Gadgetory

the Silverstone primary series of cases probably shows the clearest trend of the current direction of the industry Silverstone is a longtime function over form company and given that their last year of cases were pretty damn functional the primary pm0 one and the red line are l06 are two of the chart toppers on our bench and have remained that way for a full year now and largely uncontested and that is in a sea of cases that use a flat front panels Silverstone now is feeling some pressure from its competitors in the industry and as such they've attempted to keep some of the function via ventilation while still closing off a bit of the front panel to try and grab some of that market segment that so desperately wants a closed-off front before that this video is brought to you by thermal Grizzly makers of the conductor not liquid metal that we recently used to drop 20 degrees off of our temperatures Thermal Grizzly also makes traditional thermal compounds for use on top of the IHS like cryo knot and hydro not pastes learn more at the link below so this is the PM 0-2 now to establish some history here Silverstone's redline 0-6 is a case that we've really liked it is probably one of the best cases it's definitely one of the best cases under $100 and might be the my go to case under 70 or at 74 the redline 0-6 Pro and that's because it's one of the best coolers it looks decent it has three or four fans and I think for stock with the pro version and it cools really damn well and that's because it's got a mesh front and a lot of fans and the interesting thing is whenever you have a focus on air flow if noise is a concern because there's so much airflow there you can just slow down the fans and you really get a good trade-off overall for both noise and for cooling performance the pmo one we also have a history with we use it for our render machine and it's similarly very good at cooling this case caused a bit of skepticism among us when we first saw it at Computex and later CES because the front panel now it loses that metal mesh that the PMA one had and the our l06 have and instead goes for a sort of dotted pattern design on the front that creates some airflow but is definitely still going for an aesthetics market and if you look at it the holes actually thin out a bit towards the bottom which does impact GPU cooling performance and overall you just have less area for air to get through so this is exactly what happens when the industry goes crazy over closed off fronts you have companies like Silverstone that have been just die hard function first finally dipping their toes into the water of this and then this year people are starting move back to airflow based on what we saw at CES so it's it's this is an instance where Silverstone's sort of latent arrival to market is interesting because they were so far behind the design curve and that's not a bad thing there was so far behind the design curve and the fads in the industry through 2017 that they ended up being a head for cooling reforms and for the new fad in 2018 unfortunately that cycle is now taking over and they're getting into the design focus look at the red line zero set like can we put the RL zero seven on screen for a second because Silverstone please I've tried to I've tried to talk to the people at Silverstone about this but here's the thing this is not this is not a rant about bad case design right now it's not what this is what this is is a rant about marketing and establishing a product and I've tried to tell Silverstone's reps this a few times now I really want to make it clear publicly that Silverstone has established a really strong reputation with the red line of six and the PMO one it's not just us a lot of reviews out there and individuals who've purchased the cases know that they're really good at airflow in a market with very little good airflow cases so then it's okay to have a case like this where it's slightly closed off it's got a more artsy focus it has this cool LED in the bottom that shines down the Silverstone logo you can really easily modify it for your own that's fine it's okay to have that the red line no.7 it's okay to have that it's it's a bit it's got more dramatic curves and the flower angles in the front it's not a cooling case but it there's a market for it however the part I take issue with is changing two product lines that haven't established a legacy that silverstone has worked so hard to build up in a market where frankly silver stones had a lot of trouble getting a foothold in Western markets you don't see a lot of their cases recommended not with folks like Corsair and NZXT a Coolermaster these bigger names and Western markets whether it's because they just simply spend more on ads and so you see their cases more or because they make more cases and they push harder and market harder to the US audience so silver stones had trouble getting a foothold there the redline and the PM series finally established like a clear line in the sand to say look in the face of all this foolishness and nonsense about design we are cases that you can trust for air flow and then they've taken those product lines and they've done the opposite with them the red line no.7 is probably the most egregious case of this again it's hard to say dollar 7 or the PMO too can't exist it's just to say that really once you've worked so hard to build up a brand name for a particular product line keep it keep RL or PM as a an airflow focused case people have learned to expect that from the last year of those cases so that's kind of what I wanted to say up front is keep the names consistent this is something silverstone has had a longtime problem with their naming scheme and frankly