I always been a fan of Lian-Li, but maybe I should give others a chance. What do you guys think of the SILVERSTONE SST-TJ07. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163067
Huge, expensive, and cools a lot worse than a PC7H or a V1000. The hard drive cages are flimsy and rather hard to get drives into, the CD drive bezels only hold on with a single screw on each side, and that strips out the moment you try to put one back in. Getting PSUs in is an exercise in frustration, as often the screws holding the backplate on are crossthreaded or stuck. Getting cards to drop into place takes a flat-head screwdriver and some work, as the slots that hold the bottom of the backplates usually don't line up. There's basically no space for watercooling, as the top fans are just too close to the motherboard to fit a radiator in. The motherboard tray itself slides metal on metal, which sticks like glue when you're trying to slide a heavy tray full of motherboard, CPU heatsink, and SLI 8800s in or out of the case. The only way to get CD drives to not slide around is to really crank down on the screws, which leaves wear marks behind if you ever move a drive around. There is no space at all to hid cables in, especially if you get a side window. Would you like me to go on?
Well my experience with the TJ07 seems to have been quite a bit better. I haven't seen many people try to watercooling from the top, the generally accepted way is to take out the drive bays and mount everything down below near the psu and cut out the middle section to allow the tubing more freedom. I haven't had any problems taking the cd blanks in and out and while the motherboard tray is indeed metal on metal it just took a bit of care when putting a loaded mobo back into the case. I got a great deal on my TJ07 but I was also looking at the TJ09 and soon to be released TJ10 (TJ09 with a door) and both looked like great cases as well.
They all pale in comparison to the old classic alienware style cases. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811125446 Seriously, it's a great case. I could never see myself buying a $300 case. I mean, what's the point.
The point? I buy $200 V-1000s (silver, if you please), because they're pretty to look at, both inside and out, and very easy to build in - no sharp edges, everything is easy to get to, and the case is still relatively quiet. One might ask what the point is to buying a Maserati or Ferarri - a Honda or Toyota will get you from point A to point B for a lot less, but it just doesn't feel the same. Driving a Maserati or Ferarri feels good - just like building in a V-1000. My $0.50, anyway.
What grab my attention on this case was the lower chamber double mesh. Something like that outta be useful in some sorta way if you mount the hdds in the 5.25'' bays instead, which would be easier for some hdd waterblocks.
Thats almost the opposite of what I have seen and read. Some of the initial reviews of the TJ09 raised some of the issues you stated, however I would like to point out there have revisions to the case over the last year. I can testify tho this as I helped a friend put together his PC together 2 months ago. Having seen and played around with the case myself, I have only positive things to say about it. Mounting the PSU, HDD's and Optical drives will always be difficult if you do not align the screws properly or use the wrong screw size. Getting cards in will also prove tricky if again you fail to line them up properly, this is no different to any other case. I would rather have cards which are more difficult to slide in, as opposed to those which almost fall in....seen to many dead motherboards due to bad retention. You would be crazy to mount a radiator in the top since your tying to cool with warm air, at the hottest part of the case? The abundance of space at the bottom of the TJ07 allows you to mount a 120.3 or 360 radiator and will give the best cooling capacity. Newer revisions of the TJ07 have a plastic strip on the motherboard rails to aid removal of the mobo tray to be loaded. I'm not trying to pick points in what your saying Techno-Dan as it sounds like you've had a bad experience with it. I'm just trying to point out that the issues have been resolved. My personal opinion is that it's a fantastic case having worked with it. Build quality is superb and there are plenty of modding options. Your getting a premium case which I'm sure you would be happy with for years to come. On another note I own the TJ09 which is outstanding. It's quiet and is again of superior build quality which I cannot fault, ok I can: NO FILTERS!! The front intake is awkward to dis-assemble and with no filter it going to be fun cleaning it....NOT Thats my only criticism. I will point out that it's not that well suited to water cooling, if you do then it will be best done outside the case. There are many who have mounted their radiators internally, but again I dont see the point. Good luck with whatever you decide.
Doesn't really make that much difference tbh, besides, raw temps aren't that important in WC, just the T delta.
