The Bottom Line
Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing
Cooler Master is no stranger to our reviews, whether it be their cooler, Peripheral, or chassis components. Today we have the latter with the newest entry to the Silencio series the S600. The Silencio Series is designed to combat other silence focused entries such as those form Fractal Design, BeQuiet among so many others as of recent.
The S600 chassis is designed to be a sleek entry with numerous noise-reducing features to make it more enticing to silent PC enthusiasts. The Silencio S600 comes in two variants, with one having a solid steel panel with sound deadening, while they offered a tempered glass panel option as well.
Some key features for the Silencio S600 form Cooler Masters website are as follows:
- Silencio Design
- Silencio Technology
- Sound Dampening Material
- Seamless Tempered Glass or Sound-Dampened Steel
- Top & Front Ventilation
- Reversible Steel Door
This shows that the focus is the reduction of audibility, which is a given based on the name and everything we have said to this point. I will be interested to see if the feature set holds a candle to the existing high-profile entries in the silent space.
The Silencio S600 comes with two versions, as mentioned previously and two, part numbers. The one we have out of the box is the solid silence version with the part number of MCS-S600-KN5N-S00. The tempered glass version swaps the steel panel for the tempered glass version and carries a part number of MCS-S600-KG5N-S00. The S600 measures a height of 470.5mm, depth of 478mm, and a width of 209mm.
Motherboard fitment for the S600 is ITX to ATX, with no EATX mentioned. 3.5" fitment is up to four pieces, while 2.5" fitment can reach up to five. Standard ATX PSUs are supported at a length of up to 180mm. The outer lower edge of the chassis acts as the outer shell of the lower chamber, which also is a PSU shroud. This shroud allows mounting of up to three 2.5" drives shown in the main component chamber. The front of the PSU shroud is cut back a bit to allow radiator and fan stacks to enter the area below into the PSU chamber.
Cooling fitment for the S600 is quite decent, although I would prefer the omission of the 5.25" bay in order to fit a 360mm upfront. However, I digress, fan fitment is up to dual 120mm or 140mm fans in the front and top, while the rear can accommodate a single 120mm. The front radiator fitment is up to 240mm for 120mm based radiators and 280mm for 140mm base. The top allows for a single or dual 120mm radiator as long as your motherboard component height and RAM do not exceed 35mm high, so I would say that top radiator mounting is not really an option with most RGB memory models. CPU cooler height is limited to 166mm on the TG panel, and 167mm with the steel panel. The S600 comes with two fans pre-installed, which are 120mm based and PWM, which is nice. The fans come preinstalled with one in the front for intake, and a fan in the rear for exhaust.
The current market price for the S600 at the time of writing is $99.99, and this places the S600 in quite the crowded grouping. Contenders for this spot would be the Meshify C from Fractal Design, the P400A from Phanteks, the 220T from Corsair, and even the H510i from NZXT. This is gonna be an uphill battle for the S600, and it will be interesting as we dig into the chassis to see how it will shake out.
Shannon's Chassis Test System Specifications
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero (Wi-Fi) Z390 (buy from Amazon)
- CPU: Intel Core i7 8700K (buy from Amazon)
- Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H60 (buy from Amazon)
- Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB CMW32GX4M4C3000C15 (buy from Amazon)
- Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z (buy from Amazon)
- Storage: SanDisk M.2 256GB
- Power Supply: SilverStone Strider Platinum 1000W (buy from Amazon)
- OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit (buy from Amazon)
Cooler Master Silencio S600 Mid-Tower Chassis
Today | Yesterday | 7 days ago | 30 days ago | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
CAD $158.98 | CAD $158.98 | CAD $158.98 | |||
* Prices last scanned on 5/20/2024 at 3:32 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission. |
Packaging
The front of the packaging for the S600 is very clean, with only a line drawing of the S600 chassis taking up the majority. Offset to the left; we have the Cooler Master logo taking the top while the name takes the lower flank.
Spinning the box ninety degrees shows us a line drawing of the S600 head-on with the front panel.
Spinning the package another ninety degrees and we reach the rear of the package, which has a small marketing blurb about the S600 along with feature lists with five bullet points translated into eight languages including English.
Spinning the final ninety degrees gives us another thin edge that houses the spec table along with QR codes to the Cooler Master website and product registration page. There are also inventory control labels and conformity icons at the lower edge.
Puling the S600 from the package and we have the chassis, which is wrapped in a plastic bag and then is encapsulated at both ends with hard Styrofoam end caps. The glossy plastic on the chassis also has cling film in place to avoid small hairline scratches as the plastic can easily take abrasions even while cleaning.
