Final Thoughts and Rating

HEXUS Snapshot:

Managing to keep a system equipped with various ultra-high-end components barely audible during everyday tasks is the obvious treat, but Cooler Master's sprinkling of well-thought-out features provides much more.

Cooler Master's Silencio 650 isn't the most visually attractive chassis, but spend some time with it and you can quite easily fall for some of its many charms.

Managing to keep a system equipped with various ultra-high-end components barely audible during everyday tasks is the obvious treat, but Cooler Master's sprinkling of well-thought-out features provides much more. The integrated fan controller makes it easy to switch between performance and quiet modes, the front-facing hot-swap bay is always useful, some users are bound to appreciate the baked-in dual-boot functionality, and the SD card reader is the icing on the cake.

But quiet enclosures tend to carry a few provisos and the Silencio 650 is no exception. Cooling performance with the fans set to low speed is adequate but no more - this arguably isn't a chassis for multiple hot-running GPUs - cable management could be improved, and the £110 price tag represents an obvious hurdle. We'd like to see Cooler Master get this one on the right side of £100, but even so, anyone hoping to make their desktop tower a whole lot quieter should be taking a closer look at the Silencio 650.

The Good

Can be whisper-quiet in use
Integrated fan controller
Relatively easy to build into
Dual-boot functionality could be useful
Includes hot-swap drive bay and SD card reader

The Bad

May struggle to cool multiple high-end GPUs
Cable clutter could be an issue

HEXUS Rating

Cooler Master Silencio 650

HEXUS Awards

Cooler Master Silencio 650

HEXUS Where2Buy

The Cooler Master Silencio 650 chassis is available to purchase from Scan Computers*.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!

Nice looking…just not as nice looking as the Corsair 550…(subjective opinion of course), combined with the cable & GPU limitations, why would anyone choose this over a 550.?

Nice case, unfortunetly i bought Zalman Z9, but i think i like this one more:)

Bagpuss
Nice looking…just not as nice looking as the Corsair 650…(subjective opinion of course), combined with the cable & GPU limitations, why would anyone choose this over a 650.?

My 650 runs silent in idle too, without any damping mods. Its called using a motherboard with good auto fan settings.

The actual components inside the case are more important when looking at silent computing. On this case, it is decent for the price.

I love this chassis. It's great that it can be hermetically sealed and you can get away with installing just one or two fans in the appropriate places. I can bet I could make a really silent PC with it. However, I still have to make my own custom chassis, because all I need is two holes for two fans in it. The faster rotating one moving air out, and the slower rotating one moving air in. In my current PC, I actually managed to get away with only one fan that moves the air out, and a “strategically placed” hole in the back… it's all about the optimal airflow. You can have 6 fans that just do a mess to the airflow and don't achieve better cooling than only two fans. What they do achieve is formidable amount of noise, though… ;) Cheers!