Gadgetory

be quiet is very particular about their name specifically it's a lowercase B lowercase Q and exclamation points and anything else will get you yelled at they're also very particular about their cases and that is to focus primarily on silence there's something we've talked about a lot in the past and now with the be quiet silent base 601 we'll be revisiting the topic of how B quiets cases performed both thermally and acoustically which is their primary selling point we also have a bit of an interesting discussion to get into perhaps in a future video at what points do you hit diminishing returns with silence to the point where you could just run a more airflow focused PC with slower fans before that this video is brought to you by Thermaltake and the view 71 enclosure the view 71 is a full tower case that's capable of fitting three video cards and most configurations it's also one of the better cooling cases in our recent case testing bench lineup the view 71 has hinged a tempered glass doors on either side that make it easy to open and show off and it comes with at least one rain fan though you can get the RGB version if you prefer learn more at the link in the description below the entire oh one series from be quiet is a follow up series so they had the dark-faced Pro 900 conveniently not named oh one in that instance it was the 900 Rev 2 but the 601 is a follow up of the previous 600 and there are a few updates we talked about that my Computex when it was in apps but let's go through the case as it is featured today it's about 130 bucks on new egg in the US anyway so that puts it on the lower end versus what we reviewed the last few weeks but it is still certainly one of the more expensive cases the big feature here for this case is going to be all the noise damping features we talked about these and our thermal and acoustic testing Patrick's build notes coming up we'll also have more information but this foam is some of the thickest foam we've ever seen in a case the way this stuff works we'll talk about more in a second but very basics it primarily helps with high frequency noise so things like fan whine potentially a little bit of coil whine whereas the panel thickness is what will help you with lower frequency noises so more of like a lower hum so foam doesn't really do a whole lot for you there compared to the higher frequency noise or the one thing I want to go back on here and point out is that well first of all this is mounting procedure is pretty nice they did a good job on this with the case where it slots in which actually has a functional purpose other than being convenient and it's because on the backside that extra foam thickness pushes up against the cable so hard that if it didn't just hinge in you would have issues closing it because the cable is hitting the foam so it actually is functional but if they don't want to point out so there's a side panel so no there's no window in that panel there's a windowed version of course there's for everything but you pull this off and behind the windowless side panel there is a feature which is purely for aesthetic purposes that's the power supply shroud power supply shreds are made for hiding cables and power supplies because they're the ugliest part of your PC you already can't see the thing you can't see the cables because there's a steel wall in front of it so to put a power supply shroud here really just kind of inhibits the build process it inhibits air flow in ways which we have shown previously are actually important and it's really for no gain now you might say it looks nicer but then again I would ask are you looking at it through that window and if so can I have your super powers the only reason you'd really want this thing is for the tempered glass variant and that's fine if you want it that's a subjective thing we're not gonna argue with you that's that's totally up to you with the tempered glass panel however keep in mind that you lose the foam so you do lose I mean it's got let's see foam on all panels so you lose maybe 15-20 percent of the foam on the case a silence focused case in the most actually more than that because if you're just going by panel size it's quite significant it's probably closer to 40 percent of the foam just for a window and I guess at that point I our suggestion would be to look at what you want in a case and then evaluate other options on the market because it is kind of missing the point on this one but anyway 130 bucks is the case with the steel panel at least there's windowed version insides pretty standard be quiet is efficient in using tooling and they've done that again here in some areas so the case is fairly familiar and I guess we can talk through the rest of it and Patricks build notes before getting through the thermals noise and the conclusion also note one more thing that's pretty important for the thermal section here there are two fans and they are the pure wings to 140 millimeter fans there's one of the front one of the rear and the one in the front is the important one that one is positioned pretty low in the case it's right on top of the power supply shroud so almost all of its air is going to be pulled by the GPU by the video card before the CPU can ever get access to it and the CPU fan really can't hope to fight the pressure of the video card fans that are so close to that front intake so keep that in mind that means the CPU thermals will be higher in the stock configuration than the GPU thermal is comparatively the 601 comes with orange black or silver trim and is sold with either one steel one glass panel or two identical panels we prefer the non windowed variety which is what we received for review the major selling points of B quiets cases is silence achieved in part with a heavy layer of noise damping foam on the case panels and if that accomplishes anything at all then replacing half of it with glass won't help because it's not like we're putting the foam on the glass the foam is one centimeter thick it's shaped into tiny noise baffles and it fully covers the inner surfaces of the front the top and the sides of the case the attention to detail on where the foam goes is pretty extensive the concept of noise damping foam is based on basic science with a lot of small divots in the material the higher frequency sound waves can bounce around within the foam indents and lose energy this theoretically reduces noise escaping the case but primarily changes the type of noise to reduce shorter wavelength exposure to the user long wavelength exposure remains largely unaffected by foam like this and is more affected by thickness of material like thicker aluminum or steel paneling visually the 601 is similar to the rest of be quite scaled corners and angular strips of trim but they don't appear to be reusing old parts given how elaborate B quiets cases usually are with invertible layouts and removable hard