very very seriously i think it contributes to silverstone sort of slower or latent pickup in western markets and i love some of the cases that silverstone makes but it's just that naming and that marketing is making it harder for them to catch on in the way that some of them should it's not like a product fault it's everything else that goes into pushing the product so anyway this is the new one this is the PMO - it was the PMO one which is one of the best cooling cases we've tested in the last year as such it has a bit of a legacy with it and being the successor to the PMO one means we've got some things we expect the design is really significantly different the only thing that truly similar is well in terms of the overall big picture stuff is the fact that it's still got three front fans and it still has a rear fan there 140s three in the front one at the top or a back rather other space in the top for fans it loses that sort of phantom esque design that the PMO one had where it's got the big plastic panel that domes out a plastic front with the big metal mesh on it these are huge design changes for the PMO to really looks a lot different if they've gone to a metal top not removable now rather than a top plastic panel so they've eliminated the plastics which is also a trend and probably a good one but also changed the overall look of the take the case and a lot of the function of it with that aside from that internally pretty standard motherboard layout there could probably be another cutout for cable management on the top of the power supply shroud that would be nice it could probably be better cut out placement for an eight pin in the top but also not bad the way it is now and it's got a bear layout with the hard drive cage is located under the power supply shroud also pretty standard for current design trends also frees up some space for air to move around a bit better so it's got some things going for it it's got some things against it but this isn't the worst front panel we've ever seen so we'll have to test it and see how it actually does because ultimately it still breathes a lot better than most the cases on the market and depending on how those fans can fight that front metal fill we'll see how well it does now before that I want to read some of Patrick's notes from his build process and his written review which you can find linked below Patrick noted about appearances that appearance-wise the PMO too has almost nothing in common with the PMO one the most obvious difference is that front panel elimination solar stone describes its primary line as pioneering computer cases with exceptional style and functionality that's a direct quote so the connecting theme here seems to there are some of Silverstone's nicer cases that don't necessarily fit into the Ravens series depending on your opinion of mesh great the o1 looks either a little old-fashioned or cutting-edge this is one instance where lagging behind current case trends has put Silverstone ahead of their competitors almost unintentionally so the version we tested this time is the PMO one RGB which comes with a glass side panel and RGB LEDs but it's functionally identical to the base model it's huge it has a deep top and front panel and it scopes the profile of a case and the style of old towers like the Thor The Phantom or similar cases from a few years ago this is in contrast to the o2 which has a smaller and more stripped-down design with a flat panel and no removable top it's modern but that doesn't necessarily translate to good or bad that's up to you building in the PMO one was already fairly easy thanks to the large interior but Silverstone has made some improvements in the PMO to a good thing the glass side panel now uses it to old-fashioned thumb screws together with metal hooks at the bottom and that's as opposed to the zero ones for thumb screws both of these cases use protective rubber washers that wedge into the glass which is a minor detail but prevents them from falling out and rolling away as they tend to do on other cases the PMO to the other side panel is unexcited but it differs from the PMO ones in an important way every single time we build in the PMO one is practically impossible to probably the metal panel off the side the PMO one also has an optional Flaming unicorn graphic on the metal panel whether that's good or bad is subjective of course but there really isn't a removable top panel on the OT other than a magnetic filter that's probably for the best silverstone went overboard with the number of screws in the o1 and it makes it a hassle the top mount fans and radiators so they've improved their ignoring airflow concerns for a moment the o2 front panel does look good subjectively it's made of a thick and heavy steel and has some plastic it doesn't flex at all when it's pried off the fasteners are a ball joints and the kind that hold the side panels of the define r6 on which makes it easy to remove and clean the filter without breaking the clips a problem we've had with the plastic clips and the asked so there's been a few improvements but let's move now to thermals the PMO too takes the same for fan brute-force approach to cooling that the PMO one and redline zero six did it's got three intake and one exhaust just without the matched panel we have too many cases really at this point and the reason we chose the primary oh one for multiple builds was it's mesh front we can add fans but adding mesh is harder if the o2 can't cool as well as previous Silverstone enclosures there's little to separate it from dozens of similar tempered glass cases we didn't bother testing any additional fan configurations this time either since four slots were already populated