System Review – PC-Club Silencer

Features

Moving on to the internals and features, we find many areas of interest. Here's the brief overview.

PC-Club Silencer EN-SI1
Dimension	(w)146 mm x (h)368 mm x (d)381 mm
CPU Support	Celeron/Pentium M socket 479 up to 2.13 GHz model 760
Memory Support	PC1600/PC2100/PC2700/PC3200 up to 2GB; 2 DIMM slots
Motherboard	Aopen i855GMEm-LFS Intel 855GME/ICH4-M Chipsets 400/533 FSB with 1:1/3:4/3:5 memory ratio
Expansion Slots	1 x AGP 4X; 3 x PCI
Power Supply	450W A+ GPB/Athena Power PSU 3 x 4-pin Molex; 1 x 4-pin FDD; 2 x SATA 1 x 20-pin ATX; 1 x 4-pin ATX12V
Internal Connections	2 x SATA; 2 x IDE; 1 x FDD; 1 x S/PDIF
Audio	Realtek 655 AC'97 5.1 channel
LAN	2 x 10/100/1000 Mbps
Drive Bays	1 x 3.5 External (Floppy) 2 x 3.5 Internal (HDD) 1 x 5.25 External (CD/DVD)
Front I/O	2 x USB 2.0 MIC, Head-phone Power & Reset buttons LCD with 3 temperature indicators, time and date, HDD activity, and an alarm clock
Rear I/O	4 x USB 2.0, 1 x IEEE1394 (6-pin) PS/2 KB, PS/2 Mouse, VGA 1 x Serial port, 1 x Parallel port 2 x RJ-45 GbE LAN Port Center/Sub, L/R Front, L/R Surround
Overclocking	CPU bus 100-400; CPU Ratio 6X-Max; AGP 66/75.43/88; PCI 33/37.72/44; Vcc 0.700V-1.340V; DDR 1:1/3:4/3:5 ratios
Graphics	Integrated Intel Extreme 2; eVGA 6800GT plus AC Silencer OC to 400/1100
Hard Drives	WD 74GB Raptor 10,000 RPM SATA; WD 200GB 7,200 RPM SATA
DVD+RW	Aopen 16X DVD+RW with Dual-Layer
Floppy	3.5" Mistsumi Floppy Drive
Speakers	Logitech X-530 5.1
Keyboard/Mouse	Logitech Cordless MX with Optical Mouse, Bluetooth Edition
Extras	LCD front panel; Far Cry (6800GT)
Full Image Set	PC-Club Silencer (4.9MB)
Manufacturer Link	PC-Club Silencer EN-SI1

As you can see, the system as equipped could quite easily be duplicated without the need to go through PC-Club. (We'll actually take a look at pricing at the end of the review.) The most interesting aspect, right off the bat, is the use of a Pentium M processor and motherboard. While our own analysis of the performance of Pentium M CPUs shows that they aren't as fast as the latest Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 chips in many tasks, the maximum heat output of 22W is certainly something to take into consideration. We didn't have a power meter on hand, so we can't actually say what the system's power draw ended up being, but we can do a bit of quick math for the theoretical usage.

Assuming a 20W average power draw for the Pentium M compared to 75W for a speedier Athlon 64, what sort of power savings are we looking at over the course of the year? It will vary by location, of course, but for our SFF labs, the power bill comes to roughly 7 cents per Kilowatt-Hour. If we assume 24/7 usage of the system, then we can calculate the power savings over the course of a year.

