Silverstone Grandia GD07 HTPC Case Review

Rating: 8.0.

A few months ago we looked at the Grandia GD06 case from Silverstone which impressed us due to solid build quality and competitive pricing. However, it was only capable of accepting Micro-ATX motherboards which was likely to alienate a substantial audience.

Today we are going to look at the Silverstone Grandia GD07 which shares a number of design similarities with the GD06 with the notable addition of ATX motherboard support.  The rest of the specification is also impressive as the unit features plenty of hard drive bays and cooling options.

Specification

• Motherboard support: SSI-EEB, SSI-CEB, Extended ATX, ATX, Micro-ATX.
• Power supply support: PS2/ATX up to 220mm.
• Graphics card support: up to 13.6 inches.
• CPU cooler support: 138mm.
• Cooling (front): N/A.
• Cooling (side): 2x 120mm fan vents.
• Cooling (top): Oversized vents.
• Cooling (rear) 2x 80mm vents.
• Cooling (bottom): 2x 120mm vents.
• Front I/O: 2x USB3.0, Headphone, Microphone.
• Weight: 7 KG.
• Dimensions: 440 x 175 x 435mm (WxHxD).
• Easily adjustable LED brightness
• Lockable Power Button

Silverstone supply the GD07 in a large cardboard box which is decorated in a black livery.  Due to the design of the case, Silverstone have chosen to use a wide, short box instead of the more conventional tall, narrow case boxes we're used to.

Inside the box, the case is sandwiched between two slabs of polystyrene, which offers shipping protection.

We find all the bundled accessories within a small box inside.  Aside from the usual screws for installation and user manual, we only find a couple of additional items in the box.  These include a USB3.0 to USB2.0 internal header adapter for the front I/O connections and a couple of cable routing clips.

It's clear that Silverstone are attacking the higher end of the market as the Grandia GD07 features a very attractive brushed aluminium front panel.  Despite this, the main body of the case is constructed from SECC steel so that the price isn't elevated too much.

If you use the case for an HTPC under your TV, you'll only see the front panel of the case anyway so this wont be an issue.

In a similar fashion to the Silverstone GD06, the front panel of the GD07 is actually a door which drops down to reveal four 5.25″ bays, the two front panel USB3.0 ports, audio connections and the power and reset buttons.  There is also a power button on the outside of the door, though, so you don't have to open it up to turn the system on.  It can be locked too, though, to prevent unauthorised use of the system.

On the right hand side of the case there are two 120mm fan vents, one of which is populated with a Silverstone branded 900 RPM fan which acts as an intake.

There is a removable filter which attaches via clips to the outside of these vents to prevent dust build up inside the case.  There is also a removable filter on the underside of the case which prevents dust and fluff from being sucked into the underside of the case.

There is a possibility that these could be used for a 240mm water cooling unit such as the Corsair H100.  Moving round to the left hand side of the case, there is a single dust filtered fan vent which feeds the PSU on the inside.

The rear of the case looks a lot like a tower case rotated through 90 degrees.  The I/O panel is located on the left below two 80mm fan vents.  Further to the right we find six expansion slots and the PSU mounting bracket.  The top panel of the case is secured at the back using two regular screws; no thumbscrews here!

As we mentioned earlier in the review the layout of this case is essentially a tower case laid on its side.  The most prominent feature of the inside of the case is the large drive rack which spans the entire front section of the case.  This can be removed after removing six screws around the edge.  This has room for two 2.5″ drives, four 3.5″ drives and four 5.25″ drives.

The vast number of drive locations makes this case ideal for use as a home server or media centre PC.  All drives have to be secured with screws, though, as there is no tool-less mechanism in the case.

In total there are three 120mm intake fans supplied with the case; one in the right hand side of the case and two in the floor.  The two in the floor blow over the 3.5″ drive bays to improve cooling.  There aren't any exhaust fans included in the system but you could easily switch some of the fans around or add further fans if you feel this is necessary.

The overall installation process is relatively simple, thanks in part to the clearly illustrated manual.  First of all we installed a ATX motherboard into the case which required us to screw in three further motherboard standoffs.

