I'm always skeptical of marketing hype, so my first stop was the factory specs, and I found something refreshing: detailed factory measurements! I hope this becomes a standard, at least with non-budget cases.

Sleek; elegant look; Sound insulated; Roomy internal spaces; Lots of video card room; Hot Swap hard drive bay; SD card reader; USB 3.0 front panel I/O port; Filters on both air intakes; Built solid; Almost a full inch of back panel cable space; Internal removable hard drive cage; Comes with two...

SD card reader instead of more I/O USB ports; USB 3.0 from front panel has to be run outside the case; Larger video cards requiere removing the internal drive cage; Only two 5.25" bays -Door is not removable and only opens right to left

June 27, 2011 by Lawrence Lee Product Cooler Master Silencio 550 ATX Tower Case Manufacturer Cooler Master Street Price ~£65 Being one of the largest PC case makers, Cooler Master has a seemingly endless selection ranging from relatively small budget models to enormous EATX server towers and...

Quiet out of the box experience; Acoustic damping foam; Extras: SD card slot; hard drive dock most components; Removable hard drive cage to facilitate long graphics cards; Looks great; Affordable

Could use more airflow; Fans are clicky and too slow for most users; Foam creates clearance issues; Hard drive dock lacks an ejection mechanism

Without being real innovative in design, this Silencio 550 is a very fine case. Sporting adequate airflow, thanks to the two preinstalled 120mm fans. Dust buildup is no issue, as the front fan(s) and the PSU fan got quick removable dust filters.

The Silencio is a nicely thought through chassis, it's nothing new in terms of new technologies though. That's said, it's by far sufficient enough for what it needs to accomplish. You can house a fairly high-end selection of PC components inside the chassis whilst keeping the noise levels down.

When I mention the Cooler Master Silencio 550, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the movie "Mulholland Drive". In the film, there is an eerie theater by the name of Club Silencio.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: Cooler Master's Silencio 550 claims to be prepared to take on powerful hardware, but in our experience it struggles to cope with a high-end Core i7 980X processor and a Radeon HD 6970 graphics card.

Cooler Master recently introduced the Silencio 650, and Corsair released the Obsidian 550D, both cases in a similar price bracket and with an explicit emphasis on silent running. We took a closer look at both chassis to see which one cools the best and makes the least amount of noise.

This case is very nicely constructed, easy to work on and provides more than adequate drive bays, cable routing options, etc, plus SD card reader on the front looks good (ie, not cheap!). The problem with this "silent" case is that the front large fan makes a lot of noise.

In developing a chassis, companies like Cooler Master have to decide whether the focus will be on cooling or noise, because it's extremely difficult to have a chassis excel in both.

1 Flares 1 Flares × Enthusiast users with a constrained budget often have to make compromises in regards to quality, building a PC around a chassis that emits a lot of fan noise due to thin panel design and the inclusion of low quality fans.