SilverStone GD04 HTPC Case: Cool, Not Quiet
by Dustin Sklavos on December 25, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- HTPC
- SilverStone
- GD04
In and Around the GD04
A jaunt around the GD04 reveals a case that at least appears to be well-suited to its task. Most of the case is constructed with steel, but the front bezel is an attractive brushed aluminum and again, the case comes in silver or black depending on your taste. Personally, I think black goes with everything.
The front bezel is nice and spare, featuring the two USB ports, microphone and headphone jacks, the power and reset buttons, a power LED, the optical drive bay, and a SilverStone logo. There's a lot of negative space here and it's appreciated; the GD04 is going to look like it belongs in your home theater setup. When you look at the sides, you'll see the three 120mm intake fans: one on the left, two on the right. This is a positive pressure case, designed to bring in air through the sides then push it out through ventilation in the top and the back. There's also a vent on the bottom of the case, beneath where the power supply's intake fan would typically be, that stays unobstructed as a result of the reasonably tall standoffs.
The rear of the case features four expansion slots, the power supply bay, and a fifth expansion slot above it presumably meant for extra USB ports or an eSATA bracket. There's also ventilation above the port cluster that could support additional cooling, if you wanted to add a couple 80mm fans.
Assembly of the GD04 is done by removing the top panel and it's here that you first realize this is not going to be a tool-less affair: the panel is fastened with three Philips head screws, and these are only the first of many you'll need to use when you start putting your HTPC together in this case.
Once you get the top off, there are three additional pieces that can be and in fact need to be removed: the optical drive tray, the hard disk drive mount, and the crossbar. Removing all of these parts requires a grand total of ten screws, and you'll want to keep those in a safe place. That said, the inside of the GD04 is actually remarkably spacious, but people with long power supplies should be forewarned: something as long as the spare Corsair HX750 I had won't fit, as trying to install it results in it butting squarely up against the intake fan on the left side.
What's also worth noting is the low clearance beneath the optical drive tray. While stock coolers for most AMD processors will work fine, the Zalman CNPS7000 cooler I'm using in my build is only a few millimeters from scraping the bottom of the tray. You're going to want to use either the stock or a low profile cooler like a Scythe Shuriken (or, if you don't mind the scant clearance, the Zalman CNPS7000) when assembling a machine in the GD04.
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Terzo - Monday, December 27, 2010 - link
And they found the system quiet enough to warrant an editor's choice award. Considering that, I find it kind of funny that one of AT's qualms is with the noise.smokenjoe - Tuesday, December 28, 2010 - link
You can not hear it from where you would sit. It is not notacqble even with a 4780x2 card in. The low tone was not audible at a distance unlike some that sound quiet up close but have a high pitch tone that carries.You can put a short cheap tower heatsink behind the optical drive. You need to have have one of the short optical drives that are common now. There are plenty of bulk DVD and blue ray players that fit with my motherboard.
I was worried at first about the fan noise and decreased the voltage but returned to stock after I actually used it. I did need to replace the fan on my supposedly silent PSU even drawing air from the outside it made much more noise from a distance than everything else. You can use the 7 volt trick on the moles if you don't want to spend money if you sit less than 3 feet away.
I wish they cloned it in a larger size for a full sized tower heat sink and a full ATX MB.
Zebo - Friday, December 31, 2010 - link
Indeed fans are loud, worst part is they won't start at 7V so fan controllers dont even work - key was getting some LOW RPM fans I installed Scythe Gentle Typhoon - the lowest speed 500 rpm ones. Silent now.Awesome case.
digitalicecream - Sunday, January 2, 2011 - link
I genuinely can't hear the noise of the fans over my 7.1 surround sound system and powered sub, when watching bluray movies on my HTPC using this case from 10 feet away.I guess it might be noisy if you have it turned on for no other reason other than to power it?
geordieinnyc - Sunday, January 2, 2011 - link
I am disheartened to read the negative, critical comments that people are leaving for the reviewers. I am all for constructive criticism but what i have read as feedback on this review and the Digital Storm review only serves to demotivate the reviewer and tarnish the otherwise excellent reputation that Anandtech.com has. Most of the reviewers do this as a hobby in their spare time getting no pay, just getting to keep the items they review as payment. Consequently, it takes some time for a reviewer to build up an arsenal of hardware to serve to compare things against. I think what many people fail to realize is how long it takes to put a review together - in fact, those people who are slating the reviewer should submit a sample to Anandtech and see how they get on...I have built many HTPC cases and have two Silverstone ones myself, and adapting the included equipment eg fans, sound insulation foam, fan controllers are all things I have done to reduce noise. What I would have liked to see in this review are:
1. Max video card length - I game on mine, so what is the max video card length the case will take?
2. noise levels when sitting say 8ft away, compared to ambient.
Also adding the fan controller at its mid-way point and seeing what the noise and temperatures were.
3. Since this seemed to a case that the reviewer was to use as his main set up, it would been interesting to see what effect of using a an integrated water cooling set up, such as with the Corsair H50, would have had on noise and temperature. Not many HTPC cases use 120mm fans so this would have been an ideal opportunity to include this.
4. Photo of the case, in a room set up so we could see how it looks - both in the light and dark.
lukechip - Monday, January 24, 2011 - link
I'm considering using the GD04 to build a SFF Gaming & HTPC. I'd like to use a AMD 6950 GPU, but I suspect that the GD04 is not tall enough to allow the PCIe power connectors to plug into the top of the GPU ?Anyone had any experience with this ?
guitarhead - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Specs: Intel E8400 (low thermals), Fanless GPU card (HIS radeon 4670 from memory), two 80mm nexus fans (undervolted) at the back, one 92mm nexus fan in front of the HDD's, and a corsair low noise (500W) power supply. Stock intel fan over the CPU (have thought of upgrading this to another low-profile fan but primary use is HTPC thus not heating the CPU much...). Weighs a ton but its perfect. No noise !Point is: if you want a silent rig, dont blame the case... the case doesn't make any noise. Stupid to even mention this in the review imho.
douwe - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
This a great case. The design is well thought out and it is one of the few cases with a shorter depth so it'll fit into a cabinet made for general AV equipment.Silencing the fans can be easily accomplished by moving one of the pins on the white, 4-pin molex connector that splits the power supply to the three fans. If the two pins that supply power to the fans are at the outer ends of the 4-pin connector, the fans will get only 7 VDC and they will be silent.
This doesn't cost anything and resolves my only complaint about this case so far.