but we did remove the front panel to test the level of airflow obstruction or impedance by that panel we're starting our charts with a strict comparison between the PMO one and PMO two the primary oh one kept CPU temperature at three degrees Celsius idle delta T over a means and forty eight point six C under the torture workload that we use the primary Oh to idle that three point seven delta T over a man's and averaged fifty four point one under load the clothes off front panel of the o2 is the obvious culprit for the higher temperatures but it's possible that the top panel the oh one is more breathable as well since the huge plastic cover eliminates the need for a dust filter removing the front panel of the o1 had no effect whatsoever on CPU temperatures were within margin of error here and removing the O two's front panel lowered CPU temperature to forty eight point nine almost exactly what the stock oh one scored this is the difference of a front panel a five degree drop isn't the biggest we've gotten by removing a front panel so the o2 isn't blocking a huge amount of air it's not doing anything criminal but it's notable here specifically because it indicates that the o2 could perform every bit as well as the o1 if it received the same mesh treatment to reiterate this doesn't mean that the PM o2 is bad relative to most other cases or even in a vacuum it does however show that there's something of a disappointment here in that the PMO too loses the spirit of the PMO one and it's all to meet modern industry and trends moving to a comparative chart we get some perspective here fifty four point one degrees solace is actually pretty good compared to the rest of our charge the level of respected cases even like the mesh fic or the H 700 eyes hands the smart device however those cases didn't have the advantage of for 140 fans running at full blast and they also didn't have predecessors with a particular reputation for I airflow the PMI ones CPU temperature of 48 point six degrees gives us more perspective it puts it among the top performers alongside the open-air cooler conquer and just slightly warmer than its smaller sibling the redline o6 it's also near the mesh of icy kitted out with Noctua a f-14s that's the context that the PMO who is fighting here and in that context it's uninteresting Silverstone's primary series has fallen from a chart leader to something that sits above average that's still above average mind you and it's still tough in the quarter of the pack but temperatures although doing just fine are simply unacceptable design and the context set a high bar for the PMO to to beat PMS use CPU cooling is a disappointing step down from PM a 1 however it does remain among the better cases on the chart and if we didn't have the context of the previous case if this were released today as its own new series we'd probably call it above average and say not bad but then again you can just buy the PMO 1 and get something that performs a bit better this chart shows GPU temperatures versus the PM series cases GPU temperatures were three point eight degrees delta-t idle and forty eight point six under load in the o1 we also measured four point nine idle and fifty-four point four under load in the o2 the perforations in the PM o twos a front panel thin out towards the bottom mostly below the level of the power supply shroud and right in front of one of the fans this could restrict airflow towards the bottom of the case unlike some other cases there's no big air vent in the bottom of the front panel since that's where the transparent Silverstone logo is placed to be projected onto the desk as with CPU temperature is it taking the front panel off of the O one had no effect on GPU temperatures but taking the panel off of the o2 had little effect it's actually not that big of a deal here there's also the LED projector mounted in the front of the bottom fan which provides another minor obstruction is a comparative data the PMO one again it performed spectacularly outperforming most other cases other than the our l06 there's not any secret to why these two cases perform so well again mesh and fans those whose performance was more average edging below average even near the age 500 P GPU boost ena is adjusted with heavy workloads to keep temperatures down and we usually call this throttle II and as a catch-all so check the blender section coming up next for a lower intensity benchmark and a better look at GPU performance the redline 0 6 and fire strike isn't even here because we started the 3dmark testing shortly after that case review but at 50 point 5 degrees Celsius DB temperature the PMO 1 is easily the coolest of what we've tested and the PMO two places at fifty five point six delta T over ambient in the middle of the chart just above Silverstone zone KL zero seven again the zero trees performance here would be fine if it weren't following up one of the best performing cases we've tested moving on to blender rendering on the CPU CPU delta T averaged thirty six point seven degrees Celsius in the PMO one and thirty nine point two and the PMO to the one place is between the Cougar conquer and define are six while the o2 is again stuck in the middle of the pack with the age five hundred P rendering on the GPU GPU temperature averaged twenty two point seven degrees in the PM a1 and twenty seven in the PMO to this test eliminates the boost concerns for the most part of the more stressful torture workloads proving that there really is better GPU cooling in the O 127 degrees Celsius is the same as the cooler master C 700 P and between the Alpha 550 and DBP 900 cases that we liked for reasons other than airflow for noise predictably the PM o one and P mo two