Cooler Master Silencio S600 Mid-Tower Chassis
Looking head-on, much like the package side shows, we see that the profile mirrors what we saw on the package. The front is a mostly blank slate of black with a fine-textured painted surface. The only thing breaking the aesthetic is the Cooler Master logo outline found in the lower-mid section of the S600 front panel. The shiny silver feet, which are round post style, can be observed peeking out from below the chassis.
Looking up top, we find that the area where ventilation would be found has a sound deadening panel magnetically affixed over this space. Don't worry; the chassis comes with a magnetic filter you can place here, after removing the sound deadening pane should you elect to open it up for airflow. The I/O is also found up top, running from the front toward the rear along the right side.
The I/O, as stated previously runs up the cable management side of the chassis and here is its layout:
- Power Button with power LED halo
- Reset switch with HDD activity LED
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports
- Combo headphone and microphone 3.5mm jack
- SD Card Reader
I will say that the inclusion of an SD card reader is something I do not see very often. This is a nice convenience for many users and welcome addition for a chassis at this price level. The shaping of the power button into the CM logo is another nice piece of attention to detail. I do appreciate the clean aesthetic Cooler Master has moved to by removing the text and leaving the outline of the logo, as it is apparent while still fading into the background.
The model we received has a solid steel main panel with sound deadening material. The other option is the TG version, which has a tempered glass panel, and that is the only difference. In order to show both options, Cooler Master sent the glass panel separately, which I will show in the accessory break down and the final build. For the teardown, we will look at the chassis as provided. Here you see the main panel is the large 75-80% coverage steel panel with the lower section being exterior of the same type but also serving as the exterior top the PSU shroud.
Flipping around the back of the S600, and we see that everything here is pretty standard fare. The gap between the top of the fan and motherboard I/O shield opening shows that there is some room allocated for roof-mounted cooling, just mind the 35mm advised height limit for motherboard components. The expansion slots are externally accessible and employ a cover to keep things shrouded and tidy out back. The gap between the I/O cutout and the cable management panel side hints at some reasonable cable management space being allocated, which as well is always welcome.
Spinning one final time to the cable management side of the chassis now. Here we have the steel panel which covers this side, and it has internal sound deadening material affixed to help absorb abhorrent noise. We also can see the silver round feet at the bottom peeking out. Upfront, we can see the glossy plastic, which shrouds the ventilation opening on the front panel area. As you can see here toward the rear, both the main and cable management panel use thumbscrews to affix the panel and stamped in pull handles for removal.
Laying the S600 down, we see the four round plastic feet with rubberized foam pads on them to help avoid skidding. The ventilation for the PSU is also present with a cheaper filter in place. This is not one of the easy to remove pull out filters, but even lacking the plastic frame it is still removable and cleanable, it just takes more work to do it. Upfront, we see a small pass through on the underside of the door, along with a pull tab for removing the front panel entirely, which we will be doing next.
Inside the Silencio S600
Flipping open the door on the S600, we see the door internally is lined with a foam material which is designed to help with noise isolation and absorption. The door can be reversed to open the opposite direction should you have the need. Behind the door, we see a louvered and filtered air inlet design. Something less common these days is the 5.25" bay in place. The filter can be removed by pulling on the tab located at the top center of the intake opening.
Pulling the filter and we see that the front fan mounts are numbering two and a half. They are only ever so slightly slotted for fitment but not like we have seen and praised other chassis for doing. This limited movement means that you have a very little adjustment for how you want your fans positioned. Also of note are the flat spots at the top and bottom of the fan openings, which likely helps stiffen the steel, it may induce excess noise from the fans at higher speeds or loading conditions. I also see why the spec lists only dual-fan radiators in place upfront as the top half fan hole leads right into the 5.25" bay area.
Pulling the entire front panel and we can see it is retained by plastic pegs with a friction fit. The 5.25" bay can be removed, but still, I do not believe that a triple fan radiator will fit, but it is close, and with a little work, I think it could be done.
Puling the side panel, we see the main chamber. The main chamber is fairly wide open, with only the 5.25" bay cutting into the real estate of the inner chamber. The recess of the motherboard tray below the area in front of it now makes sense why EATX was not specified. The passthroughs are longer but not super wide, so larger bundles of cables may be a bit tricky. The CPU backplate cutout is large and sufficient for any CPU cooler and board combo I have seen to date.
