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KitGuru has probably looked at more of Arctic’s products than any other brand since we started out. We can’t say that any of their products have failed to impress with many winning our most sought after awards.
Arctic are very well known for their top-notch cooling products but are much less well known for their PC cases. Today we have Arctic’s Silentium T11 case in our labs which is aimed at the low end of the market. We’re excited to see if it follows the trend of quality product’s we’ve seen in the past months.
Motherboard Form Factor: ATX / Micro ATX
Material: SECC Steel
Drive Bays: 4 x 5.25″ (external), 2 x 3.5″ (internal)
Expansion Slots: 7
Front Panel I/O: 2 x USB 2.0, 2 x Audio
Ventilation: 2 x 120mm ARCTIC F12 TC
Dimension: 49 (L) x 43 (H) x 19 (W)
Net Weight: 5kg
When the T11 arrived in our offices, we were very surprised at how compact and light the box was considering the case is constructed from steel. The box itself isn’t very fancy, consisting of brown cardboard with some product information and pictures printed in black. The included bundle is far from plentiful, consisting only of a selection of screws and cable ties alongside a case speaker. We say a ‘selection' of screws because, for some reason, Arctic don't include all the screws you need to put together the system. They provide screws for the motherboard and drives but nothing for the expansion slots or PSU.
The HC01-TC is supplied in a clear plastic packet that is very similar to those we've seen protecting Arctic's CPU coolers in the past. This should provide some protection for the cooler inside and shows it off well. The bundle included is also on the small side, consisting of some screws to secure the unit, a spare foam pad and an Arctic Cooling sticker.
The cooler itself is simple in design, consisting of an optical drive sized metal case with a 40mm fan on the back. This sucks cool air through the front of the cooler, over the hard drive and out into the case. Inside, the hard drive sits on foam pads to ensure any vibrations are kept to a minimum. The fan is temperature controlled by a sensor which must be stuck to the hard drive.
The exterior design of the T11 isn't exactly special but looks a little more stylish than most other cases in this price bracket. The black and silver colour scheme gives it a grown up appearance that wouldn't look out of place in a corporate environment. Arctic have used steel throughout the construction of the T11 to keep costs to a minimum without compromising on rigidity. Unlike most steel cases, the T11 is actually very light weight, weighing in at under 5kg.
The top two optical drive bays are covered with spring-loaded bezels to hide away any unsightly optical drives. Below, we find the front panel connectors which consist of two USB2.0 ports and headphone and microphone jack. The front of the case isn't made from the best quality plastic but it is acceptable considering the low price of the case. In fact, build quality all round isn't great; we were quite surprised when the Arctic logo fell off almost as soon as we unpacked the case.
Moving around to the back of the case, we find the 120mm exhaust fan below the PSU slot. We're not quite sure why Arctic are still using a top-mounted PSU as most other manufacturers have relocated it to the bottom, even for their budget cases.
It is good to see that Arctic is using decent thumbscrews for the side panels rather than the standard design which usually requires a screwdriver for a tight fit. The side panels themselves both have a perforated area at the top to enhance airflow a little.
When we removed the side panel, we went to remove the accessories and inner packaging as we do with every case that we test. A word of warning, the clear plastic sections at the bottom of the case may look like packaging but they are to help funnel air effectively through the chassis. We're sure that Arctic could have come up with a slightly more robust ‘air hood' as the clear plastic used could not really be of any poorer quality. The only redeeming factor is the lack of a clear side panel in the case which would make it permanently visible.
After recovering from the trauma of almost destroying the air hood we had a closer look around the interior of the case. There are only two populated fan vents in the case which are located at the front and rear. Both of these vents are populated by 120mm Arctic Cooling P12 fans and act as intakes. Even though there is no roof fan, the top mounted PSU will help to exhaust hot air from the case in conjunction with the side panel vents.
As usual, the add-in card covers are situated below the exhaust on the left hand side of the case. Unlike a lot of budget cases, the T11 has replaceable add-in card covers which can easily be reattached after removal. It would have been nice, however, if Arctic had included at least a couple of screws to secure add-in devices.
Over on the right hand side of the case, we find four 5.25″ bays with a single 3.5″ hard drive bays below. We can't quite understand why Arctic have designed the case like this, though, as most people who purchase this case are unlikely to need extra bays for water-cooling reservoirs or fancy fan controllers. So we would have preferred to sacrifice two of the 5.25″ bays to make room for a couple more hard drive bays.
