Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

The new Silencio definitely is a serious upgrade compared to the previous revisions. The remarks I had back then where rubberized grommet holes, more USB ports etc, it seems that all my wishes which I had with the 550 have been fulfilled with the Silencio 650 model. That and more.

Airflow wise do not expect miracles, but honestly .. for a modern day PC it's definitely enough. You can house a fairly high-end selection of PC components inside the chassis whilst keeping the noise levels down as the noise dampening features really do a nice job, whilst offering decent enough airflow as well. Should you really need a little more airflow then it is recommended add another fan at the top rear side where you can open up the backside with a slide in cover.

Also important to keep in mind is that it is mid-size tower chassis that looks okay and offers plenty of space inside that chassis.

The new updated 650 has all black internals, decent cable management and of course the tool free design. Most of the peripheral components can be inserted quite easily without any fuzz. New is the extra added USB 3.0 port, the aluminum front door and of course that dual-boot functionality. Realistically, it might be a feature that is useless for some, yet very handy for others. It is however a very innovative feature and we do like that a lot.

We always state thus: design wise taste differs, personally I like this chassis due to its design and pretty nifty feature set. Other might dislike that, but hey I'll say it again ... taste differs. 

With the Silencio 650 you get the all black design, ease of use, decent enough ventilation, easy removable dust filters, USB 3.0 support and yeah space wise you'll have nothing to complain about either. Inside you can fit any Micro-ATX and ATX sized motherboard and even three decent sized dual-slot graphics cards should you want to do so. On the storage unit side of things there's plenty enough space for your HDD drives.

Ventilation wise the two 120mm front intake fans do most of the heavy lifting, it's virtually silent as just like the rear 120mm exhaust fan they are locked in at a slow 1200RPM, making at best a little noise. With the fan controller you can set the FAN RPM lower to nearly inaudible -- however at the cost of airflow.

Cable management wise there's plenty of gaps in the chassis where you can lead wiring through, it is nice to see that these gaps now come with a rubber inlay, something we requested when we reviewed the 550. The backside tray of the motherboard also has decent enough space to lead wiring through, though it remains a little scarce.

The biggest change however will be .. pricing. If memory serves me right the Silencio 550 was launched at roughly 70 EUR, the Silencio 650 however is much more expensive at roughly 120 EUR. Admittedly, you can see where the money goes as the 650 is much more advanced compared to the 550, whether or not the extra 50 EUR is actually worth the new features is something only you can decide. Build quality and features wise however the price can be justified, but we agree it's on the high side alright.

I already said it, nothing is more personal than a specific design, we feel it is tasteful and not you average LED lit logo empowered chassis, and the overall feature package is good. A good amount of USB ports, an included card reader, the X-dock, the dual-boot feature, thew sound dampening, three silent fans, a fan controller .. well the list goes on and on. Combined with decent chassis space inside and the low noise levels this chassis might just be what the doctor ordered. Very much recommended, but we do hope to see that pricing go down a little.

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