Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
One of the best party tricks of the be quiet! Silent Base 802 is the side panel. Each side panel is held on a large steel frame with plastic clips at the top. By pressing the button at the back, you can pull away each respective side panel from the side. These doors do require the user to pull them out after the button is pressed, as the side panels will still stay in place if you only press the button. While you might call this solution a bit over the top, I really appreciate how easy it is to remove the panel without any unnecessary force. Once the panel is removed, you can see there is a 10mm thick sound dampening material on each side panel. Obviously, if you get the tempered glass version of the Silent Base 802, you will not have this sound dampening material on one of the panels. As for the case, you can now get a better look at the open concept used here. The entire front area is unobstructed for air to flow from the front to the back. The front part has rectangular holes for mounting 3.5" or 2.5" drives if you so desire. The motherboard area has various mounting positions for fitting up to extended ATX sizes, although standoffs are installed for the standard ATX motherboard by default. Smaller size motherboards down to a mini ITX can be installed here too, but that would look a bit silly in such a large case. A dividing power supply shroud is built into the case to divide the top area from the power supply. By default, this is a solid divider, but you can remove the plastic covers to allow air to flow between these two sections. Otherwise, everything internally is the same black color with no sight of the orange accents you might have seen previously.
Removing the front panel is straightforward as well, as it is just held on with sliding plastic tabs. If you slide the front up, it will unlatch from the hole and you can pull it off. As I have mentioned previously, be quiet! provides users with a solid side panel and a mesh side panel. The mesh one is filtered and has a larger honeycomb plastic frame to provide some structural integrity. On the other hand, the solid plastic panel is lined with the same sound dampening material found on the side panel for a quieter build. Behind the front panel, be quiet! has installed two of their Pure Wings 2 140mm fans. These fans are similar to the ones found in the Pure Base 500DX, although these are rated for a maximum rotational speed of 1000 RPM. These are all voltage-controlled fans with three-pin headers. They have a rated noise level of 18.8 db(A), producing 61.2 CFM of airflow and a maximum static air pressure of 0.76 mmH2O. A third Pure Wings 2 140mm fan can also be found at the back of the case. These all have a lifespan rating of 80,000 hours, which is just over nine years.
Moving to the interior of the case, the be quiet! Silent Base 802 is laid out in a typical way when compared to other open concept cases. As such, at the back, we have the large motherboard opening for access to the back of the motherboard. This is useful for access when installing third-party coolers after you have already installed your motherboard. At the top, we have slots for mounting fans or radiators. As we have such a massive case, it is understandable that users can install up to three 120mm or 140mm fans. However, when it comes to radiators, be quiet! only recommends installing radiators that use 120mm fans, which means the maximum length here is 360mm. This is probably due to the fact a 140mm radiator may interfere with the motherboard. One nice thing is the fact the top mounting bracket is contained to an easily removable tray that slides out from this side. This makes installing anything here much easier as you can do it outside of the Silent Base 802. In addition, the entire motherboard tray is once again fully removable, just like the Dark Base Pro 900 rev.2. Thus, you can invert the entire case if you choose. This is a pretty involved process, so I would not recommend doing so unless you know what you are doing. The manufacturer also has a few videos to follow along in this process.
At the front of the be quiet! Silent Base 802, you can get a better view of the front fans again. The front area has slotted space for installing up to three total 120mm or 140mm fans. In addition, you can install radiators up to 360mm or 420mm in size. This will involve removing the bottom plastic cover to allow access to the basement at the front. Similar to the Dark Base Pro 900 rev.2, the plastic power supply shroud is divided into several sections and can be removed depending on your needs. Moving back, we have the five rectangular slots for installing storage drives. You will need a drive bracket and be quiet! provides a single one by default. If you do need to install more, you will need to purchase extra brackets. Finally, you can see that the main holes to draw cables through are filled with rubber grommets to keep the cabling situation clean and hidden on the other side.
On the back side of the be quiet! Silent Base 802, you can see all of the front cables have been routed down the center. There is no cavity here for routing cables on the top, so excess wires will probably reside in the basement of the power supply. There is approximately two to three centimeters of cabling space behind the motherboard tray, which is pretty typical. All of the front cables are black in color and are generally of good quality. The front button and lighting pin connectors are all separate. I would have liked to see them all connected to a single block for easier installation, but unfortunately, we do not have that convenience here. Some of these front cables also connect to a fan controller in the middle. This controller can run up to six voltage-controlled fans and is powered by a SATA connection. It also has a PWM header to let users control the fans with the motherboard. Finally, you can get a view of the mostly clear basement for mounting your power supply. The power supply area is padded with foam to reduce the vibration noises between the power supply and the be quiet! Silent Base 802.
In terms of storage placement on the backside, there are plenty of options here. The first one can be found behind the motherboard opening and this is a sled for installing two 2.5" storage options. A second sled can be found underneath. In the basement, you can see we have one larger cage. This final cage lets you install two 3.5" or two 2.5" drives here. In summary, the Silent Base 802 can install many internal storage options if you really need to. By default, users can install up to seven 2.5" or three 3.5" drives. With additional drive cages purchased, this increases to fifteen and seven, respectively.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
