| SilverStone TJ04-E Computer Case |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Cases | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Austin Downing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 15 August 2012 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SilverStone TJ04-E Computer Case Review
Manufacturer: SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd. Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by SilverStone. SilverStone is a company that whose products I always look forward to reviewing. They tend to keep their engineering department on a loose leash and as such SilverStone tends to have some unique designs come out of its doors while keeping the beautiful exteriors I expect out of my cases. The SilverStone TJ04-E is a redesigned version of the venerable TJ04 case, with a new interior that has some interesting designs that allow the TJ04 to hold nine 3.5" drives and six 2.5" drives. The TJ04-E can also accommodate video cards up to 12.8" even with the drive cage installed an impressive feat considering the TJ04-E is only 489mm long and considered a mid-tower enclosure. Therefore, the real question is does the unique design of the TJ04-E make for a great case, or does SilverStone need to go back to the drawing board. Fitting nine 3.5" drive into a case is a difficult goal especially while keeping up to 45 spinning platters cool in the tight confines of a mid-tower design. SilverStone uses some unique measures to make sure that each drive is kept at its optimal operating temperature. In order to achieve this SilverStone has included two large heatsinks that attach directly to the drives in the TJ04-E. To maximize their effectiveness SilverStone also made sure the 120mm intake fan for the TJ04-E moves all of its air through the heatsinks before making its way through the rest of the case.
When reviewing a case you have four major things you need to look at. First, you need to look at build quality because no one wants to spend hours putting hardware in a case only to find defects or to have parts that will fail months later. Secondly, you need to look at cooling because as the heat output of components goes up, so do cooling needs. Third, you need to look at the acoustics of your new case because as anyone who has worked on or near servers knows adequate cooling can come at an acoustic cost unless a company put expenses into preventing this. Lastly, you need to look at the ease of build, which depending on your system may or may not play a big role in your choice of case. If you like, I spend lots of time inside of your case modifying parts then you want a system that you can easily move around in while making modifications. On the other hand if you want to setup your system and leave it then this becomes less of an importance and therefore can be moved lower on the requirements for your case. SilverStone TJ04-E Features
SilverStone TJ04-E Specifications
Recomended Powersupply Cable Lengths
Closer Look: ExteriorThe exterior the TG04-E instantly won me over. Its strong lines, mute colors, and beautiful brushed aluminum front are exactly what I look for when I am evaluating the looks of a case.
Having its air intakes on the side allows the TJ04-E to have a single piece of beautiful uninterrupted brushed aluminum for the front along with silver accents that come together for a truly gorgeous design. This design lends itself to being part of a beautiful home office or a well thought out gaming den. On the right, the removable filter for the intake fans is visible and it should be remembered that because the intakes are in the side of the case the TJ04-E would need more free space on the right side than other more conventional cases might otherwise need.
From the rear, it is apparent that the TJ04-E is designed for almost any situation you could throw at it. With eight expansion slots, the TJ04-E could easily fit in dual video cards, with a dedicated sound card, a dedicated RAID controller while still having room for future expansion. One of the interesting design aspects of the TJ04-E is that the expansion slots are actually partially covered on the right by a cage that must be removed before the system can be modified.
FFrom the bottom, it is clear that SilverStone has gone the extra step making sure to dust stays out of the system by providing removable filters for both the power supply intakes, and for the optional 120mm intake that enthusiast can use if they deem it necessary.
From the top, the removable filter for the 120mm and optional 140mm fan is apparent. It is easily removable for cleaning, and maintenance.
Recessed into the top of the TJ04-E are two USB 3.0 ports and the front panel audio. SilverStone has included an internal USB3.0 header with the TJ04-E along with a USB 3.0 to 2.0 converter for users with older motherboards. Closer Look: InteriorA great looking case that lacks the internals to go with it is a truly a sad thing. Thankfully, the TJ04-E does not suffer from this problem, as it has everything a user could want and much more in a mid-tower case while maintaining a beautiful exterior.
From this view, the beautiful black interior is visible. The removable 3.5" drive cage has handle that makes for easy removal of the drives bay visible. For the 5.25" drive bays the user are given the option to use a tool less system or for more secure fit an enthusiast can screw in all of their 5.25" drives ensuring that they do not move around when the system is being relocated. When 3.5" hard drives are installed into a system then enthusiasts are "limited" to having video cards with a maximum length of 12.8" beyond the length of even the AMD 5970.
From this view, the number of cable routing guides becomes apparent. Along the bottom, the TJ04-E has an area to allow all cables to come from the power supply and through the bottom of the case making for easy routing. The motherboard opening for the installation of large CPU coolers makes for easy installation of back plates after the motherboard has been mounted. The advantage of this is design is that that users do not need to preinstall their large coolers before fastening the motherboard into the TJ04-E making for a far easier installation with less risk of damaging the motherboard while using some of the largest heatsinks on the market. Also visible, the 120mm intake fan along with the opening for the optional 120mm intake fan opening. The intake fan(s) will move air directly across the provided 3.5" HDD heatsinks before moving on to the rest of the case.
