Silverstone is one of those funny companies for me a lot of the time I look at their products and I go wow this
is really welld designed and the build quality is fantastic but who the heck
would want one and that's what the mll5 was to me at only 7 lers of internal
volume it's one of the smallest cases on the market but when they sent me the
sample I just couldn't figure out who they were targeting with it
the CM Storm sf7 uses a massive 18 cm
fan to cool your gaming notebook and it adds a four port USB hub click now to
learn more starting with the outside the front of the case adopts a look that's a
little bit different from the traditional Silverstone style subtle
things like opting for diamond shaped power and reset buttons but it retains
the classy look that I've come to expect from them you'll find a Silverstone logo
and a Slimline Optical loading slot and that's about it on the right hand side
regraded by front USB 3 and audio as well as two 80 mm fan mounts that I
would recommend populating and using as intakes especially if you have a 3 and
1/2 in hard drive installed I wish they were filtered but I guess I could buy
something or DIY something with black panty hose if I really wanted the left
side is blank and then moving around to a wide shot of the back we get the first
hints about the internal layout the M5 uses an sfx power supply an mitx
motherboard with a half height expansion card slot and and adds a full-sized
horizontal PCI slot that I wish was oriented the other way to allow a PCIe
extension cable to be used more easily if I wanted to install a full height
card with decent ventilation out the top here as it is it could be used for
add-ons like a PCI slot mounted fan controller for example though
interestingly other than about an inch on the left of the motherboard here
which we need for those optional 80 mm fans there is almost no Gap from
component to opponent across the back it is amazing how little space has been
wasted in every dimension on this case
on the bottom we find four rubber feet that Silverstone makes you apply
yourself which I thought was a bit janky but at least they're nice and grippy so
the case won't go anywhere obviously this doesn't prove anything cuz I have a
tablecloth on the table but whatever you get the point the top panel has
ventilation holes for the optional 120 mm fan that can go on the 4in one
mounting plate as well as another set of holes for the power supply to draw in
fresh air and it's removed with three screws at the back
which W that is one cramped interior now
this is a fairly simple PC no graphics card or anything but frankly it was
still pretty challenging to build in just because the inside of this case is
so tight we'll start with the power supply I went with silverston 80 plus
gold 450 W modular unit but I think to
do it over again I would have actually gone with a a non-modular power supply
because the clearance between the modular cables and the quad 2 and 1/2 in
Drive cage here is really really tight and I was barely able to get the cage in
a nice touch is the stamped instructions for Which Way connectors go on the cage
so at least you won't have to do it twice when you realize everything's oriented the wrong way and actually for
that matter the way that they key the cross brace so that it only goes in one
way is another nice touch as well it's little things like this that make a
builder's life less frustrating speaking of frustrating you would have to be some
kind of a wizard to actually get four ssds in there data is okay especially if
you use thin wire lowprofile cables like Silverstone CP 111s but unless you're
using a custom power splitter it just doesn't seem realistic to get all four
of those drives powered up moving over we could see that while there is a PCI
slot here in the back and you could move the cables out of the way enough to get
at it there's almost no room for cooling as it is and that would make things even
more cramped I can't think of too many half height cards that I would recommend
installing in this case but I guess at least you have the option which leads us
to the next thing I wouldn't recommend installing the 4- in-one plate here can
accept a 120 mm fan two 2 and 1/2 in
drives a Slimline Optical or what we have in here a 3 and 1/2 in drive and
while the first three options are just fine given how tight that 3 and 1/2 in
Drive is in here here I just don't think I can recommend going that route I'm
using a very lowprofile CPU Cooler and while load temperatures are still you
know not like T Junction on my core I
53450 I don't like the close proximity of the hard drive and the CPU which
combined are going to be generating most of the heat that's being kicked out into
the case as far as final thoughts go the
manual is excellent as always and doubles as a build guide and the case
construction is very very solid there's almost no flex to it and thick metal
everywhere that makes the finished product feel more like a piece of equipment versus a PC but the finishing
touches are not quite up to the same standard that I expect from Silverstone
I mean it's just little things like the inclusion of silver screws instead of
black ones on the outside and the fact that it comes no no uh no thumb screws
instead of you know regular screwdriver screws on the back it only comes with
two zip ties I mean it's not like there's much room for cable management
inside anyway and these are very minor complaints especially when you consider
the price it's just that I have very high expectations for Silverstone so I
felt like I had to say those things so now that the build is done who is it for
could I figure it out I mean with chomecast available for 35 bucks is
there still room for htpcs I use one and the functionality is
better but I don't pay for most of my computer hardware and I doubt I'd be
willing to spend the money on a high-end machine like this if I did I guess the
best use I can think for it would be um as a Steam OS gaming machine when Intel
drops another generational Improvement or two on us in terms of onboard
graphics performance or as an inhome streaming box using steam and playing
games right now Intel's latest CPUs have
great hardware h264 decoders and with a
separate powerful rig elsewhere in the house you can actually get a great
gaming experience on your TV even without a powerful media Cent PC um the
6 2 and 1/2 in Drive compatibility is a
weird one to me while we're talking about conclusions I mean I guess the
pitch is that you could store your content locally by loading it up with 2
and 1 half inch hard drives or something it's not something I'd recommend and
honestly what I'd probably do is just take this cage Out jam an SSD into that
corner and make your life a little bit easier Cable Management wise that way so
advertised specs aside the case is so am
amazingly small that you need to have reasonable expectations about what you
can build in here if you're ready to use a Nas to expand it storage over the
network and use a separate gaming rig to give it the horses it needs to play
Modern games using steam in home streaming then I think you'll be very
happy with your sexy new htpc if you want a little bit more power in the Box
itself well obviously Silverstone has a wide variety of other cases that are
much much larger that will allow you to achieve that as always guys price and
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