Gadgetory

Silverstone is one of those funny companies for me a lot of the time I look at their products I go wow this is really well designed and the build quality is fantastic but who the heck would want one and that's what the mlo 5 was to me at only 7 liters of internal volume it's one of the smallest cases on the market but when they send me the sample I just couldn't figure out who they were targeting with it the CM storm SF 17 uses a massive 18 centimeter 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 were greeted by front USB 3 and audio as well as 280 millimeter fan mounts that I would recommend populating and using as intakes especially if you have a three and a half inch 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 MMO v uses an SFX power supply and MITx motherboard with a half-height expansion card slot 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 180 millimeter fans there is almost no gap from component to component across the back it is amazing how little space has been wasted in every dimension on this case on the bottom we find 4 rubber feet that silverstone makes you apply yourself which i thought was a bit janky but at least there nice and grippy so the case won't go anywhere obviously this doesn't prove anything because I have a tablecloth on the table but whatever you get the point the top panel has ventilation holes for the optional 120 millimeter fan that can go on the four in one mounting plate as well as another set of holes for the power supply to draw in fresh hair and it's removed with three screws at the back which whoa 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 Silverstone's 80 plus gold 450 watt modular unit but I think to do it over again I would have actually gone with a non modular power supply because the clearance between the modular cables and the Qualla two and a half inch drive cage here is really really tight and I was barely able to get the Cajon 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 as 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 their data is okay especially if you use thin wire low profile cables like silverstone CP 11s but unless you're using a custom power splitter it just doesn't seem realistic to get all four of those drives power it 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 four in one plate here can accept a 120 millimeter fan two two and a half inch drives a slimline optical or what we have in here a three and a half inch drive and while the first three options are just fine in how tight that three and a half inch drive is in here I just don't think I can recommend going that route I'm using a very low-profile CPU cooler and while low temperatures are still you know not like t-junction on my core i5 3450 I don't like the close proximity of the hard drive of 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 silvers timing 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 wha 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 chromecast available for 35 bucks is there still room for HT pcs 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 as a steamos gaming machine when Intel drops another generational improvement or two on us in terms of onboard graphics performance or as an in-home streaming box using steam and playing games right now Intel's latest CPUs have great hardware h.264 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 center PC the 6-2 and a half inch 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 and locally by loading it up with two to half-inch hard drives or something that's not something I'd recommend and honestly what I'd probably do is just take this cage out jam and 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 amazingly small that you need to have reasonable expectations about what you can build in here if you're ready to use an ass to expand its 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 will obviously silverstone has a wide variety of other cases that are much much larger that will allow you to achieve that as always guys pricing and availability is linked in the video description below the like dislike and share buttons which I would love for you to use accordingly also in the video description is a support link where you can buy a t-shirt give us a monthly contribution or change your browser bookmarks to our affiliate code for sites like Amazon that give us a kick back whenever you buy anything not just computer stuff that helps us out a lot thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe to 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