As first time builder (ever) my one thought about this case was it was difficult. I'm not sure if that just inexperience, or the placement of some of the holes in the bottom cover but i struggled to find the correct pathing for everything. On a whole there is NOTHING on the market that looks this good for under $100, so props to Silverstone for supplying great design to this segment of the market.
As stated before there are a few holes in the power supply cover that are really strangely placed. They are so close to the motherboard, that I found them nearly unusable (especially for the cable that connects to the front of the case itself... which I suspect was suppose to run through one of these holes.) Running some of the cables was tough as well, as I found I nearly ran out of room for my two graphics card power supply cables (but that just might be the case of I put way to much power into this tiny case.) By the way this case is TINY, I mean like really really small. When it first arrived I was shocked at how much smaller it is than I thought. A Crosshair Hero 6 BARELY, and i Mean by mere millimeters fit and needed some firm shoving to actually get all the screws in.
I made a compromise with this case, and that was to go for a Kraken x52... i was a little worried it wouldn't give me the cooling performance I needed, and boy was I glad to be wrong. I dont know if its my beginner level of thermal paste application and luck, or the case or the cooler itself, but I've never seen this even in bench marking go above 48c. (i used antec diamond thermal paste btw, not the included kraken pre-applied stuff)
This case is damn beautiful and I am so glad I stumbled on the tempered glass edition. For my first build ever, its exactly what I wanted... the challenge I needed, and the look that sits perfectly in my house.
A LOT of reviewers stated they wished this came with rubber grommets, and while I did initially agree with them while building - as soon as you slip the back cover on the holes where grommets would be begin to disappear. With the tinted glass applied the holes are completely invisible, and I believe at this point rubber grommets would have been a complete wasted effort. IF however the glass was not tinted, grommets would have been needed for tidiness.
Pros
- most beautiful case for under $100
- Airflow seems to be massively good for such a TINY case (even with god-tier components)
- tempered glass has a tint to it that hide some component features and lets your RGB shine in perfect balance
- Very sturdy, living in California you would need a very sizable earthquake to tip this over
- Amazing airflow
- plenty of USB ports on top
Cons
- Holes in power supply covers are to close to motherboard to be used effectively
- full size crosshair hero 6 fits by a millimeter and needs shoving to fit into place (it so damn close)
- i wish it could fit a 280mm radiation on the front... just to be even more overkill.
- with a 1080ti, radiator Must be mounted in push configuration or the GPU wont fit or will touch fans
- ONLY 25mm fans or thinner can fit on the top vents (cant make it like 3 mm taller?) (not that its needed, but still might as well be versatile)
- 2 140mm fans in the top BARELY and I mean you need to hulk SMASH them into place to get them to fit... but they fit and work great :D
- included fan has super ugly red and yellow power cable
- only comes with ONE rear exhaust fan... would have been nice to see 1 or 2 more :(
- missing USB 3.1c on top :(
Conculstion
I would accept no other case on the market for under $100. There is literally noting out there that looks even half as good so you got me there silverstone. The airflow and cooling performance seems to be massively good, better than anything I could have expected. The case was also tiny, but upon assembling the build (which took me 3 days) i found the small form factor fits incredibly nicely on my desk, and actually doesn't overpower the size of my monitor. It would seem performance and design were major factors here, and they both prove apparent when your build is said and done. good job :)
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 2 |
|---|
