Test Setup and Test Methodology Room temperature was 20°C during testing, ambient noise clocked in at 37.8dBA. Noise measurements were taken at 50cm from the front of the case.
Realtime HDR and Orthos were used to stress the Dual Core system; Core 2 Temp was used to monitor Core temperature (duh) and Speedfan to check the temperature of HDD and Motherboard. Rivatuner’s temp monitor checked the G80 GPU at regular intervals. Maximum values were recorded.
The Intel Bax Axe motherboard features several thermal sensors, the “mobo” values are those recorded by the sensor which can be found between the DDR2 memory banks, marked
A in the overview:
Cable routing & Fitting larger video cardsThe KL03 is a very deep case and has no issues fitting a large VGA card like the 8800 GTX:
Cable routing options however are completely absent and you’ll have to use zipties a lot to keep a clear airflow path.
With the side panel installed, you really wish there was no window to look at the mess inside:
Luckily… after dark things take turn for the better. Silverstone has eschewed LED lightening for all their case series, but they changed their decision with the KL03 Kublai, featuring a blue LED lighting around the front I/O panel:
The fans don’t have LED lights, but you can swap them out. The front fan is most challenging to replace, but it’s quite easy when you figure out that there’s a standard 3-pin connector hidden on the inside of the bracket.
With a blue LED fan installed, it definitely fits the theme:
Onto our performance tests ->
Here is my review of the Silverstone Berserker showing the use of the ATX version of the chassis at that time: http://www.techimo.com/reviews/showp...7&cat=3&page=1
. It was the only Silverstone case available for under $100 at the time - and such was my budget at the time (way under $100...).
And the Temjin 5 uses a similar steel chassis as well (not sure if the TJ05 is still a current model). I'm thinking the KL03 was to replace the TJ05 in the line while lowering the price a bit.
Silverstone doesn't make their steel chassis - all those are farmed out to OEMs. But they do specify custom changes to the base design. Silverstone then adds their custom aluminum bezels. I can't recall any SSTs to have plastic bezels other than the Berserker and Berserker Jr (a neato mATX case). Several other companies sold boxes made on the same chassis like Opus, and i-Star still sells an entry-level server box based on the same (they bundle it with some of their fancy PSUs). The case version used by i-Star can also be found separately, but I've never seen a brand name associated with it. The Enermax Shiny Titanium box was on the same chassis as well. I'm not sure whether SST sold the Berserkers anywhere else in the world except the US.
. It is pretty old-school, but I like it. I was quite fond of my Berserker and have "lusted in my mind" for some time after a TJ05 (which came out about the same time as the Berserker), but couldn't justify the cost.
The other case you mentioned can be gotten in the US with the three 5" bays in the bottom just like the Berserker (and KL03) and can take the EATX length mobos, while the Berserker was ATX or smaller.
One thing I don't like on the KL03 is that there are no rubber pads on the legs to keep the box from sliding around on hard surfaces and to intercept some vibrations. Not to mention helping to avoid marring surfaces.
.bh.