Silverstone Grandia Series GD06 HTPC Case Review

Overall I am very pleased with the GD06 HTPC chassis, its clean simplistic looks make a stark contrast on its surrounding environment its steel body, whilst very sturdy is a little bit heavy though especially as its got  a fairly weighty front door on it. Talk of the front door, on of my first thoughts when i took this out of its box was that it would work fantastic as a home server chassis, purely because of its easy access to the hard drive bays and that the front can be locked up so that no-one can access it.

Space wise inside, granted there is no room inside to fit a full ATX motherboard and supply like you can with some other HTPC cases, but if there was, then this would no longer come under the category of a SFF design. With a m-ATX board, things may be a tight squeeze if you have to have everything neat and tidy inside, but it is possible and a some time and patience overcomes this.  Even though there is minimal space for a motherboard, there is ample room to fit an 11″ graphics card with a bit of room to spare.

The three included fans that come with the GD06 do a remarkable job in keeping system temperatures down, things quickly started getting warm inside when we tested with the fans off, and considering that they’re pretty quiet, even at full speed, it makes sense to have them running. Considering its main role is to act as a HTPC chassis then any audio you would be listening to will cancel out the faint hum in the background.  All three fans inside create a positve air pressure inside and with the whole host of grills and vents on the sides and rear keep everything cool even under full load.

The inclusion of the USB3.0 to USB2.0 adaptor is something that I’m surprised I’ve never seen on any other cases to date, its simple and does exactly as it says on the tin. The only major design flaw that i can see in the GD06’s design relates to the removable hard drive bays.  Installing a hard drive is a breeze , but when it comes to removing the drive, I felt like i was going to snap the plastic cage inside the bay if I pulled on the door too hard, perhaps a metal bracket here would have been a more sensible option.  Also it would have been a nice idea to have the blue LEDs on each bay cover set to come on only when a drive is installed rather than permanently on as a form of indication that a drive is installed in that bay.

The GD06 is available on the market for a mere £94.78 which in comparison to some of its rivals is a fantastic price, especially considering its the top model of its line and some of the unique features that it has such as the USB adaptor, quick access hard drive bays and a completely hidden lockable front panel.  As mentioned it doesn’t just have to act as a HTPC case, it would also double up as a suitable home server chassis or even use in desktop apllications.