Are you nuts! Vadim have used this case to watercool their PCs, so have a lot of companies in america. It has PLENTY of space for watercooling, though not as much as the much bigger V2000 series, the cooling is v. good, on par with the V1000, and the aesthetics are good. There are plaenty of spaces to hide cables, under the motherboard, behind the tray? (Which would probably involve some very simple cutting).
as for watercooling in the tj-07, you can rip out the hdd cages in the bottom and fit a 3x120 rad + pump in there.....
Yeah, I mean I'm sure I didn't just imagine this: http://coolercasesuk.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3100&page=10
Can't view the pics without registering! Any chance of a repost on here of the final result, sounds awesome.
Howdy Krikkit. Believe me matey, it's worth signing up for . It's not my worklog but it's inspired me to do something similar. 'Ladderman' has done a truly wonderful TJ07 mod, it rocks. Infact I ordered a TJ07 from Scan just two days ago. It took me 12months to pluck up the courage to spend that much money on a case. Let's hope it's worth it. EDIT: Can you not see these links without registering? EDIT2: What about this one? http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=498411
To preface this all, I work for Puget Custom Computers, we do this utterly ridiculous water-cooled TJ07. As such, I see TJ07s on a fairly regular basis, and while I don't often do the building myself, I am called in to check things over, and all that. (Mods, if you feel the link is spammy, feel free to remove.) We must be getting cases from different sources, then, as the ones we opened on Tuesday were still exactly like the second one I ever saw - the first one was a pre-release prototype, so it doesn't really count. The top fans are intake, as the case comes from the factory. It's also the only really secure mounting point for a radiator that we've been able to find, as there's nothing really solid down below. Mounting a triple BIX down there would result in a ton of bent metal after a rough shipping experience. And yes, mounting a radiator up top is fairly insane - there's a lot of modding work that needs to be done to get even an old-school BIP to fit, and that's just barely - one of the new BI GTs won't fit, it's just that much too thick. I'm afraid to say that I haven't seen any changes in the design since it was released - it's so close to being a really good case, but it just has a few rather fatal (in my Lian-Li obsessed opinion) flaws. And yes, most of my experiences have been bad... There was this one customer who wanted a window, not one but two of those stupid front-bay fan controller thingies (you know, these things), and absolutely no wires visible. I spent three hours working on it. That's three times as long as it takes me to do a regular build. It came out fairly well, if I do say so myself. End result - the customer returned it because of fingerprints on the back of the motherboard tray. $5,000 dollar computer, returned because of a couple fingerprints that nobody could ever see without taking the back side panel off. And then I got to tear the whole thing down, too, which took me a good two hours. Needless to say, I've been critical of TJ07s ever since. The cooling is nowhere near as good as a V-1000, I'm afraid - the only air intake is at the top of the case, the only exhaust is through the fans above the backplate - without the CPU heatsink, there's no air movement at all over the chipset, video cards (if those don't exhaust air from the case, they just cook in their own heat), and CD drives (and hard drives, if you put one in a 5 1/4" bay). A V-1000+ cools much better than a TJ-07. As for cutting, we have a rather strict "no modding unless absolutely necessary" policy at work - it's kinda hard to return a case that has huge holes cut in it. That build of Pie_UK's is quite nice-looking, how heavy is it? 70 pounds? It doesn't look quite as full as some of the ones we've done at work, and those usually end up around 75. (edited waaaaaaay after the fact, for the benefit of anyone using the search (go you!)) I was wrong about the airflow- it is back intake, top exhaust. All in all, I'm being very harsh on the case here. I'll leave my comments unchanged to keep the thread intact, but it's really a rather decent case - I'd rather build in a Silverstone than a lot of other full-tower cases I've seen. (/edit)
I can't comment much on the TJ-07, but I have a TJ-06 here (well, I did until it became Project Z1X ) and if Silverstone's product quality could be judged by the TJ-06 then it'd get 5 stars out of 5 for me. TJ06: Incredibly solid construction, great performance and sleek looks. If the TJ-07 even comes close to the TJ-06 in terms of quality then I'd recommend it in a flash.
