SilverStone Grandia GD04

Installation:

We installed an ECS H55H-M motherboard, Intel Core i3 530 processor, 2GB of DDR3 system memory, an OCZ Vertex SSD, and an OCZ SilentXStream power supply. Later on we also ended up installing a NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT graphics card and other cards when carrying out other Phoronix tests. As we use USB flash drives when installing Linux and then stream all of our media content across the network, no DVD/optical drive was installed in this case. Most users, however, will end up installing an optical drive but there are others that will also likely go without using an optical drive. Unfortunately, with the GD04 this leaves an empty area in the front panel unless getting creative and taping the drive bay cover from inside the chassis. It would be nice if SilverStone allowed this cover to be secured in place with screws or if the cover was built into the aluminum front panel with a hinge that would flip down.

The only other issue that was encountered was it being somewhat easy to drop the screws between the two 120mm intake fans on the right hand side of the case when installing the optical drive bay bracket that requires installing two screws in a rather peculiar spot. It would be nice if this side of the bracket were redesigned to be more easily mounted.

Conclusion:

While the Grandia GD04 is not as unique of a small form factor enclosure like the Sugo series, the GD04 is unique in its own right. The GD04 looks like a simplistic, small HTPC chassis from the exterior, but on the inside it offers a surprising amount of room that can handle a micro ATX motherboard, five expansion slots, two 3.5-inch disk drives, and one 2.5-inch disk drive. Like their other cases and products, the Grandia GD04 is built extremely well and continues in SilverStone's tradition of providing the utmost build quality in each of their products. Even when running all three fans that are included with the GD04, the system was very quiet and we ran into no thermal issues. Unfortunately, due to the lack of Linux sensor monitoring support at this time for the Intel H55 motherboard, we do not have any graphs to provide, but we are confident in the Grandia's cooling capabilities.

Other features to enjoy with the Grandia GD04 include the dust filters, anti-vibration mounts for the hard drives, great cable management abilities, and the ability to install two large graphics cards. About the only issues not to like about this case is the lack of a clean front panel if no optical drive is installed, the lack of eSATA support on the front panel, the 5.25-inch drive bay bracket mount on the side can be a bit of a nuisance, and there are no thumbscrews for securing the top panel.

The SilverStone Grandia GD04 can be found for $95 USD at the time of publishing on Amazon.com or $100 at NewEgg.com. At these prices for this SilverStone case it is a great deal and receives our recommendation.