are respectively the noisiest and second noisiest cases we've ever tested by a decent margin even and that includes the redline o six the po2 does have more sound damping thanks to the closed front panel but not nearly enough to make audible differences the noise levels are taken when running fans at max rpm and there's no fan curve here so you could reduce that significantly by doing a custom fan curve but there are a lot of fans in each case and not much material separating them from the user that's the trade-off though of going for airflow the elephant in the room is the PMO one which was and is a great case that we've enjoyed building it in some respects it's not fair to treat the o2 as a successor to the o1 because they're dissimilar enough to be from completely different product lines if they were just named as such if it is a successor as the name suggests the PMO too fails to fill the PMO on shoes the O on performs better there aren't even any shoes to fill because you can still buy the PMO one it's still being made and sold and at the same price we'd prefer the PMO one but the original plastic window PMO one which is perfectly fine and performs better is actually cheaper at $120 on Amazon versus 144 the PMO - so to kind of temper all of that a bit I've been critical here the case certainly to some extent does disappoint given the context of the PMO one however looking at the greater context of the industry it's still a fine case Silverstone's put something together that has decent quality build materials it's got a good amount of fans that actually function well who not garbage fans that you throw out and most of their competitors can't even manage that so they've still done decently but compared to Silverstone's history just recent history the last stuff still being made the register sounds own products it's almost worth just buying one of the other ones now this doesn't look anything like the PMO one externally so if that look doesn't fit you and for some reason you don't want the red line 0-6 maybe space or something I guess it's fine but at that point they're just filling a role in between two of their existing cases so they competing with themselves and here's the same solar stone seems to be falling into a pattern we've mentioned that the red line is an excellently cold case for the O six the red line o7 a no way are chasing the front-panel trend this kind of get in there but not quite and hopefully in the future silverstone will try to preserve some of the positive aspects that have been received really positively obviously i guess by the end users and continue those in the same product line rather than doing kind of the opposite and join we this product line that was really well received let's change it completely and try and promote it through the user channels where people have liked it so that they see the new one not really sure what the strategy was there but just Silverstone please I know who's watching this I'm talking to you right now we talk every year at CES I don't know what power you guys have to to get the naming scheme on track here but seriously there are really good products at Silverstone I like them a lot the red line zero six gets my top recommendation for a case under quite $90 maybe under a hundred and the PMO one's a really good case also at a really good price point super competitive but then the o2 and the oh seven oh eight are nothing like the predecessors to the point where we've now told all these people go buy those cases they're gonna keep an eye out for the next version of those cases because you know maybe someone wasn't building a system when we reviewed the red line oh six and they build one in a year from now they go oh Silverstone let's see if they have a new version of that case okay what have they done so that's that's kind of what I'm getting at here is you establish you have established a really good reputation for certain types of cases and I know it's difficult the industry is going RGB industries going glass and she's going closed front panels there's still a market that wants what you've made you just have to reach it switching over to what everyone else is doing I don't think is the right move for a company that has so competently shown they can still make a box that's high quality and actually cools the components that's not to say you shouldn't chase the trends because I mean someone needs to make a good one of those boxes too so why not be Silverstone but I would like to see it done under different product names now all of that said the PMO - as a case is okay I would recommend the PMO one and the red line zero six depending on the class of system you're trying to build the quality your budget things that if for some reason let's say the PMO want look right to you but you kind of like how this looks look it's not that bad it's a couple degrees warmer the reason I'm disappointed is not because it's a bad cooler it's because it's not as good as the previous Silverstone products so if you really didn't like those and you like the look of this one it's okay but that's kind of it really it's just okay so that's it for this one thank you for watching as always if you like this type of coverage you should check out our other silverstone reviews just go to the channel and type in Silverstone on the search bar and pull up the red line this is basically the PMO one review as well because we never officially reviewed that one so let's subscribe for more you can go to patreon.com/scishow still helps out directly if you like this type of content and of course store gamers nexus net to pick up a shirt like this one or one of our mod mats that are currently on backorder I'll see you all next time