bulge out at all. I find a lot of cases do not have enough space between the back of the motherboard tray and the back side panel. This causes the case to bulge funny and crush your cables.
At $134.99, I am surprised this case doesn’t cost more. The construction quality and sound dampening foam both show that Be Quiet! really wants its customers to get the best bang for their buck. It also shows that they actually care about their products and what people think about them. Be Quiet! lives up to their name with this case, with tons of space for an SLI setup, great cable management, extremely silent running and overall look. Whether you are doing an epic SLI setup or a budget rig, I would definitely recommend this case. I think I am gonna be grabbing one for my own server build.
Damion “Dmans” Petriew is a Contributor for AYBOnline.com.
