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
In and Around the SilverStone Temjin TJ04-E
I recently sold some hardware to a builder who actually bemoaned how common the understated black monolith enclosures were becoming. To an extent you can see where he's coming from, but the sleek brushed aluminum fascia and silver trim of the SilverStone Temjin TJ04-E is pretty tough to complain about.
Where vendors like Fractal Design are increasingly eschewing external drive bays, SilverStone opts for a quartet of 5.25" bays each covered with a black brushed aluminum bay shield that nicely complements the face of the tower. Below them are the power button, power and HDD activity LEDs, and reset button; the power button is probably the stiffest one I've ever seen and requires a little bit of force to power on the machine. It's not a bad thing, just something I noticed during testing. Since the power and reset buttons are going to see fairly infrequent use, SilverStone opted to move the connectivity to the top of the enclosure instead of keeping it chained up with the switches.
The top of the TJ04-E is home to a recessed pair of USB 3.0 ports (using a motherboard header as pretty much all modern cases now do) as well as the audio jacks, and then in the back is a removable cover for the two fan mounts that conceals a removable, easy-to-clean fan filter. When we get to the rear of the case, it's business as usual, although SilverStone is kind enough to include an eighth expansion slot as is becoming de rigeur.
Your first hint that things might be a little different with SilverStone's new enclosure is the lack of ventilation in the left side panel; meanwhile, the right side panel features a 120x240mm vent (which includes the same type of removable cover and fan filter as the top.)
When you do open up the TJ04-E, you'll see why the vents are where they are and why there's no front intake ventilation: the TJ04-E takes in air from the right side and the top instead of the front. Cool outside air essentially runs through and is deflected by hard drives in the drive cage, as well as being pulled in from above to move through the CPU heatsink assembly and out the back of the case.
SilverStone uses a toolless design for securing the bay shields, but pretty much everything else inside the TJ04-E requires tools. The drive cage is secured by four screws, and drives are screwed in instead of placed on rails. There's also a smaller secondary cage at the bottom of the enclosure for six 2.5" drives, secured with four small screws. In the midst of all this SilverStone includes a 120mm fan mount, and while they don't include a fan installed, it seems clear to me that they intend for you to use it (at least if you're running multiple hard drives). Finally, there's a healthy amount of space behind the motherboard tray (particularly next to the power supply) for cables to be routed.
There are just enough tweaks in the TJ04-E's design to make one curious about how everything will play out in practice. Even the top fan mounts are actually shifted to the left side of the case to avoid having a 240mm radiator come in contact with memory, chipset, or VRM heatsinks. Yet like virtually all of SilverStone's designs, this isn't expected to be an easy build, so get your power screwdriver ready.
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ckryan - Friday, February 10, 2012 - link
And this is pretty strange. My guess is the team at Silverstone must be a pretty unusual lot.earthrace57 - Sunday, February 12, 2012 - link
Personally, I think case companies such as Li-Lian or SilverStone should stop trying to innovate in the case design; the S design is pretty well proven. Instead, they should innovate in HOW they cool it, for example, take Alienware's "active cooling" to the next level. First, add those fin things alienware did, and, instead of just having them flip up and down uselessly, have a fan connected, so when they flip up, the fan starts up...little things like that that will help idle noise while not hurting performance under loadImpulses - Sunday, February 12, 2012 - link
That kind of solution requires far more money and engineering for questionable results imo... And the S design just sucks. It may be fine for 90% of systems out there, but it's far from optimal for any enthusiast or gamer running one or more high end GPUs (each one generating more heat than an old Pentium 4). You could argue that's a GPU issue but until that market slows down we're far better off with some innovative case designs.Impulses - Sunday, February 12, 2012 - link
Obviously this case is a miss on the GPU-cooling front... At least with the stock config, but I was speaking in general above (and with some of ST's other designs in mind). Frankly I appreciate these reviews for the usual in-depth scope most AT reviews have, but I think the performance metrics are rather worthless, specially as a way of comparison against other cases.I understand why it's done like this, and frankly I can't think of a fairer way of doing it... But I also can't picture any enthusiast worth his salt not making any changes whosoever to the stock cooling of a case in a DIY build, specially when we're talking $150-300 cases.
Sometimes the smallest changes can make a huge difference, it just seems equally unfair to write off some enclosures because they lacked an extra $15 fan. Different mentality I guess... I certainly don't follow the same logic when say, buying a car, even tho I know people who would.
earthrace57 - Sunday, February 12, 2012 - link
The S design hits the hard drives, CPU, RAM, and Chipset, only the GPU's are left to fry, but even then, in most cases (pun not intended) there is a side fan, which hits the GPU directly, so, just add a 10 dollar fan into one of those slots and the S design is all the sudden made quite a bit better. Also, I might just like to point out, to release a fully functioning case (as in not this), extensive tests have to be done, revise, test, revise ect. In this situation, even though the upfront costs are higher, you can get a product that works into the market quicker, without the extra cost and time that it takes to test and then revise a product. (And yes, this fan control would have to be revised, but it wouldn't take nearly the same amount of time as revising a case IMHO)lawrencekellie - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
The Silverstone website does not state that a mini-ITX will fit in the case. Can you confirm or deny whether it actually does?Thank you