SilverStone Technology Grandia Series Aluminum HTPC Computer Case for ATX/SSI-CEB - Black (GD09B)

A bit big but does the job nicely, plenty of space for disks and graphics options

Awesome case for HTPC. Built really well.

Great case, fits 3x120mm fans and 2x80mm fans. One 120mm fan is included. Currently running 2x120mm intake and one 120mm exhaust fan for positive pressure set up. Takes a standard ATX power supply and keeps everything nice and cool while still fitting in a standard entertainment cabinet. Running R3 1200 at 3.950GHz with GTX 1060 6gb on a 450 watt Bronze+ PSU. Temps are very reasonable and no thermal throttling. For those complaining about noise, it really comes down to fan profiles and the fans you buy to supplement the system. There is some fan noise, however it is only audible (even under full load) when there is no audio source playing. Watching movies, playing games, listening to music, etc. Any audio source at low volume easily drowns out any case noise you might hear. In my setup in particular I am running an aggressive overclock on my cpu as well as fan curves that run at 50% all the time and ramp to 90% at 60c. It has enough airflow (with 2 120mm fans added) to let my R3 1200 run stable at 3.95GHz and hit a 605 in Cinebench15. Even with that the case is still not audible when a audio source is playing at any reasonable volume. I've paired this with a Schiit Modi 2 USB DAC on a simple 2.0 tower speaker setup and it's truly fantastic. The best part is that this case will be able to carry me through several upgrades (so long as usb 3.0 remains supported) given that it fits a standard ATX power supply, standard ATX motherboards, and graphics cards just over 12" in length. You would be hard pressed to find a better HTPC case for the price. Now, the downsides. Not as many drive bays as I'd like, especially for 2.5" SSD drives. However this can be overcome with some creativity and industrial velcro. The structural support bar makes a great mounting point for SATA III SSD's and depending on your cooler you could easily get 2 (maybe 3) mounted there even with a 5.25" drive (DVD/Blu Ray). The other downside is that this case does not have any thumb screws. You will have to pull out a screwdriver to do anything with it. I don't see this as a big deal as a HTPC is usually only torn into to upgrade and if you are doing that I expect that you'll be taking most components out anyway; but others may complain about the lack of thumb screws. Take home message for this is that the case is astounding at it's price point. Lots of space for most users, supports standard ATX sizes, runs more than quiet enough and had good build quality.

OKAY UPDATE ON THE BUILD IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS REVIEW. I just had this delivered. This is the first part of the review. I unboxed it. Put it on my home theater rack. I have a 3 piece rack. Two towers left and right they have 20 inch wide 18 inch deep shelf. The center part of my rack hold the tv it has 2 drawers and 2 wide deep shelfs . This unit needed the 23 inch wide shelf that is 24 inches deep the ones under my tv. It seems well made. I read the manual. This unit needs a manual to build your pc. The inside is not standard rack htpc case. The manual is a p.i.t.a. it has 6 or 7 languages on each page for each step. It is not printed on the best paper and is hard to read. I have one real complaint the lid which needs 2 screws to remove should have used 2 thumbscrews or at least give me a few thumbscrews with the unit just on case I want that option. This is all I got right now. waiting on parts below. I ordered an Intel i7 3770t cpu from another seller. A special heat sink from prolimatech the Samuel 17 from another seller. An intel mobo from amazon. the one with thunderbolt. TO UPDATE THIS IS THE MOBO AN INTEL [...] I ordered a few 180gb intel ssds from amazon. SSDSC2CT180A3K5 I ordered a Sapphire hd7750 Ultimate GPU fanless from amazon I ordered Some samsung ram 4x 4gb sticks Model MV-3V4G3/US from another seller. I ordered a seasonic fanless psu from another seller. 400 WATT MODEL I ordered a samsung blu ray player from amazon SHB123L/RSBP I ordered some scythe 120mm 500rpm fans from amazon SY1225SL12SL I also grabbed windows 7 professional oem from amazon. A card reader from rosewill. last a dvr/tv tuner from another seller. This will be a hi end HTPC. This is a money is not the object build with quiet being first priority I will detail the build once all parts come in. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ My build is complete The good news first; FIRST OFF THE BUILD IS ALL THAT I COULD HOPE FOR AND A TOTAL SUCCESS. Second it was hard very hard to get the blu ray drive to work properly. I read the instructions a few times and I knew I need to slide a small plastic part about one inch on a rod designed to allow this to happen. I could not do it. I took the entire face plate apart (overkill). I did need to remove the dvd/bluray drop down plate . once i did this I could slide the plastic push plate 1 inch this lined it up to the push button of the samsung bluray player. next the depth of the blu ray player must be perfect (under 1/16 of an inch) if you have the blu ray player to close to the face plate the plastic button gets pushed by the part you slld to line up with it. Of course if you set the player to far from the face plate you won't trigger it by pushing the button. Last but not least you need to screw the player in so it never moves over time. there are 4 screws to do this. of course if you did it just a tiny bit wrong you have to take it apart and adjust it. All of this added hours to the build. One other problem I like to use grills on the inside of all my fans. one fan had no clearance in one corner to allow a standard grill. (one of the blu ray players screws) I needed to use a screen mesh type fan that I have reviewed on the 18th of JUlY The rest was easy. My goal is a powerful quiet htpc that will run handbrake, play a blu ray ,stream netfilx, youtube, record tv , store a lot of info . The cpu works really well it never goes over 42 watts. my fans all run in the 300 to 550 rpm range. I can't get the machine to go hotter then 62c. the only noise it makes is the blu ray player during a quiet part of a movie My WEI numbers are cpu 7.7 ram 7.8 2d video 7.4 3d video 7.4 ssd 7.9 my geekbench 64 bit score is 14400 now if you want better gaming get yourself an hd7850 msi makes one amazon sells it. you would be able to drive a 1080p screen to pretty much max settings on most all games. Since I wanted quiet and don't game much the sapphire hd7750 is pretty good for me.____ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CPU = INTEL 3770T LOW POWER FAST you could use the it3770k for gaming [...] MOBO = [...] Ram = [...] power supply seasonic 400watt fanless [...] gpu sapphire hd 7750 ultimate [...] you could use the msi r7950 for gaming h[...] i ended up with a crucial m4 512gb in this machine [...] but the ones below are fine. ssds i like crucial m4 [...] I like samsung 256gb [...] i like intel 180gb [...]

