In-Win shows off sound-proof space case
In-Win's fantastic concept product is hardly practical, but it does has a certain "NASA-esq" appeal to it.
Designers Sharon Liao, Yayu Huang and Johnny Hsu from In-Win received an iF award for product design for the Silencer. Decked out in clean-room white plastic, the Silencer looks more space age than NASA. The case includes an attractive clean look, side ventilation with rear exhausts and a special panel hung off the rear with professional noise-reducing foam insulation.
It's smart, however we have to say concept is probably where it should stay since its booty is particularly large (although I hear some people like that kind of thing) and the plastic is clean and shiny but for some, oh-so-tacky: it feels like a toy rather than a professional product. The dangly bit on the back is non removable and doesn't leave much room for plugging cables in, let alone space for adapters. Evidently the iF people may know a lot about style but little about product use, but we'll still give In-Win kudos for trying something new.
Do you fancy owning something that looks it it belongs in 2001: A Space Odyssey? Let us know your thoughts, in the forums.
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16 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyThe back is probably not useless, that sort of foam does absorb noise very well. Also, putting a rad with noise-making fans on the back would defeat the purpose of the case.
What I'd say is that silencing usually comes at the price of cooling ability, so I wouldn't want to be putting a high-end rig in this, where the size would call for it.
If you're liquid cooling your CPU + GPU you won't need a silencing case anyway unless you have 5 hard drives constantly wurring away!
BTW rad fans can be fitted to a fan controller and turned down so you can't hear them and they still cool way better than a noisey HSF at top speed.
Liquid cooling my PC is the best thing I've ever done to it!
Shame my new flatmate has moved his noisey PC in tho :(
I can't hear the TV properly when he's gaming!
This is more of a concept than anything else, remember. It's designed for total silence, if you want an example of the potential uses of this, it could be useful in a home recording studio, where ultra-sensitive microphones can pick up noise from even the quietest computers.
Those situations call for passive cooled systems, ergo, this case is useless for that.
You'd be surprised at how many silent cases there are on the market. They're definitely in single digits. Even if you cool most of the stuff passively, you've still got a power supply, a hard drive and potentially a dvd drive making a signficant amount of noise.
There are so few passive cases on the market that the suggestion you make is a
Disagree. A CPU covered by one fan will always be noisier than a CPU covered by three fans, ie with a triple radiator.
Also, as with the point above, you've got the hard drives, the accessories etc all making noise. This has it's niche, and that niche is where silent means silent, where 'very quiet' is not quiet enough.