Installation

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The second you remove that side panel, you'll not only realize just how much room you have to work with, but will also appreciate the thought put into its design.

The first component most system builders will install is none other than the motherboard itself.  With the Temjin TJ10, installation couldn't be any easier.  While this spacious case does have a removable motherboard tray for added convenience, most may actually find that removal of the tray isn't even necessary.  There's just so much headroom and the TJ10 even supports extended ATX boards. 

Before I continue, I would like to deviate a bit from a standard install in order to confirm support for third-party cooling products.  After all, most who have the money to spend on a high-end case like this will most likely have a much more effective means of cooling the rest of their components.  In this particular build, none other than the excellent CoolIT Freezone was used as the primary CPU cooler.  While I'm pleased to say that the TJ10 will support this high-end cooler, it is not without some difficulty to properly mount it.  The major issue you will face is when actually mounting this unit to rear 120mm fan mount.  You will find that the screws used to mount the 120mm adapter to the Freezone fan itself will somewhat interfere, making it difficult to screw in all four of the very short screws provided with this product.  However, with some slight modification or use of other fairly standard mounting screws, you can securely mount the unit into place quite easily.  Also, I would like to add that the location of the 120mm fan mount on the Temjin TJ10 is just about perfect for this cooler.  In fact, as mentioned in some of my other articles, their lower-end Eliminator is actually less compatible with most cases do to its much shorter tubing.  Fortunately, with the Temjin TJ10, I can confirm that both the Freezone and the Eliminator can be installed without much trouble at all.

Moving on, I would like to focus on one of the two cumbersome parts of the install you will face. While the TJ10 respectfully tries to provide the most trouble-free install possible, it is the expansion slots that somehow were slightly over-looked.  First of all, there are no thumb screws and unless you have the proper tools, you may run into a slight snag installing your cards.  Fortunately though, like their excellent DS351 we looked at, there are holes on the chassis body itself for you to have easy access to the mounting screws provided you have a screwdriver that is long and thin enough to fit through them. 

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Unlike your standard ATX case, the PSU is mounted on the bottom of the chassis and due to its fairly large footprint, it can support Power Supplies up to 300mm in depth.  In fact, with this particular build, I mounted the super high-end OP1000 1,000W Power Supply that was also provided by Silverstone for this particular Quad system build.  This unit is quite large and was absolutely not an issue mounting it on this case. There is even a removable bracket to support redundant units as well.  The unique bottom mount is actually much preferred over a top mount chassis. 

Installing your internal hard disk drives is quite easy on the TJ10.  Both of the drive cages can be easily removed via two sturdy handles.  I would also like to note that the drives fit very snug in the cages, thanks to the rubber padding strips running along each side.  However, you must use the special set of screws provided with the case.  If not, you won't be able to slide the cage back into the drive bay.

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Right between both cages, you'll find a removable 120mm fan bracket.  While the case itself does not ship with a fan mounted here, it does clearly state that it is optional.  However, for testing purposes,  I did mount a fan here in order to capture its maximum cooling potential.  Since this particular build does feature the Freezone, I used the included rear 120mm fan for the drives.  You can mount the fan any way you want in terms of airflow direction.  In my case, I had airflow pointing upward to cool the top two drives a bit better since they are in a RAID 0 configuration and the primary drives in this system.  The third drive was installed in the lower cage and is strictly for storage and backup purposes only.

As far as the exposed drive bays go, it isn't exactly a piece of cake to install your 5.25" drives though.  There's no tool-less features and both side panels need to be removed for installation.  You first have to unscrew the metal drive covers and then slide your drives and/or accessories into place through the front of the chassis.  A much simpler design would have honestly been nice.

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A final shot of this new Quad Core build.  You can see just how much room you have to work with, even after all your components and accessories are installed. 

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Also, for those wondering, the rectangular LED's on the TJ-10 are very nice.  Unlike most cases, the power LED has a pleasing white glow and the hard drive activity LED is blue to maintain that high-tech look and blend in well with your other modern hardware. 

Cooling Performance

Let's first have a detailed look at the test system specs for this brand new Quad build...

Temps where measured both at idle and under load.  Idle temps were captured after at least one hour of operation. To load the system, Sisoftware's SANDRA 2007 was used.  The Quad Q6600 was over-clocked heavily and running completely stable at just under 4GHZ. 

In terms of the software utilities used, I will provide readings using Abit's uGuru and grab CPU core temps using CoreTemp.  When using CoreTemp, the average temperature of all four cores was recorded.  Also note that in this particular review, I will not be using SpeedFan because the software is incompatible with this new P35 board from Abit.  While the most popular tool used, I strongly do not recommend you use this tool along with this board, including a couple of other P35 boards that have recently hit the market. In addition, surface temperatures were taken from components using the excellent ThermoHawk 200 touch-less thermometer.  This should give you all a pretty good idea of what to expect from a high-end build with cooling options of the same caliber. 

Ambient temperature during all tests was a cool 73ºF.

The results were nothing short of impressive.  However, keep in mind that with this particular build, I chose components wisely in terms of their cooling potential.  This includes the Freezone and a video card sporting what is still consider one of the best stock cooling options available, the "IceQ".

While these results are realistically a bit out of the norm for many, it is a clear indication on its maximum cooling potential when paired with the right components.  I will say that the unique mid section air duct does indeed make a significant difference in terms of overall cooling performance.  Not only does the included intake fan move some very cool air, but adding the optional fan on the hard drive cage makes a huge difference and your drives will indeed run well below what many may consider average temps in most system builds. 

Next:  Conclusions