Be Quiet Silent Base 800 Case Review

You may have noticed the slot under the drive bays before.  That slot allows you to snap off the bottom of the front panel and expose two of the included be quiet! Pure Wing 2 140mm fans.  We could write an entire separate review on these fans.  They are that good.  These three pin fans are rated at 18.8 dBa and push 61.62 cfm.  It’s nice to recommend keeping the case fans not upgrading them first thing!

Both fans are covered by a removable dust filter and mounted in color matched rubber grommets to prevent vibration.  With the front fans drawing air up from the bottom and from the side vents the front cover can be covered in sound deadening material as well.  I know silence is a factor but it’s hard to not visualize all the cool mods you could plan with that entire untouched front surface!  Maybe just some orange accent lights in the venting would be enough to scratch that itch.

The back of the SB 800 features a reversible PSU mount for fan up or fan down installations.  Three external water cooling ports are provided for your water-cooling needs.  The third be quiet! Pure Wing 2 fan provides exhaust duties.  This time it’s a 120mm fan rated at 19.2 dBa and pushing 51.4 cfm.  This space will also hold a 140mm fan or radiator as needed.

Let’s take a closer look at that top panel.  Rather than provide the usual mesh surface for air flow, be quiet!’s engineers have created sort of a sound chamber on both the top and bottom of the case.  On the top the extra space allows the optional two extra fans to breathe out the top and back without creating much additional noise.  The top also allows for mounting a double sized radiator up to 140x 280 mm.  Paired with another set of be quiet! fans you can dramatically increase cooling without adding much noise.

Coming back around to the doors reveals the central 120mm fan mounting is a separate piece on each side.  The be quiet! branded cover is actually a three position vent that can be adjusted for airflow and noise reduction or closed completely.  Having this piece as a separate panel makes it easy to remove or mod in the absence of a window. A nice orange light would provide great background lighting here as well.  Just know that you are risking added noise when you tinker with a silenced case design too much!

On the inside you can see the same attention to sound deadening is given to both the side panels.  As with all the removable pieces the fit and finish is class leading with no sharp edges or loose fittings.   I would have liked to see an option for a 140mm or larger fan here but in most installations you won’t need it.