Always On Power Usage
	Pentium M	Athlon 64
Watt Use	20	75
Hours/Day	24	24
Days/Year	365	365
$0.07/KWHr	$0.07	$0.07
Cost/Year	$12.264	$45.99

Even with unrealistic figures - i.e. constant power usage running 24/7 - the power savings simply from the CPU alone do not amount to much. $34 over the course of the year is nothing, particularly when compared with the power used by refrigerators, washers and dryers, lights, TVs, etc. Even the remainder of the computer system will use a lot more power than the CPU. So, as far as power savings are concerned, the Pentium M isn't that big of a deal. It's great for laptops, of course, where the batteries are typically rated at 50 to 90 WHr at best - cutting power draw by 30W would extend battery life substantially. This isn't a laptop review, unfortunately. Then again, getting a heat sink to cool a 22W chip is a lot easier than cooling a 100W chip like the 3.8GHz Prescotts. Less heat means that even passive cooling of the CPU is an option, and even with a low speed fan, the noise levels should be next to nothing. That's where the Pentium M really attracts our attention. Also included are some overclocking controls in the BIOS, which we'll take a look at later.

Our SFF testing has shown that designing a reasonably quiet system isn't too difficult, but the graphics card often ruins the end result. This is particularly true of the high-end graphics cards like the X800 and 6800 series. PC-Club has decked out their Silencer with a relatively high-end graphics card, but in order to make it mesh with the rest of the system and the "Silencer" name, they picked an eVGA 6800GT with an Arctic Cooling Silencer attached. If you've never had the chance to see and hear such a cooler in person, they're a great way to reduce noise levels. It is certainly possible to perform the installation of the Arctic Cooling Silencer on your own, but with the PC-Club setup, you don't have to worry about voiding any warranties, and you save yourself a bit of work.

The Arctic Cooling Silencer isn't completely silent, but when compared with our standard X800 Pro cards it does reduce noise levels noticeably. An added benefit is that the Silencer cools both the GPU core as well as the RAM, and PC-Club shipped the system to us with the 6800GT overclocked to 425/1100. We encountered some stability issues, unfortunately, and so we dropped the speed down to 400/1000. We could have probably pushed the card to at least 1100 on the RAM, but we were more interested in getting the benchmarking done. (PC-Club confirmed that they are shipping the units at 400/1100 clock speeds now, so performance in GPU bandwidth limited situations should be slightly higher than our results.)

PC-Club sent us a system with two SATA hard drives, a Western Digital 74GB Raptor and a Western Digital 200GB. To be honest, we really have to question the use of the Raptor in such a system. Sure, it's faster on HDD tasks than the 7200 RPM drives, but the seek noise is also much louder. At one point, while running a disk defrag, the whole case was resonating at 50+ dB due to the drive heads seeking back and forth. Add to this the cramped quarters and the presence of a second hard drive less than a centimeter away, we can't help but worry about the long-term prospects of the system. Even if the heat output of the Raptor isn't a problem, we'd still prefer a drive with less seek noise. Samsung drives in particular have very little seek noise, although Seagate, Maxtor and Western Digital aren't much louder.

The remainder of the system is pretty typical of most computer setups, albeit with a high-end slant. The Athenatech case used will normally come with a 200W power supply when purchased on its own, but PC-Club has installed a 450W A+ GPB (Athena Power) in its place. The PSU is a standard sized ATX model with SATA power connections, as well as the standard molex, floppy, and motherboard connections. It's not a brand that we've seen much, but in our use it was very quiet and seemed to have no problems. The rear of the PSU was slightly warped by one of the screws, but this appears to be due to the tight fit rather than metal fatigue. A quick search online indicates that pricing on the PSU is relatively high ($70+), so it should be of good quality. Besides, worst case scenario, the PSU has to power two hard drives, a DVD, the graphics card, and a low power CPU.

Click images to enlarge.