You'll need to bear in mind that there isn't a CPU cooler backplate cutout in the case so the CPU cooler needs to be attached before installing the motherboard into the case.  The case supports motherboards up to 138mm in height.

Installing expansion devices into the system isn't as straight forward as most cases as you have to remove a small cover from the back of the case to access the screws securing the expansion slots.  The case supports graphics cards up to 13.6 inches in length.

Next we installed the PSU into the system which requires four screws through the back of the case.  One of the most disappointing aspects of this case is the lack of cable routing options available.  Unlike a conventional case which has space behind the motherboard tray for cable routing, the motherboard sits on the floor of the case in the GD07 so all the cables have to pass over the top.

We managed to achieve a tidy build considering the lack of cable routing options.  If you put in a reasonable level of planning and have a few hours to spare, we expect that you could create a good looking system build.

For our tests we will be using a Noctua NH-L12 CPU cooler to cool the Intel Core i7-2700K.  Our test system also features an AMD Radeon HD 6670 graphics card.

Test System:

Processor: Intel Core i7-2700K
Motherboard: Biostar TZ77XE4
Cooler: Noctua NH-L12
Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-3
Memory: 4GB (2x 2GB) Crucial Ballistix 1600 MHz
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6670
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 750W
System Drive: Crucial M4 256 GB
Monitor: Viewsonic VX2260WM
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Software:

CPUID Hardware Monitor
Prime95 64-bit
Furmark V1.9.2

To test the thermal performance of the case we loaded our test system for 10 minutes using Prime95 and Furmark and recorded the maximum temperatures reached using CPUID Hardware Monitor.  We then restarted the system and left it for 10 minutes before recording idle temperatures.  Room temperature was maintained at 17 degrees C for the duration of our tests.  For the overclocked tests, we bumped the voltage up to 1.35V and used a frequency of 4.7 GHz.

The temperatures we recorded are about what we would expect at stock settings.  When overclocked, there were slight increases in RAM and GPU temperatures which weren't overclocked.  We expect that this could be a result of having no exhaust fans getting rid of the hot air from the system.

To test the noise performance of the case we placed our digital dBA meter 1m from the front of the case and replaced the Radeon HD 6670 with a HD 5550 Silence.  We also momentarily detached our CPU cooler's fans so we were only taking the noise into account from the case fans. The noise level generated by these fans was below the 30 dBA minimum sensitivity level of our noise level meter.

While the GD07 isn't the most noisy case we've ever tested, we feel it is significantly louder than an HTPC case should be.  We would like to see Silverstone adding a fan controller to the included bundle in the future so the fan noise can be reduced.

We are quite impressed with what the Silverstone Grandia GD07 has to offer.  Silverstone have managed to give the case a premium look by using brushed aluminium for the front panel, despite using steel for the main body.  Build quality is very good and the overall fit and finish cant really be faulted.

Due to the large size of the GD07, Silverstone has managed to pack in a number of features which aren't found in many HTPC cases.  Probably the most important feature is ATX motherboard support which means that you can select a wide range of options, which will fit without problem.

That said, there are still some restrictions, such as CPU cooler headroom which will prevent you from installing the best coolers on the market …. such as the Noctua NH-D14.

Not every aspect of this case is ideal, though. We would usually expect a HTPC case to be very quiet or silent but this just isn't the case with the GD07.  If you want to build a quiet system we would recommend either purchasing a fan controller for the case or replacing the fans with quieter models like those from Be Quiet! and Noctua.

The case also offers no provision for tool-less installation and we are forced to use a screwdriver for almost every step of the installation process.

We feel that the Silverstone Grandia GD07 is quite good value for money as it can be yours for the reasonable price of £115 from Scan. This is around £45 cheaper than the similarly specified Lian Li PC-60 which we reviewed a while back. So if you're looking to build an ATX based HTPC system on a tighter budget, the Silverstone Grandia GD07 is a great option.

Pros:

• Good value.
• Premium finish.
• Plenty of drive bays.

Cons:

• Noisy fans.
• No tool-less installation.
• Cannot support largest CPU heatsinks.

KitGuru says: A good value case for building a powerful HTPC.

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