COOLER MASTER Silencio 550 RC-550-KKN1 Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: The glossy piano-black front door on the Silencio 550 is gorgeous. It's clear that a lot of thought was put into the design of the case. Nothing looks gaudy or out of place. All buttons and jacks are easily accessible on the top of the case. The power and HDD LEDs are not blinding. It has a built-in SD card reader (awesome!)

The case is almost dead silent. I added a 900RPM intake fan to the front in addition to the two 800RPM fans in the case already. The noise dampening foam really does help.

Cons: Cable management is difficult, because of the limited space in the back panel, made even worse by the anti-noise foam padding. It's not as roomy as some other expensive cases. CM has added more holes and zip-tie spots since the case's release, which does help.

My front panel audio jacks don't work. CM cases apparently have a reputation for broken audio jacks. I just bought a good set of speakers with a clean, non-noisy headphone jack instead of having to RMA the entire case.

The SATA X-Dock uses a four-pin Molex power connector. Who still uses Molex these days?

Other Thoughts: I can't stop looking at this case. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a case that's simple and silent.

Pros: Beautiful case, nice and simple looking. Easy set up, good cable management, enough room for everything I need. Removable HDD cage for long GPUs. I put a GTX580 in mine with the HDD cage removed and could def fit a SLI/XFIRE configuration. Without HDD cage you still get 3 HDD cage slots. It comes with a 120mm fan in the front and the back, I added an extra to the front. I play D3 on max settings with stock CPU cooler and my CPU only raises 2 degrees above idle during game play. Has a filtered vent right below the PSU fan. I use this with a Cooler Master Silent Pro 800W PSU, and it looks great.

Cons: None. (Haven't checked if my front audio panel is working but front USB is definitely working.)

Other Thoughts: All of this fits with tons of room and good air flow:
i52500k
ASRockZ77Extreme6
GTX580
16GB Corsair Vengeance
800W PSU

Pros: Well laid out case with a lot of room to work in. The large hard-drive cage is removable for those extra long GPUs but my Sapphire 6870 fit with room to spare (eventually, I'd like to get one more for CrossFire). I like the layout of the ports on the front of the case: one USB 3, two USB 2, and a headphone jack. When running with a Phenom II X4 960T, Gemini II S524 and three hard drives, it's extremely quiet.

Just about everything is tool-less installation which is great (HDDs, DVD-ROM drive, PCI cards etc.). Has rubber grommets for liquid cooling solutions for those who want it.

Dust filters for the power-supply intake (pulls air from the floor) and the front fan intake panel.

Cons: The foam padding on the side panel behind the mother board makes it a bit tight routing cables behind there. I had to make the cables pretty snug. If I had a modular power-supply it might have been easier. The foam padding on the panel facing the motherboard will go right up against large Air CPU coolers, so check your dimensions before you buy (I purposefully went with the Cooler Master GeminiII S524 for this reason and it cools excellently).

Only two 800 RPM fans come with the case for cooling, which are very quiet, but don't move much air. I have now purchased an additional SilenX EFX-12-15 120mm Case Fan to place in the back and move the other 800 RPM fan to the front to improve cooling. I would recommend buying an additional fan when you buy this case.

The USB 3 front panel is not able to plug into the motherboard, I had to route it all the way to the back connectors of the motherboard. Luckily, it was long enough to reach that distance.

Other Thoughts: There is foam padding on the front and side panels of the case, not the top or bottom.

I'm really happy with this case. It's much quieter and roomier than my previous Lian-Li case I bought in 2007 during college. If you're concerned about air cooling, definitely buy an additional fan or even three new ones at the time of purchasing this case.


It's strange that there aren't photos on NewEgg yet, but they're easily found on the internet.

Pros: Roomy, great looking, quiet. Lots of room for cables behind mobo tray, removeable hdd cage, black interior.
Could be used for a gaming rig as long as the gpu's exhaust their heat out the back.

Cons: Comes with two 800 rpm fans, should come with three. Or better yet, two 800's in front and one 1000-1200 in the back.
Had to buy somewhere else because Newegg wasn't carrying it yet.

Other Thoughts: Built a friend a business oriented computer. Cooled an OC'ed q9650 with a hyper212 and a low end gpu and it remained cool and quiet.