SilverStone Sugo SG09 Case Review: Someone at SilverStone Loves Tetris
by Dustin Sklavos on October 20, 2012 6:35 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- SilverStone
- MicroATX
Noise and Thermal Testing, Stock
Up until this point I've been casually suggesting that the SilverStone Sugo SG09's performance is, frankly, pretty stellar. As you'll see that's mostly true, as it's pretty hard to go too wrong when you have a 180mm fan blowing almost directly on to your processor. This is something SilverStone has traditionally understood pretty well: the best cooling is direct cooling. It's also why their designs oftentimes deviate a bit from the norm.
You'll note that I tested with our standard ATX/Micro-ATX testbed and not the Mini-ITX one. I elected to do this both for time concerns and to demonstrate what should be obvious when you're done looking at the charts: if the SG09 can handle an overclocked Micro-ATX build (spoiler alert: it can), then it should have no trouble with a powerful Mini-ITX rig. That said, I know it would've been ideal to see how the SG09 fared against something like the BitFenix Prodigy; to that end, all I can say is that these are two designs that look like they occupy similar space in the market, but they went very different directions.
Ambient temperatures were between 23C and 24C during testing. The top intake fan actually has a fan speed selector on the back, and so the SG09 was tested at both low and high settings.
Storage thermals aren't great; that's not surprising, something had to give. Graphics thermals are okay, but the CPU thermals are fantastic. I have some theories about the video card but I'll save them for later; for now, it's worth noting that raising the fan speed of the top intake fan actually increases temperatures for certain components, sacrificing efficiency elsewhere for brute force in cooling the CPU.
As you can see, you don't gain much headroom on the CPU running the top intake at a high speed, and in fact you actually lose some on the graphics card. I suspect this is due to the cooling design of our testbed video card, and I imagine the SG09 may be better suited for blower-style coolers given the position of the intake fan on the side of the case.
Unfortunately without any fan control for the exhaust fan or side intake, the SG09 is frankly on the loud side. SilverStone is using their Air Penetrator fans all over the case, and while these fans are fantastic at their job, they can produce a decent amount of noise without some kind of fan control. Given the thermal headroom available in the SG09 it may be prudent to install an expansion slot-based fan controller and dial down the fans.
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lmcd - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
It's hitting $100 pretty much everywhere...lmcd - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
This looks like the perfect case for me: it's nice and compact but I don't have to deal with ITX.* Nice cooling for maybe even CF, and I don't mind noise since I tend to game loudly. As for fans, I'll make sure my nicely-sized mATX board has enough fan headers; shouldn't be too hard. One optical drive is perfect and I don't mind spending a bit extra on it later (might not get it initially though) and will use a cheap external in the meantime (note: a cheap external is around $30 and so the "unbearable" slim drive can easily be mitigated this way).*ITX boards with wireless built in tend to be expensive and late to the market, and I need a wireless card, but want discrete graphics. As such, ITX is a no-go for me.
extide - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
Check out the ASRock Z77 M-ITX board. It's pretty sweet IMHO and I am dying to do a build with one :)lmcd - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
I'm actually looking at this for my next build, which should be around the time of Haswell. And I'm interested in maybe even dual-GPU with this case (two 7850-equivalents).piroroadkill - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
Oh dear.If you need a premium microATX case, surely there's only one choice, the Fractal Design Define Mini..
Orvtrebor - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
I can't believe this is the final product....Hideous.
Someone on another forum that starts with an [H] drew an awesome modified version of this case when the prototype was first shown. Pretty sure it's in the SFF forum.
It is literally 10x better than this mess.
dave1_nyc - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
I forget the model, but several years ago there was one of the Sugo cases that I thought was so nice I was just looking for some reason to build in it, either in the all aluminum version or the steel-with-an-aluminum-front version.But honestly, could this thing *be* any uglier.
joos2000 - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
There are some rather obvious errors in your reasoning, at least to me.
First of all, if you are even remotely interested in building a small system, then you are obviously looking at putting the smallest components in there. Having a full height disc player more than doubles, probably triples the volume requirement in the box for what is, in most cases, a completely redundant device in a modern system. So all of a sudden, you go against your requirement of portability and minimalism so you can save a buck on an optical drive? How does that make any sense at all?
I wouldn't be all surprised if most of the builds based on this box will be without a DVD/BR all together. And yes, I am presuming that pretty much all of the builds based on this case will be LAN gaming systems since it is far, far to ugly to have next to your telly in the living room.
And when did PC games come delivered in blu-rays anyway? Pretty much all PC games come on DVD's still, so paying through the nose for a blu-ray player for a LAN box just doesn't make sense. At all.
That's my impression anyway and why I think Silverstone have made the right decision both in slimline form factor and skipping blu-ray's for their gaming systems.
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
My thoughts exactly as summarized in my original comment =P.tzhu07 - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
Really tacky and plasticty looking. I'll definitely be sticking with Fractal Design cases.