Review on 🖥️ SilverStone GD08B Home Theater Computer Case with Aluminum Front Panel - Supports E-ATX/ATX/Micro-ATX Motherboards by Lamont Wilson

This was a very disappointing build. Brilliant design, very cool looks and I was very interested in the front access hot swappable hard drive slots. Unfortunately, Silverstone made this case 1/2-1 inch smaller. The depth could of course be 1/2 inch greater than the height. days. Name my first mistake: semi-modular power supplies were clearly in short supply, so instead of getting the power supply I wanted, I got what was available. After checking the specs of many PSUs and noting that they are all 150mm deep, I made the mistake of choosing the gold rated version of the PSU I chose because it was on sale and checked the depth Not. Got it, the depth is 160mm. Damn, but mine is bad. So I wait for the PSU I originally wanted, finally get it and make all the connections, but it turns out that the 150mm depth must contain the connectors and the wire bend radius on the half module, so even though the PSU At just 135mm deep, the hot-swap tray prevents cables from being pulled out of the ports. It's close, but still a miss. Another 1/2 inch would suffice. Another 1 inch deep and there probably wouldn't be a problem with a reasonably sized power supply. The plastic bracket under the hot-swap bay had to be removed, it was impossible to drill a "hole" in the rat's nest of cables meant to fit in that space. 3.5" hard drive bay under the 5.25" optical drive bay. also not usable. Both the 24-pin power connector on my MSI motherboard and the DDR 3600 RAM sticks bother me. Still 1/2 inch tall and it could probably be used. The graphics card I chose has a 6-pin PCIe power connector on the top edge. Here, too, the hull height was too short. I was able to put the cap on but there were wires with a 6 pin connector. So I had to buy a 6 pin 180 degree male to female connector. This connector goes right up to (actually touching) the edge of the 5.25 bay. but it works. The front USB3 cable is very stiff. Given the compact size of the case, it should have been a highly flexible cable. The included case fans suck, no pun intended. Since the target system is an HTPC build, you should PWM for better speed control AND a quieter job. And one of the fans started clicking after <10 hours of runtime (I tested with no hot-swap trays installed). If you do the build there are a few things you can figure out for yourself. If you want to run them unmanaged there is a cable to connect three fans to a 4 pin molex power connector but they will be noisy! Many motherboards only come with one or two fan control connectors, so you'll likely need a 1-3 or 1-2 fan star interconnect cable. If I can find a way to get the PSU working I will replace all three of those crappy fans. And it's not a $40 case, how about a pair of captured thumbscrews on the top cover? Even my old HTPC, the $400 HP 1080T, has thumbscrews that are easy to grip. Apart from these shortcomings, I like the case. The hinged front panel is very functional and aesthetically pleasing. The positive pressure case design and fan shields seem like a good idea to minimize dust and dust balls inside, but I don't have time to know how effective it would be.