Be Quiet certainly hasn’t been hush-hush over at Computex, in fact it has been making plenty of noise about two new PC cases during the show, not to mention some other goodies including a cooler for AMD’s Threadripper CPUs.
The firm’s new cases are the Silent Base 601 and 801, and there are no prizes for guessing that these are designed to make for a PC which keeps noise levels to a minimum.
That means you get high-grade sound dampening materials (with up to a 10mm thickness) on the case panels, and angled intake air vents at the front for quieter operation. You can have up to three Pure Wings 2 140mm fans pre-installed, and a shroud for the power supply helps keep things looking nice and neat internally.
Both cases will come in a windowed variant, and one without a window, with different highlight colors available for the front panel. The Silent Base 601 is the smaller case which can fit up to three hard drives or six SSDs, while the bigger 801 has the capacity to cope with five hard disks or eleven SSDs.
And of course the larger 801 has more space for cooling gubbins inside, and a hub function for the fan controller (enabling control of all connected 3-pin fans with just one incoming PWM signal). It also benefits from an adjustable motherboard layout, meaning you can mount the mobo inverted.
No price has been announced for these two new cases, but the Silent Base 601 will be available in the third quarter, with the 801 to follow in the last quarter of 2018.
Also on the PC case front, Be Quiet revealed an updated flagship Dark Base Pro 900 Revision 2 case, with the modular full tower getting some useful tweaks. That includes a PSU shroud (see the pic below), a fan controller that supports up to eight PWM fans (with silent and performance modes), and a new windowed side panel with the top and bottom painted black to hide the screw holes underneath.
The new Dark Base Pro 900 Rev. 2 is expected to be out next month, with pricing not yet mentioned. Owners of the original version of the case will also be able to purchase retail upgrade kits to get these extra benefits.
Threadripper thermals
So what about that cooler for Threadripper CPUs? That would be the Dark Rock Pro TR4 dual-tower cooler – a spin-off of the Dark Rock Pro 4 – which is optimized for AMD’s TR4 socket.
It boasts a large copper base, seven copper heat pipes, and a pair of whisper-quiet Silent Wings PWM fans, with the outer fan designed with a funnel-shaped frame for better cooling. Expect this one in the final quarter of the year with pricing to be confirmed.
To round things off, Be Quiet also revealed a fresh generation of Shadow Wings fan. The Shadow Wings 2 sports a high-grade rifle bearing for silent operation, and fan blades designed for optimal airflow.
The fan is also made with a rubberized frame, and utilizes rubber pads in each corner to dampen any potential noise transfer to the PC case. Shadow Wings 2 fans will be available in 120mm and 140mm sizes, and in 3-pin or PWM flavors, and again they’re expected to go on sale in the final quarter of 2018.
