Cooler Master Silencio 650 Review

Up Close Interior:  Overview and Drive bays

The interior of the Silencio 650 although compact is not cramped.  Able to accept GPUs up to268mm (10.6")in length without removing any drive racks, or up to 434mm (17.1") with the removal of the upper rack it certainly has the potential to house pretty much any of today's large GPUs.

A large CPU cut out dominates the interior of the case, down the right of the motherboard area there are two large grommeted cable management holes, with a third even larger along the base.  Although large the holes aren't particularly well spaced, falling awkwardly for many motherboards which will have the 24pin socket approximately half way along the side of the board.  The lower cut out, again large is also positioned slightly too far towards the rear of the case, leading to a portion of it being covered when using larger PSUs.  Even if your PSU doesn't occlude this hole there's still going to be one hell of a 90 degree bend to get your cables through as they exit to the rear.  As there's no other cut out, it's also necessary to bring all the front I/O cables back through this aperture, making for some very crowded cable management up front and at the rear. 

We know from the exterior that Cooler Master have provided us with a total of 3x5.25" bays, with the lowest one being given over to accepting hot swap 3.5" and 2.5" Drives, something Cooler Master refer to as X-Dock.  From the inside we get a better view of the supporting mechanism along with the tool-less device for the upper bays.  It is however something of a shame that Cooler Master have chosen to go for a green PCB as opposed to a black one.  It's little details like these that can make all the difference with regards to presentation. 

Should you have a penchant for rotating your 3.5" drive bays through 90 degrees be assured that with the Silencio 650 this desire is catered for.  Releasing the same 4 screws that enable the rack to be removed also enable it to be rotated and re inserted.  The lower dive bay can be removed only by drilling out the rivets.  I guess if you wanted, you could get a 240mm Rad in the front here, but it would take a fair bit of modding and most likely you'd have to sacrifice the lower 5.25" bay, and of course all your 3.5" bays.  As it is, the 2 very quiet 120mm fans are separated from the drive bays by metal stand offs, which presumably improve their cooling characteristics.  It's also worth noting that should wish to add a bit more umph to the air after it has passed through the 3.5" drives it is possible to mount a 120mm fan on the inboard aspect of the upper drive bay rack.

We can remove em, we can rotate em, but how do we insert em?  Well you simply screw them old school style into the black sleds that then slide neatly into the racks.  Alternatively, and possibly more old school is the method of attaching runners to either side of the HDD and sliding it in.  Don't get me wrong, I like old school, simple engineering is good engineering, and usually a site more robust.  What is strange however is that very little concession is made towards vibration dampening.  Strange in a case that sets it's sights firmly silence.