The SilverStone PS13 ATX tower chassis is a really sad product. I had decided to give my old AMD Phenom II system to a new home but wanted an AMD system in the office. After my i-9 gen13 experience, I am never buying Intel again. Initially I was just going to give away all of the guts. Why? Newegg had this combo
Even when I added a 1TB M.2 drive it was under $300. I could re-use the case and finally have a system to put this video card in.
Naturally the motherboard arrived DOA. That motherboard was so poorly designed that I installed the video card I couldn’t use any other slots. Instead of sending everything back, I only RMA’ed the board.
So, I ordered this board. It took forever to get here. With time on my hands I ordered the CoolerMaster case that I like
and an 850watt PSU to go with it.
Shipping company used by the seller on Newegg either gave that case to a friend or tossed it in a ditch. Certainly never got here despite the “delivered” status. I live rural, on a farm. FedEx has trouble finding me. Porch Pirates couldn’t find this place on a bet. If they ever do venture this far out shotguns and the backhoe will turn them into a Bermuda Triangle mystery anyway.
Enter the SilverStone
I honestly can tell you it isn’t the shittiest case I ever bought. In the 1990s there were vendors in Computer Shopper magazine selling cases that were just stamped, not polished. If any edge inside the case contacted flesh you needed stitches. Kid you not. I had more than one of those. They were have the price of real cases. Other than the constant threat of bleeding to death, everything fit and all the slots lined up with motherboard openings.
You will note I ordered an AsRock B550 PRO4 motherboard, not some North Korean knock-off brand. As much as I hate Asus and AsRock, they follow industry standards when it comes to mobo size, screw locations, and slot positions. Just look at how far off the SilverStone PS13 is.
If you want to use the DVI-D port near the base of the GeForce GTX 1650 (or any other video card) you have to shove the card so far over you fear breaking the mobo connector.
Notice the big plate above the cards to anchor them instead of relying on individual screws? I swore I would never buy another case that did that because they are always shit. The reason they use those things is they know their card slot locations are off so far you won’t be able to anchor using screws.
And thank you very much for the great big metal ridge up there compounding the connector problem. This cable
has too short of a pin end to make contact unless the card is shoved over that far.
Problems Continue
Inexplicably, there is this snap it off metal plate behind the plastic cover of the second 5.25 inch drive bay.
Unless you snap it out you cannot slid a 3.5 inch hard drive into the bay without the thing sticking out almost to the power supply.
No 3.5 inch hdd mounting option
This is really inexcusable given the fact they have an external 3.5 inch bay. I’m not saying they had to go to the expense of providing an actual cage, just a few holes.
No two of those holes match up for a 3.5 inch drive. If I didn’t already have the mobo installed I would have got out my drill.
I’m sorry children! Some of us have a lot of 3.5 inch spinning disks to use up. I will have even more when I upgrade my NAS from 4TB WD RED to 12TB WD RED some time next year. Adding insult to injury, we don’t have vendors making those ventilated front 3.5 inch to 5.25 inch bay cages anymore. I actually emailed a few PC liquidator places asking if they hung onto any from systems they scrapped.
Summary
Why did I end up getting this case? I needed 3.5 inch external bay.
You can’t really make it out thanks to the flash bleaching it, but that is one of my many LS-120 drives. Yes, there has already been a blog post about it and new motherboards.
Every other seller of the CoolerMaster wanted A) about twice what I paid for the one I have B) me to wait 8-10 weeks for them to get one. Honestly, I believe that CoolerMaster case is the best one on the market. Everything lines up and there are screw holes for 3.5 inch drives.
