Silverstone Grandia GD03 Review

Results Analysis

As mentioned, this is the first time we've put together our now-standard test kit for media PCs, and so we don't have comparable numbers for other cases this time round. The idle respective CPU and GPU delta Ts of 36°C and 54°C are pretty toasty, and indicative of a case that has little airflow. The heatsink on our little HD 4550 got mighty hot in the SilverStone, and if you're using a passively cooled graphics card then it would be worth sticking in at least one intake fan (either at the front, or in one of the side 80mm fan mounts) to generate some through-flow.

Under load, the GPU suffered further, hitting a delta T of 62°C and increasing the ambient temperature of the case by 3°C. You may question why this might be worrying, but GPUs are used quite a lot in media PCs. Even if you’re not using a GPU-based video encoder such as BaDaBoom, the GPU is almost exclusively the processor of choice for decoding video under Windows 7.

Even with a pair of 80mm fans whirring away behind it, the Zalman CNPS8000 CPU cooler struggled a little to keep the CPU cool too. The ambient temperature of the room was 20°C by this point, so the delta T of 62°C means that the CPU was topping 82°C. This is still within operational limits, and you're only likely to be thrashing the CPU this hard should you want to encode video on it rather than the GPU, but we’re still a touch worried by such a high temperature.


The biggest downside to the case was undoubtedly the lack of vibration dampening in the hot-swappable hard disk mounts. When the system disks were being accessed we only heard the usual dull rumbling-clack, but if we played video off the hot-swap bay the clicking was unbearable. It seems that not only do you have to wait too long for the vanity-panel door to swing open to slide your disk in, but that you should also suffer the wait of copying the data to an internal drive before watching it too.

Conclusion

The SilverStone Grandia GD03 is a fine piece of kit to regard. The vanity panels at the front hide a wealth of welcome wonders, such as removable dust filters, hot-swappable hard disk bays and an external 3.5in bay. The clockwork mechanism of the left panel wastes more time than excessive snowfall in Britain, but it's a slick touch if you've the patience to watch it amble it's way open. Another endearing quality is the fact that you can so much damned storage into the case. Having seven hard disk bays in a media PC is like having a 1TB iPhone.

The downside to the case is the lack of nifty touches that you should see with such an expensive case. While the exterior is nicely designed, and it’s easy to build a PC inside, SilverStone has missed quite a few tricks when it comes to cooling and sound-dampening. The hot-swap bays are practically unusable due to their clunky sliding mechanism and the lack of noise-cancelling tech, for example, while the temperatures of the GPU and CPU were a touch hot.

If you are in love with the aesthetics of this case then you might think it’s worth a punt but realistically, there's a pick'n'mix worth of brushed aluminium square boxes to choose from, some of which cost less. The Lian Li PC-C32 HTPC and its internal pair of 120mm fans, to name but one.

• Build Quality
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Ease of Use
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 4/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

Score Guide