SilverStone Temjin TJ08-E: Fat Case in a Little Coat
by Dustin Sklavos on August 4, 2011 1:50 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Mini ITX
- SilverStone
- MicroATX
- Mini-Tower
In and Around the SilverStone Temjin TJ08-E
Superficially the SilverStone Temjin TJ08-E looks like a simple, clean brushed aluminum mini tower with design cues that wouldn't seem out of place on a Lian Li enclosure. There's a single large vent on the front for the intake fan, two USB 3.0 ports, the standard mic and headphone jacks, and two 5.25" external drive bays. At the bottom is even a 3.5" external bay, although the placement seems a little awkward and the cover rotates a bit in the bay. Still, if you're not interested in putting a floppy drive or card reader in, internally that bay will support an additional 3.5" drive. When you get to the top of the case you'll see the typical top vent, but that vent really is anything but typical.
Your first clue that everything in the TJ08-E is a little topsy turvy is going to be when you look at the back and realize that everything has been flipped: the motherboard mounts to the opposite side of the enclosure, and the power supply bay is at the top and designed to mount the PSU upside-down. There's a major benefit to all this, though: the motherboard is now lined up behind the front 180mm intake fan.
Opening the enclosure is a three part process. Both side panels are secured with thumbscrews and you'll want to remove them. The top panel of the TJ08-E also comes off, and this is something I really wish SilverStone had simplified: you have to remove six screws to take it off, and when you're installing hardware you will need to have it removed.
Once you're inside you'll be met with a fairly generous amount of space behind the removable motherboard tray; that removable tray is a nice enough touch and SilverStone recommends you remove it during installation, but during assembly I actually found that step was unnecessary. There's a decent-sized backplate cutout in the motherboard tray and a few holes surrounding it for routing cables.
There are also two drive cages stacked on top of each other; the top one is intended to support four 3.5" drives and is lined with a soft material to dampen vibration. I'd prefer if the drive cage were rotated with the drive ports facing the back to simplify cable routing, but space is really at a premium inside the TJ08-E with everything SilverStone packed in here. Below the top cage is a second cage that can be used to house an external 3.5" drive or an internal one, and then below that are four holes in the bottom of the enclosure used to mount a 2.5" SSD.
SilverStone also includes two features of potentially questionable value, though I think they're really ideal more for shipping than anything else, and they certainly don't hurt. There's an adjustable support on the bottom of the enclosure for larger coolers to reduce stress on the motherboard (the standoffs of which are built into the motherboard tray, thankfully), and then the top of the drive cages is raised and flat in such a way that it can support longer graphics cards to reduce stress. SilverStone includes a rubber pad that can be affixed to the cage to close the gap, too, preventing vibration in the process.
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BoloMKXXVIII - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
Why doesn't the lack of an audio line in port rate as a negative? Does it save that much money or is it pressure from the RIAA?YukaKun - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
CoolerMaster's Elite 335? http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id...That's one hell of a Mini Tower! It's amazing for it's price and it' kinda good looking too. Could you guys do side by side or something with already proven cases when a new one pops? Specially some offerings from CoolerMaster (they're always cheap :P)
Cheers!
antef - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
See my post above about the Elite 341 - it has a similar look and is even smaller since it's specifically microATX.YukaKun - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
Actually, I did read your comment, but couldn't find the 341 at CoolerMaster's page.Going to look again.
And I forgot to thank the review! Nice review as usual!
Cheers!
Termie - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
Just saw this on Newegg this week and thought it looked awesome. It's great you were able to get it into test so soon after release.Pretty sure this is the way I'll go with my next build. Time to update (and downsize) from my Antec 900. I'd been considering the FT03 as well, but that seems like more form over function. It's quite expensive, it really isn't all that compact, and from your testing, it doesn't perform as well as the TJ08.
ebolamonkey3 - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
Quick question, do you need an adaptor to use the USB 3.0 headers w/ a USB 2.0 port on the motherboard? Aren't they the same form factor, and you can just plug them in?Dustin Sklavos - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
You do need to use an adaptor (the TJ08-E comes with one); the USB 3.0 motherboard header has at least twice as many pins as a USB 2.0 motherboard header.zero2dash - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
You're complaining about cramped size yet you're building a mITX system in a mATX case. Seriously?Anyone with common sense knows that building a SFF system has size issues; that's inherent with the design and the size of the form factor. If you're not prepared to cable manage and optimize in some ridiculous ways - don't build a SFF system.
fujii13 - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
They might exist but I've never seen a Mini-ITX board with four expansion slots. Seems like a lot of extra unnecessary space for something that could fit into a LIAN LI PC-Q08B (that can hold some 7 drives and has two expansion slots). I can only see this case being useful for Micro-ATX setups.Death666Angel - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
Not sure what exactly you are referring to, but if you mean that this case has enough PCI-slots (those things at the back of the case where you connect your display and network cables) to accommodate 4 different cards, you might also keep in mind that this is a micro ATX compatible case. Micro ATX boards are very much able to have 4 different cards on them. :-)As for the case, it looks nice. Although I like cube cases in that space region more. I have a Lian Li V-252-B myself and am interested in the Sugo 02-06 series from Silverstone in the future (depending on how the CPU and GPU sizes and energy consumption goes).