SilverStone Temjin TJ04-E: Devil in the Details
by Dustin Sklavos on February 10, 2012 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- SilverStone
- mid-tower
Assembling the SilverStone Temjin TJ04-E
Just like seeing a Corsair logo on a case box tells me it's going to be an easy night, the SilverStone logo on the front of the Temjin TJ04-E tells me I'd better fish out the instruction manual and familiarize myself with how everything's supposed to go together before I start the assembly proper. There's a method to SilverStone's madness and like a good puzzle box it's easy to see how everything comes together once you know how the pieces are supposed to fit...you just need to know it first.
Thankfully the TJ04-E isn't quite as involved as many of their other designs. SilverStone includes the front six motherboard standoffs built into the tray (though fishing the other three out of the bag of screws is more of a headache than it ought to be), and popping the board and I/O shield in was painless enough. The power supply is just as easy to install. It's when you get to the drives that things start to get a bit wonky.
First, you'll need to remove the large drive cage by unscrewing the top and bottom of it; from there it slides out on rails. 3.5" drives are mounted with screws instead of rails or trays, but honestly this doesn't strike me as being a particularly major issue. Rails/trays are a nice convenience in assembly that wind up not being super essential in practice (unless you're the type of user that changes their storage subsystem on a regular basis). What may throw you for a loop is the fact that hard drives are mounted upside-down in the TJ04-E instead of right-side up, and they're front-to-back facing instead of lateral, a sacrifice needed to make space for the side intake fan.
The 2.5" drive cage, on the other hand, feels like the least thought out part of the TJ04-E's design. Our 180mm power supply had to have its modular cables routed through the cage rather than around as SilverStone intended, and while SilverStone recommends removing this cage before installing the power supply (or installing drives in it for that matter), they use extra-small Phillips head screws in the bottom of the case to keep it in place. It's a small but unnecessary nuisance.
Installing expansion cards is a little more work than usual, too. Where most cases extrude the back of the enclosure, on the TJ04-E you need to remove a cover first, then remove the individual slot cover, then install the video card, then install the cover again. It adds an extra step that you may run into just enough for it to be annoying.
As mentioned before, cabling winds up being a bit more of an issue than you'll want it to be, but a large part of that is due to having used a 180mm power supply in our testbed instead of a 160mm one. By using a 180mm PSU, you can't route cables through the hole in the tray next to the PSU and the result is a messier cabling situation only compounded by the orientation of the hard drives and SSDs. Also worth noting is that all of the fans use 3-pin headers; there are no molex connectors in this case.
Assembling a system in the SilverStone Temjin TJ04-E was more involved than most ATX cases tend to be, but not quite as involved as most of SilverStone's other cases tend to be. This is an interesting variation on traditional case design that I suspect needs a bit more experimentation for the end user to really make the most of it.
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cjs150 - Friday, February 10, 2012 - link
This is the problem with Silverstone sometimes the execution of the idea has major flaws.I love my TJ07, perfect for watercooling but not all the screw holes are perfectly aligned and airflow is so bad it fried two sticks of RAM (non overclocked)
Sabresiberian - Saturday, February 11, 2012 - link
Why Silverstone is bad: interesting ideas that are poorly manufactured.I have one of their BTX cases (remember BTX, was supposed to be the new thing for all of like, a year? :D ). The BTX idea wasn't a problem, but they provided a cheap shroud to direct air flow over the CPU that 1) cracked very easily, and 2) wouldn't allow for even the stock CPU cooler I had at the time. Basically, if you didn't need the extra cooling for the CPU that the shroud made possible, you could use it, but if you did need it, you couldn't.
The screwless mounts for expansion cards were cheap, too. The case has some (minor) corrosion issues on the inside. I have an ancient Antec that has no corrosion on it at all.
No telling who actually made the PSU you get from them - it might be a good manufacturer, or it might be a mediocre one. Good thing about their PSUs is they tend to provide more connectors than others, but, again, manufacturing is another story.
Silverstone is the reason I tell people don't buy PSUs by brand, buy one you read a good, independent review of. I had a bad experience with one of their PSUs and more importantly with the service I got when I sent it in to be checked out before I used it. I read reviews of the thing after I bought it - and was shocked to find out that my favorite PSU company at the time produced such a mediocre product, and that the problem I had was discussed in reviews many months before I bought the one I did. Basically, they knew about it and didn't bother to fix it.
I liked them when they were first getting known, now, not so much. It's a shame, to me, because I do like companies that innovate. I can't really say they make bad products, and I might cut them some slack if I hadn't had a bad service experience on top of everything else, but I can't recommend them or remain silent when someone else does.
Risforrocket - Sunday, February 12, 2012 - link
Take a good look at the FT02 and the TJ10 and the TJ11. TJ11 is too expensive but if they made one with the same design (exactly) but did it for, say 300 or 350USD it would be perhaps the best case of all time.I have the FT02. It has two issues that I am aware of: It has only 5 3 1/2 drive bays and the 5 1/4 bay devices can't extend back behind the bays much at all, not enough room. These are limitations imposed by the dimensions of the case.
Silverstone is capable of producing a very nice case. You have to study it though before you buy. So true of so many things, alas.
I have also had a very good customer support experience with them.
zlandar - Friday, February 10, 2012 - link
After my latest build with a Corsair 500R I'm not going back to cases with screws everywhere.Is it really too much to ask for nice amenities where the side panels are fitted with thumbscrews that are designed so they don't fall off when you unscrew the panel?
Drive bays that you can secure into place without screws?
Premounted screws for the motherboard for ATX boards?
Fan controller?
Gigantopithecus - Friday, February 10, 2012 - link
Try shipping a case that doesn't use screws to secure the hard drives.Death666Angel - Friday, February 10, 2012 - link
I've had one case with toolless installation (an NZXT with 4 120mm fans in the side, forgot the name) and really don't like it. I don't switch peripherals often enough (every few months at most) and like the stability and standard of having screws. Having toolless stuff means a potential issue with non-standard use cases (5.25"/3.5" adapters) and can lead to less than optimal noise and security performances. On the plus side, it might save you a few minutes when setting everything up. For me, that's a no brainer in favor of screws! :DImpulses - Sunday, February 12, 2012 - link
Yeah, I think case reviewers place too much emphasis on tool-less designs... I can't blame them, I'd go nutty reviewing even half a dozen cases a year if they all used screws everywhere (and I'm pretty sure Dustin is going thru double or triple that amount of cases/year right now)...Realistically though, unless you're pretty hardcore I don't see most enthusiasts doing more than one or two hardware upgrades a year, if that. GPUs are the one thing I upgrade the most often, followed by drives, and those are generally easy swaps even with screws.
If I was upgrading mobos every year I'm not sure I'd even bother with an ATX case, I'd probably just use some sort of closet-bound rack...
Robalov - Friday, February 10, 2012 - link
I don't believe this case should have reached the market in this form, and deserves another iteration of design. From the review, it looks all the changes made to the standard layout are uneccessary and return low/little benefit.It's too expensive to boot. Since I am not a 'fan' of silverstone, I would never consider buying this.
The TJ08 however would be 1st choise for that form factor, and will certainly (barring something better) be in my next project.
Death666Angel - Friday, February 10, 2012 - link
This case is ATX while the TJ08(-E) are mATX. So different form factor. :-) But awesome case!Iketh - Friday, February 10, 2012 - link
too many fans!!