Conclusion: A Starting Point for Enthusiasts
I'll be candid: if it isn't clear at this point, I do have a personal bias towards SilverStone's designs. Their cases are typically clean, there's obviously some thought put into the engineering, and it seems like nobody ever told their engineers something couldn't or shouldn't be done. Whatever the results, testing an enclosure of theirs is always at least interesting, and the Temjin TJ04-E is no exception.
On the plus side, the TJ04-E is a beautifully minimalistic design, and thermal performance is mostly there. In its factory configuration, you can be at least relatively confident the CPU will stay cooler than it would in most other enclosures. The RAM and chipset are also going to run nice and frosty, which is good news for any end user who plans to do some serious overclocking. End users that like figuring out the best way to optimize thermal performance beyond just plugging everything in and going will no doubt at least have some fun with the TJ04-E; I've even been eyeballing it, trying to figure out how to get the most out of some of the more unusual design choices.
Unfortunately, I think the TJ04-E really needs a bottom intake fan to feed the graphics card, a problem compounded by the fact that one doesn't come preinstalled and the case doesn't rise high enough off the carpet to make this a good idea. Worse still, that also makes it less suitable for multi-GPU systems. There's also the problem of noise: this case needs a fan controller. Finally, there are just too many little nuisances involved with the assembly. Where other SilverStone cases have a clear method to their madness, parts of the TJ04-E just make me feel like it shouldn't be this hard.
SilverStone's Temjin TJ04-E isn't a bad enclosure by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not a homerun either, especially at the $149 asking price. The KL04 at $109 is going to be a much, much better deal; it has the same internal design while eschewing conveniences like the hard drive heatsinks and SATA splitter cables. At that price, the KL04 merits some of the extra time that's going to be required to make the most out of SilverStone's design. While the TJ04-E is more attractive and enjoys the extra niceties in the packaging, at $149 it's a tough pill to swallow when other, quieter designs like the Antec P280 are out there.
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