The TJ04-E has two separate power supply size limitation based on the configuration of the system. If the 2.5" drive cage or optional fan are installed the TJ04-E is limited to using a 180mm deep power supply. On the other hand, if a user opts to remove the 2.5" drive bay then there is no size limitation placed upon the power supply.
I use this perspective to show the massive amount of free space for cable routing behind the motherboard tray. As long as the cables have enough length to reach, the TJ04-E has enough space to easily fit a 24-pin ATX connection through the back and up to the motherboard connection along with all of a user's cables needed for a build.
SilverStone includes three FN121 fans stock with the TJ04-E. The FN121 fans is a 120mm fan that spin at 1200RPM and a rated for This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it There is also space for an optional 120/140mm up top, an extra 120mm on the intake, and extra 120mm in the bottom of the case.
This is the party trick of the TJ04-E. SilverStone designed the TJ04-E to hold a total of nine 3.5" HDD's. To hold that many drives, keep them in their optimum operating temperature, and power them all can be a challenge. Thankfully, SilverStone has addressed all of these problems. In order to keep each drive nice and cool SilverStone has created a custom heatsinks that allow for placing each 3.5" drive very close to its neighbor, as for power SilverStone has included two power splitters allowing users to easily power all of their drives with just two cables. Computer Case Final ThoughtsBeautiful, spacious, expandable, and unique the SilverStone TJ04-E ticks all of the boxes I look for in a case. As with any SilverStone case, actually building in the TJ04-E is a unique experience. For example because of the 2.5" drive bay that sits directly in front of the PSU actually running your cables can be a difficult experience especially if most of a enthusiasts cables happen to be on the left side of their power supply. Furthermore the unique design of the 3.5" drive bays will make for some difficult cabling because although SilverStone came up with a unique solution for the power, enthusiast are still required to run individual data cables to each of the drives, which tend to come right up against the 2.5" drive bay when the bottom three 3.5" bays are used. Overall, although beautiful and spacious with the 2.5" drive bay in the TJ04-E was actually provided some challenge to build in and I question in what situations the 2.5" drive bay could be used. Perhaps a better solution would have been to use the rear of the motherboard tray like some of SilverStone's other designs have for the enthusiasts 2.5" drives.
SilverStone TJ04-E ConclusionPerformance in a case is about being able to cool components with acceptable acoustic performance. Although the TJ04-E performs adequately in the cooling department (although with 0% overclock on the CPU's and GPU's we really are not pushing the cooling capacity of the TJ04-E too far), I found the acoustic performance of the TJ04-E to be lackluster. Without the acoustic padding of the Antec P280 I found that the Cooler Master V6GT heatsinks dual fans were clearly audible while the system was running. In the appearance category, the TJ04-E immediately caught my eye. For our readers who have read my previous case reviews you already know what I look for in a case. With the TJ04-E it ticks all of the boxes I look for in a case, it has a beautiful dark exterior, a brushed aluminum front, and the proper fit and finish to look professional and classy without being boring. I could easily use this machine in my home theater setup and not have it stand out too much while at the same time I could use it in my home office or as a gaming rig that has class instead of looking cheap. As with every SilverStone case, the TJ04-E is superbly built. Each of the cable openings has rounded edges to prevent cables from catching while being routed or from being damaged during the building process. Each piece of the TJ04-E feels like it was built to last having sufficient heft and build quality to not easily warp. Unfortunately, although it is built to withstand a beating SilverStone only supplies a one year warranty for the TJ04-E which is rather sad. Thankfully, since this is a case I am not worried about premature destruction of a case of this build quality and would expect the TJ04-E to easily outlast the system that was built in it. Functionality is one of the strongest points for the TJ04-E. Although a mid-tower, the TJ04-E is able to fit every video card on the market within its bowels, along with nine 3.5" drives making for a formidable home server. This allows the TJ04-E to easily be used for a gamers primary system with powerful videos cards in it, or as a video editors workstation with plenty of internal drives to use as storage for the video being edited. Combining the needs of both the TJ04-E would also serve well as an engineer's workstation combining a powerful CPU, with a workstation class GPU, and the storage needed for the large CAD project they may be working on. Expense is a matter of opinion. For $149.00 (Amazon), I personally don't consider the TJ04-E to be particularly expensive. Compared to some of the cheap cases on the market this price is on the high end but for the price you get a extremely well built case, with plenty of space for hard drives and enthusiast equipment, while at the same time while looking beautiful. The TJ04-E is beautiful, customizable, and provides plenty of of room for extra hard drives, expansion cards, video cards or pretty much anything a enthusiast could want. Because of all of these positive features, I will gladly award the SilverStone TJ04-E the Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer award for excellence. Pros:
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