 Overall good case |
| 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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