Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 Case Review: You Asked For It, You Got It
by Dustin Sklavos on November 27, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- quiet
- ATX
- Nanoxia
Noise and Thermal Testing, Stock
The Nanoxia Deep SIlence 1's cooling design introduces a few minor wrinkles into the usual testing procedures. I can't complain about the inclusion of an analog fan controller or the switchable chimney in the top of the case, but it does increase the amount of time spent testing the case. To simplify things, I opted to test the DS1 with the fans turned all the way down and all the way up, and with the chimney opened and closed at both fan settings. Even at their lowest settings, the fans do still spin, but I found myself incredibly surprised by some of the results and you may very well be, too.
Ambient temperature during testing was between 22C and 23C.
Temperatures with the fans turned all the way down are pretty poor, but if you max them out the DS1 easily beats the Corsair 550D and BitFenix Ghost. Pay special attention to how the DS1 ranks against the 550D, because if Nanoxia can get it out here at their targeted MSRP, they're going to be undercutting Corsair. What's really surprising, too, is that the DS1's load thermals with the fans all the way up are actually competitive with performance-oriented cases.
Fan speeds are reflective of the differences in thermal performance we saw. With the case fans on high, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo and GTX 560 Ti's fans don't have to work nearly as hard.
And here's the haymaker. Even with fans turned all the way up, the DS1 is still quieter than every other case. There's an audible difference between low and high that's unfortunately beneath the noise threshold of my sound meter; at low the case can really only be heard in a silent room in the dead of night. That said, the fans Nanoxia includes with the DS1 are very efficient, as is the cooling design of the case. More powerful (and louder) fans could probably easily shoot thermal performance to the top of the charts.
I'd also like to point out that the DS1's chimney has a very negligible effect on thermals and noise, which is both good and bad news depending on your perspective. It's good news because it means that keeping it open won't appreciably increase the noise the case produces, but bad news because it doesn't actually contribute in a meaningful way to case cooling.
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Grok42 - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
What are you thoughts on the Nanoxia's door? I like the split door compromise.I personally have moved from loving doors for providing a clean look to wanting cases with no external bays and no door for the same clean look. However, given the size of the Nanoxia I can't fault it for some external bays as cases of typical size typically have 5 or more bays. If you scaled up most mid-ATX cases up to the Nanoxia's size they would have 20 5.25" bays.
johnsonjohnson - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link
Looks like the Define R4's twin. If only they could merger into one..johnsonjohnson - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link
..which they did to become the DS2. I'm sure Dustin will be looking at that one too. I wonder how it would fare against its future twin (R5) though.vhx - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link
Looks more like an Antec P280 to me.martyrant - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link
First off, well written and informative review Dustin.Second, sans the things you already mentioned (that were of course quite minor) the only major flaw I see that was not mentioned is the lack of a SD/card reader. They're already eating up the top 5.25" bay with the fan controller/reset button, there's obviously room to put at the very least a SD card reader there, which would mean most likely people would not need the 5.25" to 3.5" adapter.
Thanks for this review, I hadn't heard of this case before and would very much like it to come to the States in time for Haswell!
FragKrag - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link
Doesn't really seem like that big of a flaw to me... I don't know any cases off the top of my head that come with an SD card readermartyrant - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link
NZXT has one I believe, and if you already have almost everything perfect, there's no reason to not attempt pure perfection.Death666Angel - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link
It would for some people. :DI personally don't need a card reader and don't want one either. All my stuff is handled by a USB cable to the necessary device (camera, phone, tablet...). If this had a reader, it would take away from the clean look and give me something ugly that's never getting used.
martyrant - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link
Are your eyes not working? Ignorant? Not read the article or look at the case at all?The card reader would be behind the top front door...and would not effect aesthetics at all.
Death666Angel - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - link
Wow, you clearly have no issues with criticism.It would not destroy the aesthetics, except when I use anything that is behind the top front door....