drive bays and rubber grommets crammed in everywhere it's impressive how low be quiet keeps cost on the silent base and pure baselines considering the rest of the features obviously some parts like the hard drive bays are shared and they only have a few case models in production at any given time but it's sort of bizarre in this respect that buying arisin tech affion and adding to pure wins - fans - it would cost about as much as the 601 des with larger versions of those fans already installed this speaks partially to efficiency of men maxing the tooling presently deployed something that be quiet does well and deoxys aged 700 I introduced a quick button ejection system for side panels that we found clever and intuitive and it looks like be quiet is trying to do something similar the silent based 601 implements this on both side panels even in the windowed version of the case which is a notable improvement over the thumb screws used in the company's own dark based Pro 900 pressing the buttons to release the panel's allows them to hinge out just enough so they can be pulled upwards that keeps the panels from flopping out and onto the floor but the natural instinct is still to try and pull the panel's out rather than up so keep this in mind it's still kind of a novelty but it serves more of a purpose for be quiet than it would for other manufacturers because of that thick noise damping foam with normal side panels it can be difficult to get the cables and foam to all squeeze together enough to slide them into place and this installation practice helps offset that there's no magnetic front door like the one on the dark bass 900 but the metal cover over the front filter does easily slide up and out the bottom filter ejects from the front of the case rather than the back which is always a welcome feature other small quality-of-life features that deserve note or praise are the removable power supply frame and a top fan radiator mount that slides out from the side this mounts is particularly nice and it's possible to slide it out partially install a radiator and not need to take the whole thing out of the case the fan controller is three speed and can handle up to three fans like the dark bass 700 the 601 grams the controller switch into a former USB port in the front panel we tend to not use fan controllers if we can avoid it so we this simple and unobtrusive controller to the fancier one found in the dark Bass Pro 900 it's difficult for case fans to move air through tight spaces and right angles and we criticize cases that carelessly ignore this the key there is carelessly ignore this with the silent based 601 it's intentional it's part of the design and it trades ease of cooling for silence instead these also included in the thermal section later in this review but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the 600 ones front panel is more restrictive than something like the mesh of I see we draw the line of distinction at marketing this case isn't marketed as a high airflow case does not promise to be the coolest case on the market and instead it markets silence these two features are often at odds with be quiet choosing its namesake feature over cooling cable management space is limited there's about three centimeters at best but the foam and grommets and various bits of metal Hardware cut into that the one centimeter thick foam is soft so it's technically possible to squeeze in more but that risks leaving permanent dents in the foam if that's something you care about we'd recommend removing the hard drive cage and using the extra room inside the power supply shroud for cables and if you need one use be quiet free-floating hard drive bays instead only one is included with the 601 but it's the same kind that the other be quiet cases use and extras are available for ten dollars up to five of these can fit in the case we're not really big fans of DLC add-ons or cases as we've said in the past be quiet does include a sufficient amount of hard drive mounting support stock it's just it's not where we want it the trouble is that it's in places we'd rather leave open for cables given how tight the paneling is here moving on to thermals and noise the big one being noise for this towards the end of the charts stock configuration for the 601 is too pure wanes to 140 millimeter fans one in rear exhaust and one in front intake just above the power splash route both plugged into the motherboard and set to max speed additional tests were done with no front panel orienting the GPU vertically and using the fan controller at minimum speed the vertical GB amount has clearly only intended to be used with the windowed version of the case and there's less clearance in our version thanks to the foam so performance is worse than it would be with a window remove the front here means that the metal cover is taken off of the front but we leave the filter and the rest of the panel in place so time to get into the charts we're starting with just a bunch of be quiet cases and then we'll move on to comparative testing between competitors for the stock silent basic so on average CPU temperature during torture testing was sixty point five degrees Celsius over ambient using the fan controller to lower the speed to level one raise thermals to 72 point nine degrees over ambiens which is obviously a very poor use case these results illustrate that you really should only be using these low-speed settings where idle or browsing type work not for gaming or heavy loads this is illustrated by all the other be quiet devices with lowest fan speeds - including the dark base 700 for the sine base 601 removing the front panel lower the temperature to 54 point one degrees over ambiens the front panel obstructs an airflow heavily but it's also clear that the fan is still able to effectively cool at matok speed even with the obstruction now I'm seeing the GPU vertically raise the temperature a couple of degrees from baseline but that test has more relevance to the GPU Thermal section the baseline sixty-two point five degree temperature is one of the warmest on the chart when we look comparatively at other cases right around the Antec PA and performance for reference we previously described the antique p8 as having the cooling capacity of a toaster so this isn't a good part of the chart to occupy the dark base pro 900 is delta-t result was about four degrees lower but it is a larger case with more breathing room and more fans even 54.1 degrees Celsius without the front panel cover isn't terribly low just about on par with these stock mesh of IC the single intake fan has a much more directly at the GPU than the CPU cooler when looking at the silent basics or one more closely so that's where all of our air is going we'll have to look at GPU performance results to prove that really competitive cooling in this case would require two or more fans added to it but that would also