On the rear panel, we have the USB, audio, Firewire, and networking ports. Integrated graphics are also present, courtesy of the i855G chipset, but since PC-Club only sells the system with a 6800GT, it's something of a moot point. The Aopen motherboard used was designed more for blade servers, and as such, it includes two GbE ports. That's overkill for typical home use, and unfortunately, audio also takes a back seat. The front panel does include headphone and microphone plugs, but they cannot be used simultaneously with the rear ports. Plugging in headphones on the front of the case will disable the matching rear port. We did find that the sound was clear on both the rear and front panel ports, which is definitely a plus. Unfortunately, there were no S/PDIF connections and there are only three standard 1/8" jacks, which can be configured for up to 5.1 audio support. An internal header for S/PDIF support is present, but that would cost extra and would use up yet another expansion card slot. If you wanted to use the PC as part of a home theater, the lack of optical connections may be cause for concern. On the bright side, there are a couple of extra PCI slots that could be used to house an audio card or TV tuner. (You'd have to give up the Firewire connection to fit two PCI cards, unless you go with a graphics card that doesn't include the large Silencer HSF.)

Wrapping things up, PC-Club included a floppy drive and an Aopen 16X DVD+RW drive, both with black bezels. Since PC-Club sent us an entire system - including everything but the monitor - we should also mention those items. They sent us some Logitech X-530 5.1 speakers. We've recommended them (and their predecessor Z-640) in many of our budget to mid-range Guides. They're certainly capable of producing acceptable sound, although they aren't going to put any reasonable home theater to shame. The keyboard and mouse are a different story, as PC-Club includes the Logitech Cordless Desktop MX for Bluetooth package. At times, the responsiveness of the mouse was a little slow, particularly after letting it sit for a while. It seemed to take a second or two to "wake up". However, the range of the Bluetooth devices was very good, working easily from the couch as well as from up to 30 feet away (at which time we lost sight of the screen). Serious gamers might prefer a corded mouse still, but we think that the keyboard and mouse combination works very well for HTPC use - provided that you have some convenient place to set them when you're not controlling the PC; a keyboard makes for a very large "remote control".

As usual, nothing is perfect, and there are a few areas where we feel that the features are a bit lacking. We've mentioned the onboard audio solution. A Realtek 655 AC'97 audio solution is not uncommon, but it's nothing special either. The lack of support for S/PDIF and line-in/microphone is a bit more problematic; we wish that the Firewire mounting bracket had included some S/PDIF connections at the very least. Finally, the use of cheap Logitech X-530 speakers is also at odds with the rest of the system. The Z-5300e would have been a better match, or even the Z-5500 (assuming S/PDIF was included or you purchase an add-in sound card). As a whole, the current audio subsystem in the Silencer could use a slight upgrade.

The Firewire support is also somewhat problematic; it is included, but it comes via a mounting bracket as opposed to being located on the rear I/O panel or on the front of the case. (This is Aopen's decision, of course, not PC-Club's.) Having a micro-ATX board is an advantage relative to most SFF configurations, as up to three PCI slots are available. Using two of those slots with the Firewire bracket and the GPU Silencer negates the advantage.

Some people might also find the lack of a flash card reader to be a drawback, although it's not a huge problem - 9-in-1 readers can be found for $25 these days. Still, it might have been nice to have one integrated into the case somewhere. Just don't replace the floppy drive, as it is definitely a necessity. The onboard SATA controller is not provided via the chipset, but comes from a Promise FastTrack controller. While the system comes pre-loaded with the OS, you will need a floppy with the SATA drivers if you ever want to reinstall Windows XP.

Finally - and we've mentioned this in recent articles - the entire package is relatively high-end, with something of a gamer slant. Our own testing of the Pentium M shows it to be a decent but not outstanding gaming CPU. Even with the new socket 478 adapter from ASUS and some overclocking, Pentium M on the desktop is niche product. The 2.0 GHz model 755J provided in the review system costs almost as much as an Athlon 64 4000+. Needless to say, the 4000+ is substantially faster in the majority of benchmarks. The use of Mushkin 2.5-3-3-7 RAM seems a bit odd at first, and you are limited to two DIMMs. Mushkin is a respected brand, but pairing a $450 CPU with $100 memory is unusual. As you'll see in our testing, however, even RAM with 2-2-2 timings didn't make a very big difference in performance, so the Mushkin is a good fit.