Silverstone Temjin TJ10

The ongoing joke at Maximum PC is that SilverStone releases a new TJ series case but once a year. Like the arrival of Punxsutawney Phil, the Video Music Awards, and the Dream Machine, this glorious event is marked with celebrations and drunken revelry—only this time around, instead of booze, we’re tipping back kegs of awesome. SilverStone’s TJ10 case is a welcome addition to the company’s strong dynasty of chassis. Like its father before it, the TJ10 is polished and almost perfect… almost.

We’d normally take this paragraph to gush over the TJ10’s design, but we’ve already done that—just read December 2006’s review of the TJ09 case. Functionally, the two are almost identical. The TJ10 differs in only one minor aspect—the large fan mount attached to the side of the hard drive bays is now notched, giving you a place to rest your extra-long graphics card. And that’s all she wrote, folks.

Since we last looked at a SilverStone case of this magnitude, however, a number of vendors have devised features that surpass those in the 9 Kick Ass–scoring TJ09. For example, Cooler Master’s Cosmos case redefined our notions of screwless with its handy door-removal mechanism and push-button locks for its 5.25-inch bays. Antec’s P190 is the supply depot of cases, with its two included power supplies and five fans. And the Zalman FC-ZE1 case? It’s a tank—a freakin’ tank.

In a perfect world, SilverStone would have included some kind of rails—even dinky plastic ones—so users could mount hard drives and peripherals without screws. We also would love to have seen screwless holders for the PCI cards. Filling all of the bays with fans would have been a pleasant touch that surely wouldn’t have shot this $300 case’s price tag through the roof. And still, no eSATA on the front panel connectors?

The TJ10 is still a rockin’ case, but old age has started to creep up on this old faithful. Perhaps we’ll see some innovation come this time next year.

The TJ10 does a great job cooling your components, although including a fan near the hard drive bays would have been a welcome touch.

Silverstone Temjin TJ07
www.silverstonetek.com

Alicia Silverstone

It's pretty much the same as the TJ09 we gave a 9 Kick Ass to last year.

Alicia Silverstone

It's pretty much the same as the TJ09 we gave a 9 Kick Ass to last year.