Be Quiet! PC Noise Absorber Kit

Attacking the rest of the case as the roof is closest to me, that got some foam love as well. Again, some spare offcuts were used to line the top of the motherboard tray to help reduce vibration translated from the CPU and graphics fans.

Some foam was put on the rear side of the motherboard tray, behind the hard drives, to quieten the noise from them emanating towards the far side of the case.

I'll admit, some of it ended up just for aesthetic appeal – as a complete matt black covering not only highlights your components but it also "completes the look".

How loud and how hot?

After some four and a half hours of installation, I'm certainly happy with the look but its not actually any quieter. You see, there's a huge grill on the side of my case to let air in – but it also lets noise out.

No doubt others will have either a window or large fan hole as well, so no matter how much you fill the rest of the case it'll still leak out noise from here. The only real benefit I've found is that I can't actually hear my Western Digital hard drives anymore.


With all this matting you'd expect it to be hotter, right? Well, not in my case but it could certainly do so for other cases. There's no doubt that the foam is an insulating material unlike aluminium, but very few cases actually use the chassis itself to dissipate the internal heat. Normally the fans move the air around to do that job, so in a large case like this and without affecting the airflow there's very little effect by installing the insulation.

However, in a case that's far smaller there will likely be a proportionate difference to a non-insulated case, mostly because there's significantly less internal volume for air circulation and convection.

Is it worth it?

Well if you have an entirely closed system and have gone to extreme lengths elsewhere first: fans, hard drives and heatsinks, then yes it will take that extra bit more off. But then again, if you've been that pedantic anyway with your components why didn't you consider a "silent and insulated" case from the start? There's only so much you can do using this and the performance is ultimately depicted by what case it's stuck into.

The Be Quiet! Noise Absorber kit itself works well, but ultimately it's not a product you should jump to first hand – prevention is better than a cure, as they say. Compared to Akasa PaxMate at least I'd certainly recommend this in preference, and considering how much some professional matting costs, I'd again look at this as a nice medium. Be Quiet! has currently very few retailers in the UK though, so it might be hard to get hold of, but if it's really what you're after then the more noise you make the more motivation people will have to stock it.

So noise absorption kits might not be the highest thing on everyone's shopping list, but it seems Be Quiet! might have good product in a niche us modders might need.

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What do these scores mean?