Computex 2014 - Day 3

Computex 2014 - Be Quiet!

The first product Be Quiet! showed us, and the one it was most excited about given that it's a new market for them, was a mid-tower chassis aimed at low-noise enthusiasts and due to hit the UK market in September for £99. It will be available in black, silver and orange.


The Be Quiet! team gave us a rather extensive preview of the case (which as yet has no name), but we'll wait until we receive our sample before giving you the full lowdown. However, as we said, the case is designed to be low noise, though it does come with two 140mm front intakes and a rear 140mm exhaust fan out of the box, so airflow hopefully won't be too restricted.


Eliminating noise was a focus at every stage of the design – the fan mounting holes are lined with rubber, and the PSU area is padded, both of which will soften vibrations and noise. Meanwhile, the mounting arms for HDDs are fully rubber too for the same reason. The front and side panels are also lined with foam, and you can close up the side fan mounts when they're not in use too. The ODD mounts are also tool free.


Next we saw two new ranges of 80 Plus Gold rated power supplies: the Straight Power series and the Straight Power CM series. The CM stands for cable management, and as such these PSUs are partially modular. The Straight Power PSUs will be available in 100W steps from 400-700W while the Straight Power CM ones will be launched in 100W steps from 500W up to 800W. Both series use the latest edition of Be Quiet!'s 135mm Silent Wings fan.


Lastly, we saw a new entry level cooler, the Pure Rock. It has fins with M-shaped cutouts, supposedly to optimise airflow and also to reduce noise. It feature four equally thick heat pipes and a single fin stack and is shipped with a single 120mm Pure Wings PWM fan, as well as a new mounting kit that features a grooved mounting bar that locks into place before you screw it in, which should hopefully avoid some frustration. The most interesting part of the cooler is the contact plate, which is actually slightly curved, supposedly to counteract the slight natural curving of traditional flat contact plates that happens when you apply pressure at the four corners.

That's it for our Computex 2014 product previews. Which ones are you most looking forward to seeing?