Be Quiet! Silent Base 800 Mid-Tower Case Review

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

The Be Quiet! Silent Base 800 case is a full-featured mid-tower enclosure that focuses on quiet operation, while at the same time delivering excellent cooling performance, usability and support for high-end hardware. The Silent Base 800 provides several different case cooling options and comes with three installed fans to get you started, with optional locations for up to six case fans. However, the Silent Base 800 does not come with a built-in fan speed controller like the SB 600 has. If you want to slow the fans down to make the case even quieter, you will have to add your own fan speed controller. The enclosure also supports both single and dual fan radiators (120mm/140mm and 240mm/280mm) for liquid cooling.

The Silent Base 800 proved very easy to work with and required a minimum of tools. The front doors and side panels are lined with sound absorption material to keep the noise down and the large side window is double-glazed to provide additional sound isolation.

The Silent Base 800 case can easily accommodate extended VGA adapters and offers seven internal HDD mounting bays, four internal 2.5” SSD mounting locations and three external 5.25” bays. Overall the build quality is very good, the case is easy to work with, and it is has the potential to offer excellent cooling with minimal noise.

The main differences between the Silent Base 800 and Silent Base 600 mid-tower enclosures are as follows.
•    Size: the Silent Base 800 is 2.5” taller due to the large air ducts in the plastic top and bottom sections. The top section has been made smaller and the bottom section has been eliminated in the Silent Base 600 without any noticeable difference in cooling performance.
•    Number of Bundled Cooling Fans: the Silent base comes with three fans (two 140mm intakes and one 120mm exhaust) while the Silent Base 600 comes with two (one 140mm intake and one 120mm exhaust).
•    The SB 800 does not have a built-in fan speed controller like the Silent Base 600. This results in the SB 800 being potentially noisier than the SB 600.
•    I/O Panel Location: Be Quiet! relocated the external I/O panel to a much more user friendly location on the Silent Base 600.
•    Internal Drive Storage: The Silent Base 800 offers more HDD/SSD storage than does the Silent Base 600. The SB 800 can mount up to seven HDDs and/or four SSDs while the SB 600 mounts up to three HDDs and/or three SSDs.
•    Price: The Silent Base 600 is $20 USD less expensive than the SB 800.

Silent Base 600 and Silent Base 800

Bottom line, our personal favorite is the Silent Base 600 Mid-Tower enclosure reviewed earlier this year (especially if you add the second optional 140mm intake fan). The Silent Base 600 offers a near perfect combination of form and function while remaining very quiet to virtually silent. On the other hand if you need the extra HDD/SSD storage capacity and three bundled fans the Silent Base 800 offers, it may be the preferred choice. Both cases are well designed, user friendly and very quiet.

The Be Quiet! Silent Base Window Mid-Tower cases are currently selling for:
•    Silent Base 800 with Window: $149.90 USD
•    Silent Base 800 w/o Window: $139.90 USD
•    Silent Base 600 with Window: $119.90 USD
•    Silent Base 600 w/o Window: $109.90 USD

•    More internal drive storage
•    Three bundled case fans

•    Integrated fan speed controller
•    User-friendly I/O panel location
•    Quieter than the 800

Our thanks to Be Quiet! for sending us the Silent Base 800 case to review.