Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 Review

Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 Review

Manufacturer: Nanoxia
UK price: £189.00 (inc VAT)
US price: $229.99 (ex Tax)

Nanoxia's entry into the case market is still relatively recent, but it made something of a splash on these pages with its first two chassis, the Deep Silence 1 and the Deep Silence 2. Since then, it has expanded the range with the micro-ATX Deep Silence 4 as well as with two larger full tower cases, the Deep Silence 5 and Deep Silence 6. It's the latter that we're looking at today, and it will set you back £189. This is certainly a lot for an enclosure, but less so when you realise just how much case you're actually getting.


You see, Nanoxia has really gone all out with Deep Silence 6. It's fully in-line with the established Deep Silence aesthetic with clean, minimalist panels, but this monstrous case is capable of housing HPTX, E-ATX and XL-ATX motherboards with ease. It's not as tall as Corsair's Obisidian 900D, but it's not far off, and it's just as wide and deep. It also weighs over 20kg, which means it actually tips the scales at about 2kg heavier than Corsair's beast. The size and weight of it means that maneuvering it is not a simple task – we dread to think how heavy it would be when filled with masses of hardware and water-cooling equipment. Still, it's certainly a sturdy case, especially the metal parts – the plastic on the roof and front panels could be of higher quality if we were to really nitpick, but it's not creaky or bendy.


Atop the plastic front panel is a centralised power button. Moving down, we find two magnetic doors, both of which are back by noise cancelling foam to help shield the user from the din of optical and mechanical drives as well as the front fans. Opening the top one reveals the case's small reset button, as well as two variable speed fan sliders. It makes total sense to hide these away here since they're not going to be used as often as the power button. You also find the four optical drive covers, which can be clipped in and out with ease, so you don't need to remove the front panel to make use of the 5.25-inch bays, one of which can be transformed into an external 3.5-inch bay thanks to the bundled adaptor.


Some large grilles down the side of the front panel provide an airflow inlet for the two front-mounted 140mm fans, which are found behind the lower case door. The mounting mechanism for these, as we've seen before from Nanoxia, is excellent. The fans are housed in individual doors which pop open for easy access. Better yet, the doors are both guarded by their own dust filter, which can be slid out to the side for quick removal and cleaning.

While the right hand side panel has no features, the left one has a pair of 140mm/120mm fan mounts (absent in the windowed edition). The fan mounts are guarded by a cover to seal in noise when they're not in use. This cover is held in position by screws on the inside of the panel, which also fix two separate dust filters in place. Annoyingly, however, the cover is a single sheet of metal, so if you only wanted to use one fan here you'd have to remove the cover for both fan mounts, which would allow more noise to escape. It's a minor issue really, but still an odd one given that Nanoxia designs Deep Silence cases with low noise as a priority at every point. It's also worth noting that the dust filters here are much harder to clean than any of the case's others – you'd have to remove the side panel and the fan(s) to access them.


The roof sees a return to Nanoxia's air chimney design seen in the Deep Silence 1. A single slider (which is a little stiff) controls the two chimneys – slide one way to lift them up and increase ventilation around the roof, and the other way to close them so as to contain sound and seal the roof against dust. It's actually an active design too, as opening the chimney will activate the roof fans, while closing it will automatically turn them off (more on this over the page). The chimneys are both backed by noise dampening material, and beneath them lies another pair of 140mm fans, this time mounted as exhausts, with room for a third too.

We also see Nanoxia's pop out I/O panel. It's a nifty idea in theory if you don't constantly use these ports, but in our sample at least it's poorly implemented. It often gets stuck and doesn't release properly, and even when it does it gets jammed on the way up, pausing at a point where the generous selection of ports are partially blocked, leaving you with the irritating task of having to pull it up every time you want to use one. It could just have been damaged in transit or a bad sample, but either way it's a slip in quality that we shouldn't be seeing.


The rear is unexciting, but it does have the case's fifth and final 140mm fan, as well as a whopping ten expansion slots. There are also four holes for external water-cooling set-ups. We're puzzled as to why manufacturers insist on still supplying these, especially in a case this large. Nanoxia does at least supply rubber plugs to block them out when not in use, though it would be better if these were fitted by default instead of the rubber grommets.

Finally, we get to the bottom of the Deep Silence 6, where you'll find a single, long, slide out dust filter that is surprisingly easy to return to position without tilting the case (a relief, given its weight). This likely has something to do with the ample floor clearance provided by the four rubber-soled plastic feet that have a chrome finish.

Specifications

• Dimensions (mm) 250 x 655 x 644 (W x D x H)
  
• Material Steel, plastic
  
• Available colours Dark black, white, anthracite
  
• Weight 20.8kg
  
• Front panel Power, reset, 4 x USB 3, 2 x USB 2 stereo, microphone, 2 x fan controller
  
• Drive bays 4 x external 5.25in (1 x optional 3.5in adaptor), 13 x internal 3.5in/2.5in
  
• Form factor(s) HPTX, E-ATX, XL-ATX, ATX, micro-ATX, mini-ITX
  
• Cooling 2 x 140mm/120mm front fan mounts (2 x 140mm fans included), 1 x 140mm/120mm rear fan mount (140mm fan included), 3 x 140mm/120mm roof fan mounts (2 x 140mm fans included), 1 x 140mm or 2 x 120mm bottom fan mounts, 2 x 140mm/120mm left side fan mounts, 2 x 140mm/120mm internal fan mounts (fans not included)
  
• CPU cooler clearance 200mm
  
• Maximum graphics card length 370mm (400mm without internal fan mount)
  
• Extras Removable dust filters, 2 x variable speed fan controllers, Active Air Chimney