We started the installation process by securing the power supply to the back of the case using four screws. Arctic don't provide these in the bundle so make sure you find some appropriately-sized screws before you start your build – these should be included with your PSU. The next step of the build process is to install the hard drive as the orientation of the hard drive bay would make it exceedingly difficult to insert or remove a drive after the motherboard has been installed.
Then, we are instructed to install the optical drive into the top of the machine. At KitGuru we no longer use optical drives for testing as we prefer to install the operating system via a USB flash drive. But in this review, we are also testing the HC01-TC hard drive cooler which fits into an optical drive bay so we installed that instead. It is a very simple process, requiring us only to remove the front of the case and slide in the cooler. It can then be secured using the tool-less brackets on either side of the case.
Next we installed the motherboard. Please note that the T11 doesn't have a CPU backplate cutout in the motherboard tray so you must attach the CPU cooler to your motherboard before installing it. We are also required to screw in a number of motherboard stand-offs before screwing down the motherboard.
Installing the graphics card is easy once you manage to locate a couple of screws to secure it with. There is plenty of room to install a sizable graphics card as the T11 supports cards up to 14″ in length. It isn't very easy to achieve a tidy build in the T11 as there is almost no room behind the motherboard tray for cable routing.
To test the Arctic Silentium T11 we are going to use an AMD Athlon X4 635 based system as we feel it reflects what those who purchase a case like this are likely to use. It is cooled by a Noctua C12P SE14 cooler with Arctic Cooling MX-3 thermal paste applied.
Test System
Motherboard: ASRock 890GX Extreme4
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 635 2.9GHz
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2x 2GB) DDR3
PSU: Corsair HX850W
Chassis: Arctic Cooling Silentium T11
Graphics Card: Zotac GeForce GTX470
Cooler: Noctua C12P SE14
Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-3
Hard Drive: Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB (7200rpm)
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit
Furmark
Prime95 (64-bit)
Thermal Performance
The airflow setup of the T11 is like nothing we've seen before in any case and is illustrated in the image above. We're interested to see how this unique setup affects the system temperatures.
On the whole, the temperatures we achieved at stock settings are impressive. The most surprising result is with the Zotac GTX470 GPU that has hit 92c in every other system we've tested it in. We put this down the the rather unusual air hood which channels cool air directly to the GPU. When the system was overclocked, though, it did hit 92c where it remained due to its predefined fan profiles.
The most disappointing result of all is with the HC01-TC hard drive cooler which let our Samsung SpinPoint F3 hard drive reach a rather toasty 38c! In every other system we've tested this hard drive in it never really strays from the mid-high 20s which makes us seriously question the cooler's effectiveness.
The motherboard temperatures are also a little high for our liking but this is a likely consequence of having no dedicated exhaust fan in the system.
Acoustic Performance
We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
Today to test the chassis we have taken it into our acoustics room environment and have set our Digital Sound Level Meter SL-824 one meter away from the case
As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
We replaced the graphics card with a passively cooled HIS Radeon HD 5550 for the noise level testing.
The high-quality fans that Arctic fit as standard make this a very quiet system indeed.
Overall, the Arctic Silentium T11 is a reasonably good case but there are a few areas in which it could be improved without adding very much to the cost. We would like to see Arctic supplying all the necessary screws and including a motherboard tray cutout for facilitating the installation of CPU coolers.
As for the HC01-TC, we can't really see any point at all in this product unless you want to fit a 3.5″ hard drive into a 5.25″ bay. At a price of around £10 it's not going to break the bank but most cases will do a better job at cooling a hard drive without it.
We love the unique ‘air hood' that Arctic have installed in the case as it really helps to cool the graphics card effectively despite being implemented in the cheapest possible way to retain the case's low price. If you would prefer the case without it, though, it is easily removable.
The T11 isn't yet available to purchase but Arctic list a price of 50 euros (exclusive of VAT) which translates into a price of around £50 inc. VAT. We feel that this price is a little high; considering the features and build quality of the case we would expect a sub £40 price point.
KitGuru says: The Silentium T11 is a decent low-end case but we feel the price is too high to recommend it over some of its close competitors – worth checking out though.
