Howdy, Today we’ll be looking at something fast that was made possible by SilverStone. No, I’m not talking about the British race track. I’m referring to a custom PC in a sweet rackmount enclosure from SilverStone Technology. Founded in 2003, the Taiwanese company SilverStone Technology has spent the last two decades becoming a leader in their field. They produce a wide variety of computer enclosures as well as power supplies, coolers, fans, and accessories.

The product we’ll be looking at today is their RM44 Rackmount Chassis. What really sets this case apart from the majority of 4U cases on the market is that it is designed to support 360mm liquid cooling radiators. While home users with server racks are likely still a niche market, we definitely do exist and would like to build out powerful workstations that don’t sound like a jet taking off. We’re going to see if we can manage to fit custom water-cooling for both CPU and GPU in this case while maintaining decent temps and noise levels. Think it will work out? Read on to find out!

Product Specifications

Unboxing

The case comes double boxed with foam inserts and a separate box for the accessories. The rack ears and handles are already installed which is convenient since I’d assume most people buying a rack case would want it in this configuration. That said, in the accessories package they also include a set of feet which can be used with the case in a tower configuration. The handles can be moved from the front to what becomes the top of the case when setup in tower mode. They also include an assortment of screws and standoffs which are conveniently in individually labelled bags. As well as PWM fan extension cables, GPU support brackets, and some cable management strips and zip ties.

The case comes with 2x 80mm PWM fans preinstalled. The model CC8025H12D doesn’t seem to match any of the current SilverStone fan line-up and appears to be made for them by CoolCox. See below the specification of the included fans.

Source

There are 4x 2.5″ drive sleds around the case. Additionally, there is an “expansion card retainer” that can be used to mount 2x 3.5″ HDDs or 3x 2.5″ drives at the top. Along the bottom it has adjustable support brackets. The position of the card retainer can be adjusted. It has 4 positions that the brackets that it mounts to can be moved between as well as the slotted screw holes that add additional adjustment. I did not use this at all because the only spinning rust drives I use are in my NAS and the bracket itself interferes with tall GPUs.

Speaking of tall GPUs, of the 3 GPU’s I’ve ran in the case so far, I’ve only had one that allowed me to close the case. The reference AMD 6950XT was able to fit with a waterblock and enough room for the PCIe power cables to fit safely.

For a review of the Zotac 4070 Ti AMP Extreme AIRO I was working on, I thought I’d compare it against the AMD 6950XT and an MSI 4070 Ti Ventus and run them all in this case. The Zotac 4070 Ti is a comically large GPU and I was barely able to shoehorn it in with a slim rad and standard 25mm fans in front. The MSI physically fit but after the horror stories of the new 12VHPWR fires, I didn’t attempt to bend the cables down enough to put the top panel on.

PC build

I’ll start by saying that this case is not designed for a rear radiator placement. I had to modify the fan holes to be able to attach the radiator as well as obviously placing it outside the case. Due to space constraints, I wasn’t able to fit any of my larger D5 pump/reservoir combos. I’d love to see a deeper version of this case. I typically go overboard on radiator space in my builds because I like near silence with single digit water to air deltas… This comes a bit short of those expectations. Putting a 460w load on the system running Folding@home on 20 CPU threads and full power on the GPU, puts the system in the mid teens water/air delta with fans ramping up to very audible speeds.

Chassis 1 are the stock 80mm fans that come with the case, CPU is the pump RPM, and the AIO Pump header are the Gentle Typhoons on the front radiator. T_Sensor is the liquid temp.

So for this to be the perfect case for me, I’d make it much deeper. Would love to be able to run push/pull fans on a thick 360mm radiator with room for a larger pump/res combo. I do realize that those wants are very specific and not many people are likely looking for that in a rackmount case. For people that are just looking to run an AIO cooler, this is a FANTASTIC case. The build quality is phenomenal. A lot of rack cases have very rough fit and finish, sharp edges etc. Not the RM44! This thing is as sturdy as a tank, but still up to the same high level of quality we’ve come to expect from SilverStone’s consumer cases.

Conclusion

So maybe the RM44 isn’t the best case for a custom loop, but here at ExtremeHW we can’t help but to push the limit. For someone that’s looking for a high quality case with modern front panel IO and 360MM AIO compatibility, this is it! One thing I would definitely recommend is to get the rails. Once fully loaded up, the case gets very heavy. Having the rails would make it a lot easier to pull out to service. Pricing is around $355 at the time of this review. Which for a typical consumer seems like a hard pill to swallow. Rackmount cases are generally more expensive than their average desktop counterparts. For a large business, this is just a drop in the bucket. For the average joe, it could be a deal breaker. While the RM44 is priced very fairly to competing cases, I feel like the higher price point of rack mount enclosures is a large deterrent to home users.

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