SilverStone Technology Home Theater Computer Case (HTPC) with Faux Aluminum Design for ATX/Micro-ATX Motherboards and New USB Type C Front Port, SST-GD09B-C

Great HTPC Case
My first Silverstone product, and I’m very happy! This thing looks great in my entertainment center. Was very easy to build in, and had plenty of space. I used some components from a previous build, which didn’t allow me to use the 5.25″ ODD slot, but that’s no fault of the case. I replaced the fans inside with Arctic fans to help with cooling, and haven’t had a single issue yet. Would buy another if I needed to!

An HTPC case that looks the part
This case is pretty basic and fairly easy to build in. It has room for some tower coolers if you aren’t going to utilize the ‘external’ drive bay (DVD/CD). The hard drive bay disconnects from the bottom of the “DVD tray” such that you can mount it vertically, leaving room for a taller cooler. There is a space on the floor of the case for mounting a 2.5″ drive just in front of the ATX PSU slot. Keep in mind to put your drive in and connect its power and SATA before fully mounting the PSU. Most of your unused cabling is going to sit on top of it and connecting the two cables it needs are VERY fiddly after the PSU is in the way.As a side note to the space inside. If you utilize an m-ATX board there is a bit of room between the mobo and (ATX) PSU for cabling and whatnot. If you use a full size ATX board there is essentially NO space between the mobo and PSU.The case has room for a “full sized” GPU, but you will have to keep in mind how you run your cables. In particular the 24 pin for the mobo, the SATA and power for a HDD, and your CPU power cables are going to be running under/behind the GPU and you have to consider the room for them. Taller cards can actually be in the way of the connector(s) for the HDD if mounted in the vertical position. The aspect I (also) ran into using a wide GPU was that I had to get some “180*” adapters for the power connections as the lid didn’t have room to be on with the 8+6 power cables needed.The case comes with (1) 120mm fan. If you were building a low powered system with no GPU it should suffice for stirring the air around a bit. Being that this case is made for use as an HTPC and placement in an entertainment center or stand there are a few glaring issues that likely just can’t be avoided with this manner of design. A low powered system with the one fan isn’t likely to heat up enough to matter one way or the other. More powerful equipment and a GPU are problematic. Chances are that you are going to have this inside a cabinet like a console. Mine, for instance, is closed on three sides aside from a small hole for wire pass.The case has placement built in for up to (3) 120mm fans and (2) 80mm fans. The PSU for the unit blows its hot air out the back of the case. In an enclosure like I am using all that hot air is just going to be in there with the case (as it were). Adding a couple of 80mm, which also blow out the back, are also just going to create even more hot air into the enclosed space. The design lends to having the side mounted 120mm fans to be either exhaust or intake. Once the hardware in the case is heat soaked all the fans are going to be doing is (mostly) pulling right back in the hot air which has nowhere to go out the back of the case in the enclosure.I built this system up with an 11600K with a Noctua NH9 tower and shoehorned a left over GTX 1080 inside. I have yet to explore how I am going to arrange the fans, if I place more. Once on load the system gets hotter and hotter to the point of throttling on both components. Temps were readily in the 80’s on the GPU and the CPU loaded to 100* almost immediately. I am not sure there is really anything I can do about it considering the design and placement. Even on idle the system is running mid 40’s on the CPU and the GPU stays ~50*.With all this said…I had been using a standard case beside the entertainment center. The wife wasn’t thrilled with it (being in the living room) and this case is a super elegant solution to that issue and looks the part. It is understated and disappears in the cabinet, as it should. Watching movies, consuming videos, general surfing and so forth causes no heat issues and fan noise is basically unnoticeable for those uses. My cable box cooler is FAR louder.Overall, I am pleased with the case being that I wanted such a specific internal space and placement. Take a moment before you build to consider placement and what goes where first and it works out fine.Edit May 2023-Ended up installing two more 80mm and 1 more 120mm fan to the case. This helped a bit with throttling, but it is also very audible when gaming on it. I opted to limit FPS from the 120 the monitor is capable of to 60 and this seemed to alleviate the temp issues and throttling. Graphics card still eventually gets to ~82* but stays there and doesn’t start throttling (a lot) and the CPU tends to hit about mid 70’s and hang around there. I am not really sure what else could be done without such as cutting a hole and installing a fan into the furniture it is inside.I did note one issue to be wary of. If you install this inside an entertainment center (etc.) that is using veneer this case can cause enough heat to melt the glue that holds that on. Luckily, I was able to notice this and get the situation corrected before the piece was badly damaged.EDIT June 2023-Once summer temps started creeping up, and in spite of AC, this case very quickly turned to being too hot for the 11600K and GTX1080. The fans would ramp up to max and just creep up and up until throttling and or crashing from heat. I opted to use a small house fan out in front of the unit in order to force air in/out of the entertainment center shelf this is on. It works, if not terribly elegant. As mentioned above, but not sure there is any remedy if you are going to have a ‘gaming rig’ inside your entertainment center without cutting holes for exhaust fans at the back.

Great idea, faulty execution.
The quality of material is good, but the case could use some re-engineering. The top plate does not latch shut, so sometimes the top of the case will pop open despite being screwed in at the back end, it should’ve had a groove for the top plate to slide in to the front plate of the case to avoid this problem.The cable management is very messy, yes it’s an enclosed case however it’s a nightmare to manage cables because of the HDD placement.Also, the cd/Blu-ray drive is extremely hard to install later on in the build, especially if you have a taller heat sink on the CPU. So put the optical drive and HDD in BEFORE you do anything else.Beyond that, it looks great. It’s pretty big but it fits in excellently in a media console cabinet alongside a Receiver.

Built a new gaming pc. Put my old 5600x RT 6800xt 750 watt ps stuff in this and took it to work. Now I can game at work. Note: Added the Silver soul 135mm cooler to the cpu. Cool and quiet.

If you build a HTPC, you have to sacrifice and consider low profile CPU Coolers. Not compatible with Liquid Coolers, modified Noctua NH-C14S or Noctua NH-L9i-17xx chromax.Black are your only choices.