Be Quiet! Silent Base 600 Review

Performance Analysis

As mentioned, the Silent Base 600 has three fan speed settings, and both of the Pure Wings 2 fans are very quiet even at maximum speed.

The CPU delta T of 56°C is a respectable result at full speed. It's only 2°C warmer than what we saw on an open test bench, though the Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5 is 4°C better, indicating that it has better overall airflow. Similarly, the same case is 5°C better off when it comes to GPU temperatures. After all, that single 140mm front fan in the Silent Base 600 is mostly blocked by the solid front panel.


The CPU is more affected by lower fan speeds than the GPU. Dropping to medium, it climbs by 4°C while the GPU only increases by 1°C, and finally at low speed the processor reaches a rather toasty delta T of 62°C (another 2°C warmer) and the graphics cards settles at 55°C – this low-speed setting is only really suitable for stock speed CPUs and less powerful graphics cards, especially as you'll hardly hear a difference between low and medium speed.

The chassis itself does an okay job of minimising sound from inside – our noisy graphics card definitely sounded a bit more subdued than we're used to. However, it's worth noting that the relatively limited airflow could cause your graphics card to spin up more than it otherwise would and thus actually produce more noise (our own one has a locked fan speed for consistency).

Conclusion

The Silent Base 600 is a well-balanced chassis in many regards. It does a decent job of staying quiet, has a respectable feature set and is easy to work with for the most part. However, we have to say that it still leaves us wanting more. The truth is that other than a minor external makeover and a few tweaks, very little has changed since the Silent Base 800. Be Quiet! has added fan control, yes, but it's also taken away easy front fan access, four HDD mounting points and one of the front 140mm fans. Even the pricing is barely different – the MSRPs are about £25 apart, but the real difference is closer to £10, though this may widen as prices tend to fall after launch.

We do think the Silent Base 600 is a small improvement thanks to the lower price tag and onboard fan control, which is important for a low noise case, but as with its predecessor it still doesn't do quite enough to truly shine in this highly competitive market. The Silent Base 800 was a fairly safe starting point for Be Quiet!, and we were hoping for a bit more innovation from the 600. An internal PSU cover, removable ODD cage and better water-cooling support, for example, would all have made for a more interesting case. As it stands, though, this is another solid albeit somewhat unremarkable chassis.