SilverStone Sugo SG05: The Mini-ITX Standard Bearer
by Dustin Sklavos on August 19, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- SilverStone
- Mini ITX
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- HTPC
Noise and Thermal Testing, IGP
I'll admit I had some reservations about the cooling potential of the SilverStone Sugo SG05. While the 120mm intake fan more or less has a straight shot to the back of the case, the power supply comes installed facing downward (meaning the intake potentially competes with the CPU's heatsink), and the inevitable cable spaghetti may interfere with getting that air to the processor. As it turns out, I didn't have a whole lot to worry about.
Noise and thermal testing for the SG05 was done with ambient temperatures between 25C and 26C; it's pretty hot in California right now, and I can't exactly run the air conditioner during testing (just before and after).
The SSD is essentially passively cooled by being next to a giant vent, but that doesn't seem to be an issue. Meanwhile the airflow of the SG05 is able to produce excellent thermal results for the CPU; Cooler Master's Elite 120 may have a 120mm intake fan as well, but that fan is blocked by both the front ventilation design and the drive cage behind it. The SG05's intake has much less interference.
Fan speed is also quite good; the SG05 has a reasonable amount of headroom. Keep in mind that the only two cases beating it in thermal performance are both a good amount larger; in terms of volume the Prodigy is nearly three times the size of the SG05.
That copious size has another benefit for BitFenix's enclosure, though: it keeps the noise down. The SG05 runs pretty quietly, though, and an enterprising user could probably get noise levels lower by using a quieter intake fan as well as more aggressive fan control on the CPU's heatsink/fan unit. In fact, the cooler we use for testing has a switch on it for exactly that purpose.
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UpSpin - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
If you don't change the PSU fan and use it as it is, it will get audible and noisy if you tax the PC.However, I changed the PSU fan to a 120mm one and build a new case for the PSU which guides the air, speed regulated every fan, dampened the noise of the HDDs and bought the EVGA GTX560Ti, which is based on the NVidia reference design, which uses a very quite fan. And unlike more silent looking GTX560Ti cards, the stock NVidia design also cools the VRM, thus the fan speed can get reduced further without issues and doesn't ramp up as fast as the more silent looking designs. I also modded the GPU Bios to run the fan at lower speeds and undervolt the GPU.
But you're right, I can hear it if I'm working alone, because of the GPU fan and the open design of the Sugo case. Not because of the air flow but because of the GPU fan's bearing, which is still very very quiet. I haven't found the time to replace this fan with a higher quality one. It's not annoying, because it's really silent and at a low frequency, but yeah, still audible if the environment is silent.
Jackattak - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
I would go with the drawer idea personally. PCs sitting on desks suck. It doesn't matter how quiet you get it, you will notice the noise while sitting at the desk alone in the room. And anyone who is in IT or Development or any other mentally demanding job will tell you, even normally mild or even nearly unnoticeable noises can cause you great frustration.I like the idea of putting this in a sliding drawer. That way when you needed to work on the machine's innards you could just slide it out and pop the cover and work right at your desk. And when you're actually using the PC within, you could slide it back to the end of the desk, and if you mounted the drawer underneath the desk, you'd never notice it.
Great review as always, Dustin. I have built about a dozen PCs (for myself, that is) but I haven't done it since 2003! I've been buying Dell XPS systems since then, as it was worth it to me to purchase fully assembled products with generally nice cases, believe it or not, rather than going through the rigamarole of purchasing all the separate parts and praying to the gods that everything works well with everything else. The manufacturer mashups can be pretty frightening. At any rate, your review here makes me want to buy one of these as I've had increasing interest in mini-ITX systems as of late. Might just have to workout a project plan! :-)
doctormonroe - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
What happened to the photo galleries?Dustin Sklavos - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
We had a bug in the system with them; adding galleries now.Conficio - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
"the general industry tend towards smaller"Meaker10 - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
An OCed 680M stays along side a stock clocked GTX670 :DGrok42 - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
I am so glad to see more reviews of mITX cases. I believe as the reviewer does that these cases are the future of enclosures. I also believe that optical drives are legacy drives as well. All the reviews of mITX cases come to the same conclusion that the external bays seriously compromise the overall design of the case. Small cases are always going to be a set of trade offs but it seems obvious the trade off should be to remove the external bays but not a single case does. It seems so obvious that improved thermal and acoustic performance is more important than the ability to have an optical drive that is used once or twice in the life of the system.If your taking requests for future reviews I would nominate the Lian Li PC-Q16A. I'm worried it doesn't support a discrete GPU at which point I would retract my request. I can't find any information or reviews about it of any depth so I can't be sure if it does or not.
JoanSpark - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
+1there is not a single mITX/mATX case out there without an external (optical) drive bay.
Not a single case maker is producing a box where you can put in a mb, a gpu, some 2.5/3.5 drive(s) and call it a day.
You get countless towers, med towers, mini towers etc with numerous external bays in all kinds of styles and colours.. but not a single case without an external drive bay.
Pathetic.
Zap - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Check out the Lian Li PC-Q25 series. It is like the PC-Q08, except supporting more 3.5" drives and no external drive bay. And yes, gigantic graphics cards are supported.Alternately, for those who don't need discrete GPUs there are plenty of mITX cases which don't have external drive bays.
JoanSpark - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
I stand corrected.Thx for the pointer, very interesting.