SilentiumPC Armis AR5 – Simple Midi Tower with 5.25″ Support under Test

SilentiumPC is a manufacturer of PC hardware founded in 2007 in Warsaw, Poland. When developing its products, the company places the main focus on products that are as inexpensive as possible but nevertheless well equipped. The main focus is on housings and cooling products such as CPU coolers, fans and AiO water coolers.

Recently, the manufacturer presented a newly developed housing. This is called Armis AR5 and is a very simple midi tower with support for 5.25″ drives. SilentiumPC promotes the Armis AR5 with good hardware compatibility, decent airflow and sophisticated cable management.

For fans of an extravagant look, there are also four other versions with tempered glass and RGB fans in various combinations.  The simpler AR5 without Tempered Glass tested by us gives SilentiumPC a UVP of 44 €. Whether a purchase of the SilentiumPC Armis AR5 is recommended and how it performs generally, we will find out for you in this review.

Technical Details

Scope of Delivery

The SilentiumPC Armis AR5 comes well and safely packed in a brown box with black writing and is wrapped in a normal Styrofoam. The supplied accessories were stored in a transparent bag and fastened inside the housing. This bag contains all important screws, six black cable ties, a mainboard speaker, a tool for screwing in the spacers and a short illustrated installation guide.

The scope of delivery also includes two pre-installed 120 mm fans, a PWM board for up to eight fans and the pre-installed spacers for the mainboard.

Exterior Impression

In the time of Tempered Glass and RGB the Armis AR5 is once again a case that can be described as absolutely simple and timeless.

The front section is completely closed and made of plastic. Visually, the plastic looks like brushed aluminium. In the lower area, the manufacturer’s logo is also embossed in a restrained manner. In the upper area SilentiumPC has installed the I/O panel. It has two USB 3.0 ports, one each for headphones and microphone, and a power and reset button. In addition, there is a third button that can be used to deactivate the white illumination of the buttons. If you pull off the front with a strong jerk, the I/O panel remains on the body. Behind the front panel you can see the pre-installed case fan or the frame for an external 5.25″ drive. To ensure that all fans receive sufficient fresh air, ventilation openings were fitted to the side of the front panel and equipped with removable filter frames.

The lid section is dominated by a large fan opening. This offers space for two 120 or two 140 mm fans. In order to protect the interior from dust and to make the lid look simpler, SilentiumPC has pre-installed a magic dust filter.

The simple appearance continues with the side parts. Both panels are completely made of steel, have extraction aids and are fastened with knurled screws. However, the stability of both sides could be somewhat higher.

The back and underside of the Armis AR5 don’t hide any big surprises. The Midi-Tower stands on rubberized and solid plastic feet. The power supply unit is mounted at the bottom and protected from dust by a mesh filter. Above it are the seven PCI slots and the second pre-installed case fan.

The general finish of the outside is good. There are no sharp edges or paint defects. If we had anything to criticize, it would be the breakable slot bezels and the slightly inaccurate fit of the 5.25″ bezel in the front panel.

Internal Impression

In the interior SilentiumPC also follows the current trend and designs it very openly or divides the interior into two areas with the help of a power supply cover. The pre-installed case fan is able to let air freely into the interior to cool the graphics card and CPU. In order to keep the interior tidy even after assembly, the manufacturer has provided the mainboard tray with various cable management openings.

If you lower your eyes a little, the power supply cover immediately catches your eye. This is to hide the power supply, unused cables and mounted hard disk. In contrast to many other cases the AR5 offers the possibility to mount two fans on it. In order to ensure compatibility for larger radiators, SilentiumPC has also removed a large piece from the front cover.

As mentioned before, the power supply unit and a hard disk can be stowed under the panel. The power supply lies on four small steel standoffs. Unfortunately there is no rubber coating to prevent vibration transmission. The mounting of 3.5″ hard disks is somewhat untypical. In the AR5 there is no hard disk cage underneath the power supply cover. Instead you can mount a 3.5″ HDD on the bottom and another 3.5″ HDD on the mainboard tray. If you don’t need large hard disks, the AR5 also offers the option of mounting a maximum of four 2.5″ data carriers in the floor or on the mainboard tray.

One last interesting feature hidden on the back is the integrated PWM fan controller for up to eight fans with a 3-pin connector. Power is supplied via a SATA power connector.

System Construction in SilentiumPC Armis AR5

Now we come to system installation. As hardware I use a Intel Xeon 1230v3 on a Gigabyte H87M-D3H with 16GB RAM. The Xeon is represented by a LC-Power Cosmo Cool LC-CC-120 cooled. An HD 7850 2GB from Asus is responsible for the image output. The power supply does the non-modular be quiet! Pure Power with 400W. In order to enhance the cabling optically a little bit, single sleeved cable extensions from Phanteks.

The installation and cabling of all components was completed quickly and was feasible even with large hands due to the generous space available. The ingenious cable management system with the well-placed openings and the generous storage space under the power supply cover or behind the mainboard tray make the system look very neat. During the assembly of the DVD drive, however, it became apparent that it almost completely covers the upper cable opening for the 24-pin ATX cable. Fortunately, the cable extension still fitted through.

The good space conditions not only provide advantages in cabling, but also in the general selection of components. According to the manufacturer, a maximum of 162 mm or 350 mm space is available for CPU coolers and graphics cards. This is sufficient for all common pixel accelerators and many powerful CPU coolers. On the other hand, if you prefer to install an AiO water cooling system in the AR5, you shouldn’t encounter any problems either. The AR5 supports radiators up to 360 mm in the front and up to 240 mm in the lid. But then it is no longer possible to install an external DVD drive.

Drives are a good topic at this point. As already mentioned, the SilentiumPC Armis AR5 supports an external 5.25″ drive. This is a feature which is not so common anymore. If you don’t need it, you can simply unscrew the frame and make room for a third fan in the front. The four internal drives (2x 2.5″, 2x 2.5″ or 2x 3.5″) are mounted using four long screws per data carrier. Between these screws and the hard disk there are rubber washers through which the data carriers can be fastened and decoupled at the same time at the assembly place.

The pre-installed fans are Sigma HP type, have a frame width of 120 mm and simple black cables. The maximum speed is approx. 1200 rpm. At this speed, both fans can be heard out of the case due to the air turbulence and some ambient noise. However, since the manufacturer has installed a practical fan controller for up to eight fans ex works, both fans can be controlled via a single PWM connector on the motherboard.

Finally, we come to the temperature measurements. For this I ran Prime95 and Furmark for 15 minutes at a room temperature of 17 °C and then determined the temperature of the processor and graphics card with the CPUID HWMonitor. In order to determine the worst case temperatures, the case fans were addressed via the mainboard with the Silent profile. Thus these turn maximum 550 rpm and are hardly to be heard out of the system. After 15 minutes temperatures of 71°C for the CPU and 69°C for the GPU were reached.

Summary on the SilentiumPC Armis AR5 Test

So what can we say about the SilentiumPC Armis AR5? The AR5 is a typically equipped and finished case for a price of 44 €. It has a very simple but unobtrusive design and offers plenty of space for air cooling and water cooling components. In addition, it is completely protected with dust filters and offers other features such as a sophisticated cable management, a control board for the two pre-installed fans and support for an external 5.25″ drive.

But not all that glitters is gold. The breakaway slot bezels, the rather thin side panels and the slight ambient noise of the case fans attract some negative attention. The cable management opening, which was almost completely blocked by a DVD burner, might also have required a certain design change. If you can overlook these points at a price of 44 €, the SilentiumPC Armis AR5 is a solidly equipped and functional midi tower.