generate more noise beginning to negate these silenced focus of the case so it's a difficult to spot to be in we need to look at some more numbers including noise numbers before we reach anything conclusive be quiet can't be things too hard for being warm when the entire goal is silence not cooling moving onto the GPU test with just be quiet cases for now G via thermal average fifty two point eight degrees Celsius over amides and the SB 601 is torture test this was lowered a few degrees to forty nine point degrees Celsius delta T by removing the front panel raised to 57 point seven degrees by lowering the case fan speed and raised again to sixty two point two degrees up by mounting the GV vertically Mountain AEG be vertically flush with the side panel while always worse and cooling and there's absolutely no reason to do it in a case with no window with the window reserve it for open-loop solutions comparatively fifty two point eight degrees delta T over ambiens is a bit below the center of the charge actually below the other be quiet cases we've tested and closer to the Corsair 270 yarn performance it's not impressive but we still have noise look forward to that'll be at the end and this is a major opportunity for redemption of performance fire strike extreme stress testing raised GPU temperature to fifty five point three degrees Celsius over ambiens a more mediocre rank than in the torture test but still not bad that's on the same level as the Silverstone klo 7 and PMO two too intensely forgettable cases it's also better than the dark bass pro 900 but not nearly as good as the revision two of that case the silent bass 601 CPU thermals and fires rec are remarkably high up there with recent SL 600 M testing where the CPU is largely compartmentalized and isolated by a wall of GPU below it CPU temperature and blender C be rendering test was 41 point five degrees over ambience one of the warmest temperatures on the chart like the torture test results this is equivalent to the Antec p8 and not distant from the BitFenix and so despite a science focus high-end machines with air coolers would benefit from an additional fan or from a brute force at liquid cooling approach GPO temperature in the blender GB render tasks with twenty five point six degrees Celsius another decent DB result on the same level as the H five heavy mesh and stock eight seven hundred I be quiet get some redemption here ranking in the upper half of performance in the blender GPU test as a reminder this happens largely because that front fan is centered on the GPU benefitting it tremendously noise suppression is the main attraction here and the silent base 601 delivers we measured it at 36 DBA with the fans at maximum speed which is where most of those thermal results were recorded that puts the silent basic so on at around the s2 the land cold one and the defined see an acoustic performance always measured at thirty two point eight DBA with the fan speed minimized via the controller the max annoys level is comparable to the Lanco one or dark bass 100 at the level 3 setting while the minimum is closer to the dark Bass Pro 900 minimum noise level note again that the minimum setting it's really only suitable for low load work the case overall it's really good build quality so definitely be quiet on a good job just in terms of the construction the hinged doors with the button for ejection is really nice it's something that NZXT did on their cases previously we liked it there we liked here so build quality overall job well done by be quiet and this is I mean you can even just look at attention to detail so for example the fans every screw for each of the fans has a rubber o-ring or washer basically between the screw and the case and that's to help with small vibrations that you might get from the fan motor it's a really small piece of Intel that a lot of case manufacturers don't care about miss don't think it's important whatever but the point is be quiet does get this one every time and be quiet also goes through and hits basically everything else that they can think of that might cause vibration that might have a slight gap in it where noise can escape except for this one weird random hole in the back but they do a good job as a company of really paying attention to those finer noise details that you kind of look at it it's like a rubber train around a screw okay what does that really do for me but it's really a sum of the parts in this case that makes for a better enclosure and use the word case twice so they've done well over build quality competitively it's a rough market right now 130 bucks puts be quiet up against a whole lot of good options that we had on our chart so depending on what you're looking for if you're looking for exactly this something that's extremely silence focused and you can maybe afford to budget for another fan in the front you'll do pretty well for it this really does deserve an additional fan on the front we think so that the CPU can get some air as well the CPU gets air from another top mounted or front mounted in the top fan then both components will be acceptable they're not gonna be great they won't beat open front cases but they'll be acceptable if your goal is silence the next question is well okay but if I just buy a case with a more open front panel and then spin down the fan rpm into a coil noise and match the DBA output or the DBA measurement at what point am I then getting superior cooling for the same noise level not something we're investigating for sever piece because it's an interesting question and and we're glad you didn't ask but that's it for this case I mean one hundred thirty bucks it's fine build quality is good thermal performance on the GPU is acceptable thermal performance on the CPU is not good but if you buy an extra fan for the top in that front panel it's fine or will be fine it's just stock it it does not fare too well for sustained render loads on the CPU or sustained workload on the CPU just get that extra fan in there because it will be a bit hot you could brute-force it with the CLC but relative to the CLC in other cases it will of course they'll be hotter so I guess that's it for this one alternatives we will link in the article version of this the review written by Patrick that'll be linked to the description below so you want to check out his additional conclusion notes you can see what he thought what other cases we might suggest and as always go to store it on Karen's exes dotnet to support us directly you can pick up this shirt for a little bit longer this is a limited edition foil shirt that we have and will not be making again so you grab that on the store or patreon complex commands Nexus to get access to our behind the scenes videos for patreon backers we just shot two today and are putting more more focused on those going forward say you're watching subscribe for more I'll see you all next time