Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 Review

Performance Analysis

Naturally, the Deep Silence 6 has its best thermal result when the fans are at maximum speed and the air chimney is open (and thus the roof fans are also active). Here, it achieves a CPU delta T of 51°C, which is distinctly mid-table, though massive cases rarely do much better than this, and the noise output of the Deep Silence 6, even at this maximum airflow set-up, is lower than most other cases. The GPU delta T is 49°C here, which is again fairly average but on par with other good large chassis, including the Corsair 900D.


As we hinted at, the case fans are very quiet, even at full speed, but it's definitely apparent that sound is able to escape from the air chimney, as when we closed it things became much quieter, mainly as a result of the case now being sealed rather than the two roof fans being switched off. Pleasingly, closing this only resulted in a 1°C rise in CPU and GPU temperatures, a worthy sacrifice. In fact, if we were sticking to air, we'd be tempted to move one or both roof fans to the internal fan mounts to bolster GPU cooler even further and simply leave the air chimney closed.

You'll also be fine using the fans at minimum speed as long as you keep the chimney open, as temperatures only increase by another 1°C again as we move to this configuration. That said, you'd want to make sure you had quiet CPU and GPU coolers, as while the Deep Silence fans are all but silent at this speed, internal noise will escape through the roof. Minimum speed fans coupled with a closed chimney is not recommended, as here the CPU heats up more significantly as airflow around it is severely stifled. It reaches a delta T result of 57°C now, leaving it near the bottom of the pack.

Conclusion

With its minimalist aesthetic, focus on low noise and outstanding attention to detail, Nanoxia has always reminded us of Fractal Design. However, Fractal doesn't really have a price-point competitor for the Deep Silence 6. It does have the sub-£100 Define XL R2, which is a large, low-noise chassis, but there's plenty separating the two cases that justifies the Deep Silence 6's premium. For starters, the Deep Silence 6 has a more premium construction, and strikes the better balance between noise and cooling. It also has HTPX support, which the Fractal case lacks, as well as many more drive cages, more USB 3 ports and much better water-cooling support too that's more in line with the sort of systems that are likely to be installed in this size of a chassis.

Corsair's 900D is also out of the Deep Silence 6's price range, albeit in the other direction, so its stiffest competition comes from cases like the NZXT Phantom 820 and Phanteks Enthoo Primo, both of which are outstanding cases. NZXT's case is louder both visually and audibly, and is thus aimed at a rather different user to the Deep Silence 6. The Phanteks case, however, is more in line with Nanoxia's offering. Comparing these, it's a close match – both cases are generally excellent but slip up in one or two places (in this case, the pop up front panel and side fan mounts, for example). Nevertheless, we feel the Enthoo Primo is the better chassis overall, and we suspect that the majority will be swayed by its aesthetics over Nanoxia's too. The Phanteks chassis is particularly well suited to water-coolers since it can hold dual 480mm radiators in certain configurations. Nevertheless, if you need HTPX support or masses of data storage options, or if low noise is your utmost priority, then the Deep Silence 6 is a great choice and won't disappoint.