Here we get a peek from the inside of the fan mounting and the front intake fan, which comes preinstalled. This is a 120mm based unit, which is PWM controlled. This is a welcome feature as it helps have a more controllable ramping, which can reduce noise. Also, the blade sweep is quite extreme.
Pulling the solid panel from the top reveals the top fan and radiator mounting. As you can see, it is quite open and should allow for some decent airflow. Included with the S600 was a magnetic fan filter, which we also showed installed here. This, of course, will allow a bit more system noise out from the chassis but also will allow heat to be exhausted or even air to be taken in, depending upon your configuration.
The PSU shroud area does what you would expect; it hides the PSU. It also has a bunch of holes that are used for mounting 2.5" drives via rubber isolation washers. Toward the front of the S600, we see the cutout in the PSU shroud, which serves to allow front-mounted radiators to pass into the PSU chamber.
Inside the Silencio S600 Continued
Peeking at the rear from the inside, we see the second of the preinstalled 120mm fans. This one is PWM, just like the intake one upfront. We also get a view of the seven expansions slots which are externally accessible to give you that ten or so millimeters of extra internal volume.
Opening the rear panel, we get a glimpse into what Cooler Master has done to make your life easier in the cable management department. There are several tie-downs here, and Cooler Master defaults the cables to go through the middle, which is standard. I do think, however, that running the chassis front panel cables down the front channel may help tidy things up a bit, we will see when we build. We also see the PSU area and HDD cage locations, which we will look at next.
The 3.5" HDD cage is fixed in place and not movable, so whether you use it or not, it's a fixture. One thing I am unsure of is that Cooler Master opted for side rails for 3.5" drives, which means you cannot repurpose a tray in this area for 2.5" drives. Many users are starting to omit mechanical storage media as NAND prices drop precipitously, and SSD's are simply a far more feature-driven option. I do think that while Cooler Master's solution is nice, the trays while simple and old school allowed for the cage to be used if needed without 3.5" drives.
The PSU area is what you would expect with four raised pads for the PSU to rest on. The raised areas are cushioned with a rubberized foam, which enables a soft place for the PSU to rest on without metal to metal contact. The cage is close by, which is why Cooler Master lists the max PSU size as 180mm.
The front panel cable array is as follows:
- Power button, reset button, power and HDD LED connectors
- HD Audio connector
- USB connector for the SD Card reader
- USB 3.2 Gen 1 connector for the dual Type-A USB ports
This is enough for the included I/O, and I do like the inclusion of the SD card reader. However, if you do not use an SD card reader and your board is limited on internal USB pin headers, you can omit to plug that one in, in favor of your AIO, or whatever else your system may use on the USB 2.0 bus.
Also pictured here is the three-way splitter which comes preinstalled on the two fans in the chassis. I took it out so you can see it and how it works. The three-way splitter has a brown connector, which is where the main or only fan should connect as it has all four pins and allows the controller or motherboard to see the RPM of the fan. The other two fans receive a power, ground, and PWM signal to synchronize the fans.
Hardware & Documentation
Here is a list of the accessories that come in the accessory pack in the Silencio S600.
- 6x 3.5" drive cage mounts (two per drive)
- Standoff tool
- 13x motherboard and PSU mounting screws
- 20x SSD soft mount pegs
- 4x 3.5" soft mount pegs
- 24x soft mount rubber washers
- 10x Zip ties
The accessory kit is very good and covers everything you could mount in the chassis, except for large knurled fan screws.
Here we have the magnetic fan filter for the top of the chassis if you opt to remove the silence panel at the top.
Also included with my review unit is the tempered glass panel. Obviously, this will not be included in your case if you order the solid steel option. If you order the TG model, this panel will be on the chassis when you receive it. IT is lightly tinted as you can see, but let's move on so we can get to installing it and seeing how the S600 looks.
The manual is a multi-page affair which is mostly all illustration based to help users understand how to build in the S600. They do list the fasteners by letter and illustrate that in the build images, which will be helpful to newer builders. There is also a warranty card included in the paperwork.
Case Build & Finished Product
The front of the S600 looks no different when built, being that the front is solid steel and no venting or any sort of pass-through is visible. This could be a nice option for a sleek build that needs to be in an office environment or even an extreme home theatre; I say extreme due to the size.
