be quiet! Silent Base 800 Case Review

Building into the be quiet Silent Base 800 (Orange) Computer Case

The build is as followed:
– Gryphon ASUS Z87 Intel LGA 1150 Motherboard w/ Gryphon shell added
– Intel i7 4770k
– 8GB of Avexir DDR3 1600 RAM
– “be quiet” 850 Watt Dark Power Pro 10 (Seasonic)
– “be quiet” Shadow Rock CPU Cooler with Pure Wing 2 fan
– Western Digital 500GB Black hard drive
– SanDisk Ultra Plus SDSSDHP-256G-G25 2.5″ 256GB SATA III MLC (SSD)
– GIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD GeForce GTX 760 4GB

The “be quiet!” Silent Base 800 (Orange) Computer Case is really easy to build into. Everything is tooled to fit very well so lets take a look at what we did.

First was to install the power supply. While some people do not have a preference of how to start building I like the start with the power supply and prep the wire routing even before I do anything else. If you also notice I took advantage of the internal fan of the power supply to intake air from the cabin by turning the power supply fan up, since I didn’t have room for a 120 intake case fan.

Installing psu 3

One very important part of a build that is easy to forget is putting in the I/O shield before you install the board. On the be quiet! Silent Base Case I found that everything lined up perfectly well even to the micro-meter and this can be a problem sometimes with case that doesn’t have the same tolerance that this case has. This case lines up perfect.

I/O Sheild

The fit of the 850 Watt be quiet! Power supply that I added took up too much space for adding the bottom 120 fan so if you plan on using that 120 fan mount down under, it would be good to keep your power supply box to a maximum length of 6 inches or 15.25 cm. This length should be easy since most quiet connoisseur don’t use dual video cards so a small 650 Watt would work great but any size power supply will fit. It’s just that a long one will not give you the space to install a bottom intake fan.

Power supply 1

I routed my cables to where they would be going before installing the motherboard. One of the biggest reasons is room for the CPU 8 pin pin-out at the top of the motherboard. It is good to think of your cable routing as soon as you start and make sure that you plug in any fans or power connections before mounting the board or you will be dismounting it and mounting it again twice. That is a big rub on the ego and the time that it takes for building in any case.

The CPU power connector hole was in a great spot and was really easy to route and I used an extension as usual since its difficult to deal with this cable unless you have a lot of wire. Adding an extension gives you all the room that you need.

P8 Connection

Now to work with you board. This can take some time. You don’t want to install the graphics card but you do want to install the CPU, CPU Cooler, and the Memory before you install the motherboard into place. The more you are able to do the better. With this build I used a be quiet! air cooler for this build since I was looking for silence and good cooling performance. I was able to achieve this with no problems with great results. The motherboard guide pin was not hard to find and once I was able to insert the pin into the center hole on the motherboard.

Motherboard mount pin

Once the motherboard guide pin is inserted into the hole firmly you know that you motherboard is perfectly lined up with the bump type motherboard standoffs. I readied my magnetic screwdriver and the screw and inserted each one. Remember that if you are installing a Micro ATX board like I did you will need to use the two standard screw-in stand-offs that come with the case. They do not come per-installed so if you are using the Micro-ATX Motherboard you need to install them before installing the motherboard to the guide pin. Here are the screws I used to mount the motherboard.

Motherboard screws

One thing to keep in mind with this case is that once you have lined up the I/O Shield with the board and then inserted the motherboard guide pin into the center hole in the motherboard you will find that you can let go of the board for installing screws and finishing up plugging in the pin-outs that you will be using for the build that you are doing.

Motherboard install

Building into the “be quiet! Silent Base 800 was really easy. I did not run into any problems to note. The case is very well made and high tolerances were kept to make every hole in every area fit where it needed to go but I would have made the bottom access hole for the main power supply wires to fan out on the back and a few more tie-downs for wire management in the back. Getting to the PCI Slot covers was very easy and they do take a Phillips head screwdriver to loosen the thumb screws so you will need a screw driver and some cutters for basic wire tie trimming.

PCI slot ready

The video card that I used for this build is the GIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD GeForce GTX 760 4GB which has a length of 11.5 inches or 292mm. The center hard drive module can be removed for larger cards but I did not have to remove the module as the card fit perfectly, but anything bigger than this would probably need to be fitted without that center drive module.

Also you notice that I have already installed one mechanical hard drive to the build an installing this drive was really easy to do as well. In all this is a very easy case to build in except for some wire room issues in the back.

Full finished build

To mount a typical hard drive to the module you simply like up a rail with ears out on each side of the drive securing each rail with two thumbscrews. First thing I thought was maybe these are the wrong screws they are so big, But there is plenty of room for them without a single problem.

Mech. hard drive install

Adding the optical DVD drive into the case was very simple to do but you need to know that the Tool-less mount on the 5 1/4 bay comes in the locked position so just unlock it and then slide the drive in with wires in already and do it without the front face. It’s easier to do it with the face removed. Then just click the six plastic tabs that hold the front face in and add a screw to the back side of the bay to sure up the drive. If you are planning on using a fan controller use the flat face touch screen models because the door will not close otherwise.

ODD Drive installed

In the end there are the lights on the top of the case. There are 4 lights that illuminate the on/off button and a light that operates the hard drive working light. The case is meant to be seen and not heard but also this color of orange for this model is low key light and not enough to cause a problem with a sleeping spouse or baby in the same room.

all lit up

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