What’s goin on guys Jerry Neutron here back with another video. Today we’re taking a look at a mid-tower case from be quiet!, this is the Silent Base 600. Now I know this case was released a while back but I just got one in from be quiet! about a month or so ago and since I had positive results with the Silent Base 800, the full tower version, I figured I’d take a look at this one as well. So let’s go ahead and get into the review…
Starting with the front panel you have 4 USB ports up top, two of them USB 3.0 as well as your headphone and microphone jacks. I’m happy they decided to put 4 USB ports up front, it’s much needed in my case and really should be standard on anything bigger than a mid-tower. The front panel has a faux brushed aluminum finish from top to bottom but don’t be fooled, this is actually plastic. Extending down the sides of the front panel you have these mesh covered vents for airflow and the glossy plastic you see surrounding the vents comes in three colors total which is black, orange or silver.
The top half of the front panel opens up to reveal 3, 5 1/4″ bays which I’m actually going to use, I’ve got a Blu-ray burner lying around that I can throw in this thing. Also to note there is a 3-step fan controller just above the bays and as you can probably see, sound dampening material on the door. Since this case is optimized for silence you’ll notice throughout the Silent Base 600 that there are certain design queues to help keep the noise levels low.
This area also gives you access to a front panel filter which helps keep dust out of the main compartment. Unlike the Silent Base 800 where you had this door that dropped down to reveal the dust filter, the 600’s filter just pulls straight out from the top although you’ve gotta get it at just the right angle to prevent it from getting snagged on the frame. The was highly infuriating at first until I found that perfect angle to pull out the filter.
As for cooling up front, the case comes with a pre-installed 140mm Pure Wings 2 fan but you can run up to two 140mm fans or up to a 140mm radiator. In comparison to other competitors out there radiator support is lacking up front which is unfortunate, it would’ve been nice if this case supported 240 or 280mm setups.
Moving to the top of the case we have our power and reset buttons towards the front along with vents at the rear for exhausting hot air. You’ll notice the top of the case is not completely open and that is done to route any potential noise away from the user and towards the back of the case. Not the best setup for pure airflow but perfect if you’re trying to keep the noise levels low.
To install fans or radiators at the top you do have to remove the top panel which was insanely hard to get off along with the front panel as well. I actually broke a clip trying to pull this thing off for the first time ever so either I was doing something wrong or this needs some type of revision. But once you have the top panel off you can install up to 2 140mm fans or up to a 280mm radiator. It’s important to note that you cannot install a radiator or fans on top of the frame, they must go in the main compartment which may cause clearance issues with your motherboard or other things. So it’s going to be a tight fit and honestly I’d probably stick to air cooling if you plan on picking up this case.
At the rear of the Silent Base 600, you get a pre-installed 120mm Pure Wings 2 fan, 7 PCI slots, a bottom mounted power supply along with a dust filter that is removable from the back.
Now let’s take a look at the main compartment. As you can see it’s a pretty open design, there’s no PSU shroud, one hard drive cage which can be mounted in several locations including just underneath the 5 1/4″ bay OR actually inside the 5 1/4″ bay which would open up a nice bit of room at the front of the case. It’s a shame you can’t take advantage of that potential space though because of the limited radiator support. In addition to the removable hard drive cage it’d be nice to have a removable 5 1/4″ bay as well which in theory would open up a lot of options at the top and front of the case.
One good thing about the interior of the case is the cable routing grommets. They’re a good size which means you can run plenty of cables through them without them collapsing and they’re properly positioned.
Moving to the back of the case there are two SSD mounts and literally nothing else. Where’s the cable-tie points? That’s a pretty big negative in my eyes and I see no reason why this case shouldn’t have 3-4 velcro straps pre-installed so that you can manage your cables. Instead be quiet! gives you a few zip ties and that’s it, not really an acceptable solution for a $99 case. On the plus side though there is plenty of room to hide your cables.
As for building in this case, it went pretty well aside from the cable management. I’m running a micro-ATX motherboard so ignore the cables hanging down at the bottom but everything else was routed nicely in the main compartment. The Hyper 212 EVO fit with plenty of room to spare since you can fit CPU coolers up to 170mm in height. My R9 380X didn’t have any issues either as you get 413mm of GPU clearance unless your graphics card happens to hit the drive cage then it’s cut down to 294mm. I also managed to fill up the 3-bay drive cage and even added an SSD on the top even though technically the SSD is supposed to be mounted on the inside of the cage. Of course I couldn’t do that though because I installed three 3.5″ drives.
Now in regards to noise, here’s how my system sounds on the lowest fan controller level….And here it is on the highest level….Now I will say that on the highest level the rear exhaust fan does become audible but honestly most of the system noise comes from my CPU cooler. What this means is that with the right cooler and fan curve, you can build a pretty quiet system in this case.
So to wrap this all up, I did enjoy building in this case but two things that would make it much better are improved cable management and better radiator support. Once it has those things, it should be able to compete with the more popular cases on the market.
So that’s about it guys, let me know what you think about this case down in the comments below. Like this video if you’ve found it helpful or entertaining, subscribe for more similar content and until next time…see ya!
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