Introduction

Since 2013, we’ve reviewed over three-dozen cases, and among our favorites of all time was the be quiet! Pure Base 500DX, released in Spring 2020. It combined great performance, quality construction, and eye-catching style all at a reasonable price. Well, be quiet! didn’t take long to bring out a higher-end model that emulates one of the features that made the 500DX from all previous be quiet! cases: airflow. In this review, we compare the new Silent Base 802 to the 500DX to see if it can keep up with its smaller sibling. Will it be our new favorite? You’ll find out soon enough!

Special thanks to be quiet! for providing us a sample of the be quiet! Silent Base 802 in white.

TBG’s Video Review

Going forward, all of TBG’s reviews will be released exclusively on YouTube, as video provides far more opportunity to offer details and insight into production design and functionality than a written review ever could.

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Conclusion

While the Silent Base 802 isn’t quite as much of a clear-cut design win as the smaller, cheaper 500DX, with a few zero-cost tweaks out of the box, it becomes a formidable airflow champion. We think be quiet! should move beyond its silent computing marketing to really emphasize the exceptional performance of its latest case, and build on it with new designs in the future. The initial reviewer reception to the Silent Base 802 was relatively muted because, well, the performance just isn’t that great out of the box… and unfortunately first impressions matter, which means the 802 is already doomed to become an also-ran in the high-end case market. If only it had been shipped with the more aggressive components installed, rather than just in the box, things could have been so different for this excellent case!

The be quiet! Silent Base 802 is available for $169.99 as of our latest update.