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| Review Date: June 20, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Braden McDaniel, Fairfax, VA United States |
I like small computers. These days we have gobs of stuff integrated on even Micro ATX motherboards and 2 TB hard drives are nothing special anymore. So the expandability of a full size (or even "mid" tower) PC case is completely lost on someone like me. But I still want to be able to pack a bunch of power into a small space. The SG03 is pretty good at that.
This case can accommodate full-length graphics cards and the cooling options are better than most other Micro ATX cases. You can mount two 120mm intake fans at the front. There's a PCI slot bracket at the top of the case in the back where you can mount a PCI slot blower. And unless you're running low-powered components, you'll want to add the FX121 Cross Flow Fan. It also accommodates a full size ATX power supply (all the way up to 18cm deep). And after all that, this is still one of the smallest Micro ATX cases you can get.
The main thing you're giving up in this case is heat sink flexibility. You're limited to coolers 82mm high or shorter. Forget having your power supply fan double as a CPU cooler fan (as some of the SilverStone product literature describes)--that's only going to work if you have really low-powered components. And if you want to use the FX121, top-down coolers that employ 120mm fans won't fit. That leaves you with the stock cooler and similar radial designs. In general, these perform competently, but are rarely "quiet".
Another way to go is the Corsair H50. This case can definitely accommodate the H50; however, I found it not to be a good solution for an X58 motherboard. The motherboard chipset needs air blowing on it; and using the H50 leaves the air around the CPU too stagnant. My FX121 couldn't even pick up the slack. For motherboards without a lot of additional hot components, the H50 is probably an excellent choice for this case.
If you like slot-loading optical drives, another accessory worth adding to this case is the TS03S. The ability to accomodate this (and similar) devices is something you don't get with the similar SG04S-F case.
While I like the SG03 a lot, ultimately I think it's a four-star case rather than a five-star case. While I think the design is outstanding, the build quality is a bit lacking. A lot of the aluminum used on the case is thin and fairly soft when compared with Lian-Li cases, where one finds thicker walls and harder alloys. |
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| Review Date: November 23, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Y. Chen, |
First I should note that I consider my experience with building computers to be moderate. This is the first time I've built a micro-ATX form factor PC.
It is sturdy for a mostly aluminum case with some internal steel support structures. I choose the SG03 over the SG04 because of weight (mostly aluminum), aesthetics, and cooling potential. At the front of the case is a (kinda) exposed bracket that can support two 120mm fans (contrast with the SG04, which has a front panel with side vents that covers those fans). As for the SG01/SG02, the SG03 (and SG04) should have better cooling with less noise because it supports 120mm fans rather than 80mm ones.
At each side of the front fan bracket, there are two side panels on each side that swing open to reveal some built-in functionality. The right side has the typical power/HDD LEDs, while the left features 2 USB, 1 Firewire, and 3.5mm audio/mic ports. For my case, the USB ports worked, but the audio/mic ones were flaky - an annoying audio whine manifested itself when I played any sort of sound. Maybe I didn't connect them to my motherboard properly, but I double-checked to make sure it was so... Didn't matter for me, since I just used the ports at the back of my motherboard.
The front fan bracket is composed of the bracket itself which you screw on 120mm fans, a mesh filter for catching dust, and an aluminum grille that fits over it all (and is what you see from the front). There is a design flaw here though - the grille is an absolute PITA to remove from the bracket, so the initial installation of the case fans and the cleaning of the mesh is difficult. I even nearly bent the grille just trying to remove it. To address this, I sanded down the nubs that keep the grille locked into the bracket.
Concerning ease of use - or rather, construction - big warning to all you potential micro-ATX buyers: a micro-ATX build with top-of-the-line components is much more difficult than a normal-sized PC (even compared to mini-tower ATX ones). 3 words: cable management hell. Being able to fit everything into the case is not sufficient, you also need to plan how you're going to connect everything together, leaving enough room at each step for connecting cables. This is not a criticism of this case, but instead of the overall form factor - if you want to go small, you're sacrificing ease of construction, some cooling potential, expandability (and upgrading it would require taking nearly the whole PC apart), and ultra-high-end overkill builds (like going multi-GPU). In my case, I apparently chose a difficult build. The component that threw the largest wrench in my construction plans was the Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50 All in One High-performance CPU Cooler CWCH50-1. Very effective and compact cooler, but it complicated the installation a lot. It took me over 10 hours just to build it, and most of that time was spent backtracking because I could not get so-and-so cable fitted correctly at certain steps.
To help with the cable management, I highly recommend using a power supply with short modular cables. A SilverStone Strider modular power supply (careful, not all of this series are modular) with a SilverStone PP05 Short Cable For PSU Set worked well for me. AFAIK, SilverStone is the only company that produces such short modular cables, which unfortunately only work for their Strider series. I hope other power supply manufacturers start producing shorter modular cable sets for the small form factor case builder.
I should also mention the overall cooling potential of this case. Since it's small, there's going to more obstructed air flow within the case, so it's very important to plan it out and keep the cables out of the way. This also limits what you can put in, e.g. installing two graphics cards is possible, but because of heat concerns, I wouldn't recommend it unless you had a very high CFM (and loud) case fan blowing over them. Also, case has enough intake fan ports, but doesn't have enough exhaust ones. In fact, the only exhaust fan would be the PSU, unless you got a PCI slot cooler or the SilverStone FX121 Cross Flow Fan for Sugo Series accessory, neither of which I would recommend unless your PC is running really hot, because of the poor CFM (determines how much it cools) per dbA (how loud it is) and in the case of the FX121, the poor lifetime (only 15000 hours).
A note on weight: my PC ended up being quite weighty despite the aluminum case, simply because of all the components I've packed in it. High-quality power supply unit, high-end graphics card, a serious effort at cooling it, among others add up to a lot. For my build, I estimate the case itself contributes maybe a quarter or so of the overall weight.
So in conclusion, nice case but definitely for more experienced builders or those that are willing to spend plenty of time figuring out how to build it. I've built myself a compact yet very powerful gaming PC, and I'm very satisfied with it so far. |
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Clever little 
