Even when using a non modulair PSU, like our Corsair TX850, you can still do some solid cable management to obtain a clean PC. The USB 3.0 cable has to be routed via the rear to be hooked up to the motherboard

We used Intel's brand new 520 series 240Gb SSD and two 1.5Tb Western Digital drives for storage. The ASUS GTX480 is a tight fit, but still got a few mms of clearance with the drive bays.

In the back, out of sight, it's quite a cable mess. Placing the sidepanel, with the noise reduction foam, takes some patience, but we we got the job done. But Cooler Master should provide a bit more clearance between the motherboard tray and sidepanel. Even ATI's 7970 videocard blends in fine in this 70 euro case.

Temperature Results :

We are running our i7 3960X ES CPU at 4500Mhz 1.37Vcore. This time it's cooled by a Corsair Hydro 80 (fans at balanced preset) For the idle results, temps were measured after 15 mins and logged by AIDA64. CPU load test after 30 mins of Prime95 12-12K Custom test. For the GTX480 a tri loop of Vantage 3D tests, GPU-Z monitored the highest temperature.

If we compare the CPU temperatures under load with those from the Carbide 500R review (68°C) we see a a big temp difference. Keep in mind this setup was cooled by the Hydro 80 iso the H100 version used on the 500R review. Also we stuck to balanced preset for the H80 so overal cooling performance is not bad at all. The GPU temps under load are 4°C higher than the 500R.

But the noise measurements shed a better light on the Silencio 550. The slow spinning 800rpm fans are barely audible. The noise reduction performance of this case will be limited by the cooling you will use. If you set eg the H80 to maximum performance, not much the Silencio can do about it. The overall system will be loud, not the cases fault, but Corsairs insanely fast 2600rpm fans... At the time of writing the Silencio 550 is running a Socket 1155 setup with an OC'ed 2700K CPU. All this cooled by a Thermalright VenomousX with a 1000rpm fan. This setup is so quiet, that I have to verify the power LED to know it's on. I can still hear my Raptor working but the sound is far less than in eg Cooler Masters Trooper case. So the foam damping seems to work okayish...