A case of new identity
The SilverStone Temjin TJ-10 is the appropriately named successor to a HEXUS favourite, the TJ-09. The main difference between the two models is at the front end. The TJ-10 has a newly-added door and there's has been a bit of housekeeping, too. The buttons located on the front are the same but are aligned on a right-hand shallow cut that runs down the door and onwards to the bottom of the fascia.
One nice touch is that the door can be reversed if you'd prefer it to be hinged on the left, rather than the right. The job requires no tools and simply involves sliding two clips towards each other, then switching their positions and re-hanging the door. It's easy to do and the system works well. The number of externally-accessible drive bays is the same as with the TJ-09 - four 5.25in and one 3.5in. And there's room for six more 3.5in bays within the case.
Apparently SilverStone is pretty happy with the layout of the TJ-09 because, apart from the addition of a door on the TJ-10, there are very few other changes. Naturally, the TJ-10 is an all-aluminium affair. It weighs 13kg and comes in black and silver versions, each available with and without a side-panel window. Windowed versions look to carry a price premium of around £10 which strikes us as a little steep when the windowless model is already pitched at £195-plus.
Like the TJ-09, the TJ-10's party piece is integrated cooling for the GPU area of the chassis. Our review of the 09 showed that it does work but won't make much of difference until the GPU is under serious load. The new version of the GPU-cooling solution features a branded black aluminium shield covering the fan and acting as a finger-guard. However, that isn't its main purpose. It's actually a retention mechanism for super-long, uber-powerful graphic workstation cards that use AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. While we appreciate SilverStone's thoughtfulness, the design of the guard-cum-retainer may limit air-shifting. We also think that the whole cooling assembly is a bit noisy.
So what's the verdict? Well SilverStone has produced another great chassis. That's not hard, though, when the newcomer is so little different from one of our favourite cases of last year. That said, we think the price is high - probably too high when the case has only two fans pre-fitted and comes with little in the way of accessories. Mind you, the TJ-10 is still a very quiet chassis overall but that may not be true once you fit the extra fans that really should have been there out of the box. Or is that the very reason why SilverStone doesn't fit extra fans?
The SilverStone Temjin TJ-10 just about offers enough to merit a HEXUS Extreme recommendation - but it's a close thing. What tipped us over is that while the case is pricey, it's aimed at a money-no-object market. However, there are comparable - arguably superior - cases that offer better value.
For the full-length review click here.
