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SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 1:28 pm
by Lawrence Lee

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 2:07 am
by Cistron
Thanks for the review.

A jack of all trades, but master of none. I think your final comment hit the nail on the head. Too small for what it want's do achieve, too large for other purposes.

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 4:38 am
by Ruiner
Timely. I had to blow out the dust filters on my mATX Grandia 05 only yesterday.

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 8:03 am
by Freeco
This review made me doubt if I should use the GD09 as the home for my new HTPC build in a few months time...
I want to replace my current Core i3-530 inside a GD04 with a Skylake Core i3. These 44cm wide desktop cases fit perfectly in the cabinet I have under my projection screen:
Amp_GD04.jpg
There's a 1-2cm gap on each side to allow enough airflow towards the intakes. The back of the cabinet is open, so no problem with the expelled heat from the back of the case.

As I do still buy bluray disks and use a BD-ROM in the HTPC to play them, I don't see much alternative cases that'll fit everything.
I did add an AMD HD5450 in my GD04 build because of some playback issues with the Clarkdale iGPU. I'm not a gamer, so if I don't need to I won't include a discrete GPU in my new build.
Perhaps I should just buy a bluray player for my disks, and have a look at a mini-ITX case instead. But I do still like having everything in one box though...

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 8:41 am
by MikeC
Freeco wrote:There's a 1-2cm gap on each side to allow enough airflow towards the intakes.
That really isn't enough, imo. Personally, I like to leave at least 1" on either side if the sides are vented actively (ie- fan equipped), otherwise, not only is cooling affected, but turbulence noise increases too. Maybe leaving a larger gap on the side with the intake fans wopuld work better -- the exhaust will naturally tend to go out the back.

Size-wise (for the cabinet you have) the ML05 seems like a better choice, though CPU cooling suffers when an optical drive is installed.

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 8:57 am
by Freeco
Well, the cabinet is what it is... If possible I would allow a bit of a larger gap, but it would need some modification to shift the center beams a bit and I don't want to go there. In the 4-5 years I've used this HTPC I haven't had heat problems worthy of remembering anyway.
I'm quite sure my 7x160W amplifier at the left produces way more heat than the HTPC's components, and I didn't have any problems with that one either.

The ML09 case doesn't look right for me, if I install an ODD in it that is. And there aren't too many slimline BD-ROMs out there.

I still have a few months to check out other candidates :)

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 9:02 am
by MikeC
Freeco wrote:I still have a few months to check out other candidates :)
There really aren't many worthy of attention. Silverstone is the single biggest HTPC case maker, and most of theirs are generally solid. Fractal's is decent too. Can't think of many more these days.

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 5:34 pm
by SST Guy
Hi Freeco, if the GD04 has been working well for you then GD09/GD10 would work just as well if not slightly better. You have to take into account that SPCR's less than favorable verdict is based on the test system they use. Compared to modern mid/larger tower cases, the GD09/GD10 were obviously outmatched, but for the size and form factor, their performance are still best in class.

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 11:48 pm
by QUIET!
This case is similar to one I'm building in except mine has a few advantages.

Mine is an oddball Accent HTPC case with a similar ODD location, similar height (mine also has 80mm fan slots above the ATX shield) but the big difference is the PSU mounting behind the ODD. That removes most HSF clearance issues beside the height issue.

I think my case might be deeper than the Silverstone but I haven't measured.

The most interesting thing I see in that Silverstone is the top. If you didn't know what you were looking at you would think it is the side of a tower case.

On mine the removable top wraps around the sides too.

It remains to be seen how silent and how cool mine will run but it seems like my 8-10 year old case has a more useable layout.

I hope it will perform with about 300 watts of PC hardware in it and only the CPU, GPU and PSU fans.

Now I just have to get the parts together.

I like this form factor and I think the larger size sompared to mITX cases will make it easier for cable management, planning airflow and assembly. Hopefully we will see more cases along these lines.

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2015 7:16 am
by Freeco
SST Guy wrote:Hi Freeco, if the GD04 has been working well for you then GD09/GD10 would work just as well if not slightly better. You have to take into account that SPCR's less than favorable verdict is based on the test system they use. Compared to modern mid/larger tower cases, the GD09/GD10 were obviously outmatched, but for the size and form factor, their performance are still best in class.
I haven't scratched the GD09 off my shopping list yet :wink:
There aren't too many alternatives that can house a normal size ODD, reasonably sized heatsink (the Scythe Big Shuriken 2 rev B will fit just fine), as well as the possibility to add a mainstream discrete GPU later down the road if I'd have a need for it (HDMI 2.0 perhaps, as it's not supported by the Skylake platform by default: an Alpine Ridge controller is required which not all mobo's include).

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 12:23 pm
by Olaf van der Spek
Freeco wrote:This review made me doubt if I should use the GD09 as the home for my new HTPC build in a few months time...
Why don't you keep the GD04?

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 10:41 pm
by SST Guy
Most people probably don't realize how small the GD09/GD10 actually are without a photo comparison like the one below:

Image

For the longest time, nearly all ATX HTPC cases were built like the GD07. For some this is simply too deep so you are forced to either go with a Micro-ATX case like the ML03/GD05 (shown as the top two cases in the photo above) or find a new cabinet to deal with the extra depth. Wtih GD09/GD10 sized much closer to Micro-ATX cases, presents a third option that allows one to keep an older ATX system and fit it in existing home theater setup.

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 7:25 am
by MikeC
MikeC wrote:Silverstone is the single biggest HTPC case maker, and most of theirs are generally solid. Fractal's is decent too.
uhm.... ignore that. The Node 605 didn't fare well at all against Silverstone -- http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1340-page6.html

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 8:24 am
by Freeco
Olaf van der Spek wrote:
Freeco wrote:This review made me doubt if I should use the GD09 as the home for my new HTPC build in a few months time...
Why don't you keep the GD04?
Cause I plan to reuse my old HTPC in my living room. And the GD04 doesn't have USB3 ports (not that I'll actually need them...).
I always find new purposes for my older IT stuff.
I still have my Pentium II in the attic somewhere. I don't use it anymore, obviously, but for some reason I can't part with my old-timers :lol: Only my 486DX2 and my Pentium 120 has been ditched when I left the elderly house.

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 9:48 am
by Olaf van der Spek
My 8088 (Headstart Explorer) is gone too :(

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 2:09 pm
by Cistron
Olaf van der Spek wrote:My 8088 (Headstart Explorer) is gone too :(
OMG, how do you use your needle-printers? :mrgreen:

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2015 1:15 am
by Olaf van der Spek
The Star LC-20? Via the printer port of course, doh.. :p

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2015 8:34 am
by Cistron
Olaf van der Spek wrote:The Star LC-20? Via the printer port of course, doh.. :p
touché :mrgreen:

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2015 7:43 pm
by loimlo
Frankly, I think mATX is better suited for high performance HTPC usage.
It's smaller, cheaper to build a mATX HTPC case without sacrificing flexibility of discrete display card.

Just my 2 cents.

Re: SilverStone Grandia GD09 & GD10 HTPC Case

Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2015 7:52 pm
by MikeC
loimlo wrote:Frankly, I think mATX is better suited for high performance HTPC usage.
It's smaller, cheaper to build a mATX HTPC case without sacrificing flexibility of discrete display card.

Just my 2 cents.
Sure, but it's not like this case can't run mATX, and it's still not big for a mATX case.