The top panel has a small grille for heat to exhaust out of, and on the right side of the case you can see two of the three included 120mm fans. As we come around the front you can the space for a DVD drive, the power and reset buttons, the two front USB 3.0 ports, the front audio jacks and a My Neighbor Totoro sticker. If you order this case it does not come with that sticker, but my wife couldn’t stop herself and had to put it on the second I unboxed the case. As you come around the other side of the case you can see the third 120mm fan with grille for air to exhaust out of as well. The rear of the case has a spot for a full size ATX power supply, four slots for PCI cards, two spots that you could fit additional 80mm fans into, and the IO slot for the motherboard. Once we take the top panel off, you get a look at the DVD tray which you could use with an adapter to hold an additional mechanical hard drive instead of a DVD drive. If you wish to use a CPU cooler taller than 70 millimeters, you will also need to remove the DVD drive tray to make room for it. The other drive caddy can hold two mechanical hard drives and also has room for an SSD. You can see the assorted wires for the case, along with the fan filter that on the single 120mm fan that is visible. When you remove the two screws on top and two screws on the side of the DVD caddy, you can pull that out of the way exposing the other 120mm fan and its fan filter. You can also see the built-in motherboard standoffs, showing you that this case can handle either a Micro-ATX or Mini- ITX motherboard. By pulling out the four screws on the top of the other drive caddy, you can see the third 120mm fan with its dust filter, along with the bottom intake vent for the power supply. You cannot see it from this angle, but there is another dust filter on the bottom of that opening, which means that every intake port on this case is filtered. Not pictured is the box of miscellaneous hardware, including all of the screws you will need and a few cable management ties. After using the case for the last couple of weeks, we couldn’t be happier. It looks great and fits right into our entertainment center. The fans are not silent, but they are fairly quiet and cannot be heard at all once there is music or a movie being played thru our sound system. The thermals are pretty good, but not great. We have this little case packed full of hardware, not to mention that it is inside of a cabinet, but as far as I can tell there hasn’t been any thermal throttling or shutdowns, so I cannot complain.

Let me preface this by stating that I am a professional PC builder. I have been a certified warranty repair technician for several large manufacturers over the years, and have built thousands of machines at a professional level during my career. With this preface stated, I would be quick to label this case as one of the more painful builds I have ever personally done. Although the case supports an ATX motherboard, it quickly became clear that this was a bad idea. As other commentors have mentioned, having a power supply that is modular is in-fact a requirement. If you intend to have a larger, three-fan GPU in this case, you will also need to modify the placement of the drive bays in order for the GPU to fit, reducing your total drive capacity. Cable management as part of the case design is simply non-existent. Any attempt to keep things clean and orderly will be met with frustration, as previously mentioned, this case does not work well with ATX boards. The quality of the case seems lackluster for how much this case costs, and it doesn't even come with enough fans to adequately cool the case, requiring additional fans to be added. Overall, this case has one primary benefit, and that is the style of the case. It's pretty much the only proper HTPC / rack-mountable case on the market, and it clearly shows. I would not recommend this if you are new to PC building. I would also not recommend this case unless you absolutely need the form factor this case offers.