Here we have our test build complete in the chassis. As you can see, everything fit without a hitch, and all areas were adequately spaced to allow easy installation. The passthrough areas were good, but the 24-pin was a bit troublesome as the clip kept catching the rubber as it was passed through. As you can see, we went ahead and installed 2.5" drives on the PSU shroud to show where the drives can go. Obviously, your SSD's will likely look better than the mechanical spinners we installed here.
The rear shows our build installed, and all of the gaps have been filled. The externally accessible expansion slots are easy enough to work with, and I commend Cooler Master on the cover design as it doesn't just fall off when you remove the screws. This made reinstallation much easier.
Here we peek into the nether regions of every build, the cable management. As you can see, the tire downs are well used here, and we also took the time to populate the HDD cage and the two extra 2.5" mounts. Overall, managing the cables in the S600 was standard and was not overly difficult to accomplish.
Here we show the system with the solid panel and glass panel but powered off. The solid panel, of course, shows nothing and looks just the same as a new out of the box chassis. Moving to the glass panel and things open and you can now view your system through the slightly tinted glass. The glass is only lightly tinted, so make sure your cable management on the visible side is tidy as you will be able to see it when built.
Powering the system on and we get what you would expect, and that's all the lit components jumping to life. With a solid panel, you would be none the wiser except for the power LED halo around the power switch. Overall, both panels look good and serve a specific set of users.
Final Thoughts
When I first saw the Silencio S600, I knew it had the potential to take make a good spot for itself among the silent PC case category. When I started building in it, I feel that like most Cooler Master cases, it is well put together and does its job, while offering good features. The S600 won't knock your socks off, but it will do what its made to do well.
During testing, we recorded an ambient of 21.9C with an RH of 40%. With the front door closed, we measured and average delta over ambient of 55.3C on the CPU and 39.9C on the GPU. Not the worst we have recorded, but far from the best. This was like what we observed with the Define 7 from Fractal Design. Opening the front door and retesting, we observed a drop in the average delta over ambient of nearly 2C on the CPU and a little over 2C on the GPU, so the S600 door chokes airflow a bit.
What we like
The S600 is a simple enough case with a sleek design. The solid steel version looks clean and unsuspecting for those who may not know and can fit in most areas where an RGB lit gaming PC may not be appropriate. Cooler Master doubled down with a TG version, which changes the style a bit to be more of an enthusiast-focused option. The included three-way splitter is a nice one as it is functional and can be managed away. The inclusion of PWEM fans by default is good for noise abatement along with being decent quality, which means you do not have to replace them right out of the gate. The ability to flip the doors opening direction is a good option to allow the case to fit on whichever side you need it. The SD Card reader is nice for those who need it, but it is limited to USB 2.0 speeds.
What do we think could be better?
The front door choking the airflow is not a good thing. I have been over this several times, and it is never acceptable or a compromise I am willing to consider acceptable. The use of side 3.5": mounts makes me wish the drive cage was removable as it cannot be repurposed to fit 2.5" drives if someone wanted to. The shiny black plastic on the sides of the front panel is not only a fingerprint and dust magnet, but it's also easily scratched. The poor quality filter on the PSU could be better and should be at this price point, but I feel like that may be a bit of a stretch as far as gripes go.
The Silencio at its current $99.99 price it demands, I feel a bit mixed. There are several cases you can get other than the Silencio S600, but if you want the sleek, subdued styling, I feel like you are a bit hard-pressed to find another option. I do feel like what the chassis offers with the right build and maybe a few more fans, it could be a great build. The stealth nature of the aesthetic, along with a reasonable performance at a price, is what wins it a recommendation. It's not a chart-topper, but your rig won't meltdown either.
Shannon's Chassis Test System Specifications
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero (Wi-Fi) Z390 (buy from Amazon)
- CPU: Intel Core i7 8700K (buy from Amazon)
- Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H60 (buy from Amazon)
- Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB CMW32GX4M4C3000C15 (buy from Amazon)
- Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z (buy from Amazon)
- Storage: SanDisk M.2 256GB
- Power Supply: SilverStone Strider Platinum 1000W (buy from Amazon)
- OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit (buy from Amazon)
Performance |
90% |
Quality |
91% |
Features |
92% |
Value |
90% |
Overall |
91% |
The Cooler Master Silencio S600 sets out to be a solid silence-focused option. It achieves that while offering reasonable cooling levels and a clean aesthetic.
Cooler Master Silencio S600 Mid-Tower Chassis
Today | Yesterday | 7 days ago | 30 days ago | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
CAD $158.98 | CAD $158.98 | CAD $158.98 | |||
* Prices last scanned on 5/20/2024 at 3:32 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission. |
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