Supplied by SilverStone Technology

The SilverStone
Tek Gamer PC Tower just kept revealing itself. Behind a panel was a door.
Behind the door was space for a fan. The SilverStone Tek designers took many
ideas from the competition and made them fit into SST-B032FW. The Gamer PC tower
is solid, packed with features, stylish…and…takes some getting used to.

SilverStone Tek is more well known for the Lascala series of desktop enclosures
that are often used for Home Theatre PCs. The Gamer PC Tower (SST-B032FW) is
their bid at the enthusiast PC tower.

Specifications

The Gamer PC Tower features a quarter inch thick acrylic side window bolted
to the exterior of the case. A honeycomb pattern has been applied to the window.
This is a thicker window than most PC cases.

The front bezel has four openings. The bottom three are air grills and the
top has a sliding door. Note the key lock on the right side of the image.

The door lifts giving access to one of the two 3.5″ external bays and
the main power switch. This feature is hit and miss. On the positive it’s a
stylish feature. The bezel door can be locked yet a person can get access to
the power switch and the floppy drive or a zip drive. On the negative the position
of the hole in relation to the 3.5″ drive bay is off. The access hole is
too low in relation to the 3.5″ bay thus could make inserting and removing
a disk awkward never mind the physical act of actually getting a hold of a disk
that has been released from the drive. This may prove to be too tight a space.

The bezel door opens to reveal six 5.25″ external drive bays; three on
top and three on the bottom. Two external 3.5″ drive bays sit in the middle.
Note the two grills on the side panel for later.

The Gamer PC Tower has four feet that can be rotated out for increased stability.
Each has a rubber footpad.

The rear has two 80 mm. fan rear exhaust ports. Ease of fabrication says stamp
and drill the design but it would be preferable for a less restrictive exhaust
grill. A wire grill tack welded in place would add more cost to the case but
would improve airflow considerably.

The window side panel does have tabs for a padlock. There also are two sliding
locks on both side panels. These replace the traditional thumbscrews to hold
the side panel in place. This is true “tool less” entry. The locks
snap into position and can require more effort compared to the thumbscrews.
Which is better? It’s a matter of personal opinion and preference.

The side panel removes easily enough and the first feature leaps out at you.
“What is that side bar?”

A pressure clip holds the bar in place. An 80 mm. fan can be clipped into place
to blow air onto the PCI cards but there’s room for improvement. The fan wires
must run back towards the bezel but there’s no clips for the wires. A solution
would be to include a few cable ties and self-adhesive cable tie anchors.

A feature which left us scratching our head was the instructions stated that
a hard drive could be mounted to the bar.

The instructions show a hard drive mounted to the left of the fan unit where
the two dimples can be seen. There are four dimples but two are hidden. The
dimples are obviously screw mounts where, theoretically, four screws turn through
the bar into the bottom of the hard drive.

Not gonna happen. The holes do not line up. A better solution would have been
to fabricate tabs perpendicular to the bar where the hard drive could clip into
and be screwed into place. Overall this is an interesting detail poorly executed.

A secondary feature are the seven PCI card clips as part of the fan unit. When
the door is closed the cards are held in place. This may not do anything but
provide added transport stability for LAN gamers.

Install two 80 mm. fans into a rear exhaust fan cover before installing it
or the motherboard. This unit may interfere with some heatsinks. Fans can be
installed the old fashioned way if it does; with screws and no cover unit.

The PCI slots are very well designed. The slot covers snap into place and are
reusable. The screw-less clips slide easily and clip PCI hardware firmly into
place.

The drive rail storage area has its positive and negative aspects. It’s a good
idea but the cover is a bit awkward to open and rails can be finicky to put
back into place.

Three 5.25″ drive bays are at the top of the case.

The 3.5″ bays below accommodate two hard drives and two external devices.
All can be held in place by drive rails and the hard drives slide in through
the front when the bezel is off.

On the non-window side of the PC case is a door for another 80 mm. cooling
fan. This blows onto the hard drives.

Larger PC cases have the ability to place a fan in the path of incoming air
from the bezel to provide additional cooling. This is an innovative solution
to a smaller case design though not optimum for airflow direction.

The bottom three 5.25″ drive bays have a “one or the other”
purpose. Firstly it can accommodate three more external 5.25″ drives or
it can be used to house a 120 mm. fan and only a 120 mm. fan. Once the drive
covers have been removed from the case they don’t go back so if removed…there’s
no mounting a fan anymore.

The motherboard tray is completely removable.

It features friction standoffs. The motherboard can be clipped
into place without the need for screws.

Clipped onto the back of the motherboard tray is a tool to assist in safely
“prying” the motherboard from these standoffs.

There is one problem. The standoffs near the edge of the motherboard are easy
enough to reach with this tool but the standoff in the center of the motherboard
is a big concern. The tool cannot be used to pry the motherboard off the center
standoff. There just isn’t access to it. The motherboard can’t be pulled from
the standoff in fear of bending the PCB too far therefore a gentle pull and
twist action has to be used. Our advice is to replace the center standoff with
a typical screw standoff that is included in the package. The others can remain.

Installation

A removable motherboard tray is always a blessing. Lian Li does it best as
the PCI cards can be mounted outside of the case but SilverStone’s PCI clips
make it easy after the motherboard is put back into the case.

Overall the installation process was made easy by the drive rails. It is advisable
to install the rear exhaust fans into the housing first then into the case while
the motherboard tray is out. Check carefully that the heatsink does not come
into contact with it.

A major disappointment was the length of the hard drive LED wire.

It was a few inches too short and had to be stretched to its limit with the
ABIT IC7-Max3 test system. Six inches could be added to the hard drive LED cable
and a few more inches to the other cables wouldn’t hurt either.

From the door side the PCI fan intake is lower left.

Spin the case 180 degrees around and two fan intake grills can be seen. The
intake nearest the bezel (at the left of the case in the following image) is
for the hard drive cooling intake but the fan grill at the rear does nothing.
It can’t accommodate a fan as the motherboard tray is directly behind it. Why
it was part of the design is unknown.

Conclusion

The SilverStone Gamer PC Tower (SST-B032FW)
is priced at $75 USD not including power supply which is more expensive than
mid tower cases with similar features and a power supply. We didn’t love the
Gamer PC Tower nor did we hate it. Our reaction is indifferent. It’s a different
design with different features than what we are used to so it takes some getting
used to. Initial negative reactions softened as time passed and we began to
work more with the case.

The case is very strong and indeed has a great many features. Silverstone has
provided for five cooling fan mounting areas at the key locations they are needed.
There are drive rails for all components including the hard drive but another
set or two of 5.25″ drive rails would have been nice to include. The front
bezel wires could have been a few inches longer. The swing out side bar is an
innovative approach to provide a cooling fan mounting point but the hidden hard
drive mount doesn’t work. Some may find that the gray bar blocks the view of
the motherboard thus defeating the purpose of a window. The gray color isn’t
too appealing either as it is too “industrial”.

There are a lot of great ideas in this case. There are a lot of great ideas
that could have been perfected too. The SilverStone Gamer PC Tower is solid.
It is functional. It has many features. It takes some getting used to. Our jury
is really stalemated over this case. We’d love to love it…but….

Our thanks to SilverStone
for their support of this and many other sites.