Introduction

We have tested several cases from Silverstone these past several years, while the features and sizes and expanded, so did the price, as it increased ever further upwards. Silverstone cases are high quality builds with months going into prototype designs to find the balance between performance, looks, compatibility and price.

No, Silverstone cases are not known for the bargain prices, this leaves them out of the budget and mid-range customers who are not willing to spend hundreds of Dollars/Euros on a computer case. To remedy this situation Silverstone has decided to introduce a separate case series called the “Kublai”, whether or not this name is related to the last Khagan of the Mongol Empire we don’t know.

There are currently 3 cases in the Kublai line-up, we received the most expensive one, the KL03 which is priced at approximately $160, which is still considerably lower than the entry level TJ series cases. The KL01 and KL02 go for ~$120.



From the box shot we can see the less conventional curve and front panel which is featured on the KL03 which comes in two colors, silver and black.

Specifications

The KL03 is mid-tower case on steroids, not quite a large tower case, but considerably larger than your run-of-the-mill mid-tower case.



Interesting to note is the use of aluminum for the front panel, but metal for the rest of the case, this make the case not a light-weight at 14kg. You can install up to four 120mm fans for cooling, two come pre-installed with the case. No PSU with the case, so you have to add one yourself. The side panel can be had with a nice window, if you fancy a look inside.

Onto the size comparison and closer outside look ->

Size comparison

Silverstone KL03 is a larger mid-tower case and it shows, in our height/width chart it’s only slightly smaller than the Coolermaster EVO 830 and Antec P182B.

Compared to a 1m80 human, here’s how the cases stack up in height and width:



Supporting Extended ATX it’s no surprise that the KL03 is near the top of the depth chart, only slightly smaller than the TJ09.



Look Outside

We received the Silver version with a window cut-out in the side panel, everything is securely wrapped to prevent damage during the transport. The sample arrived in mint condition:



The front panel is quite different from the rectangular look previous Silverstone cases always followed, you either love it or… like it less.



The front door can be open either way, depending on how you configure the hinges.



The rear panel is nothing special, run of the mill ATX PSU placement and 120mm exhaust:



The top panel received special attention as the I/O ports and power/reset buttons are situated here:



You get 2xUSB, 1xFirewire and sound in/out here. Would have been nice to see eSATA too as cheaper cases do feature this interface at their front panel!

So far so good, let’s take a look inside ->

Look inside

While the front panel is quite unique, as we progress to the inside the case actually looks quite generic. The side panel is held in place with normal screws, for an enthusiast case, thumbscrews are appreciated though.

The window gives you a glimpse of what’s inside; unfortunately the view is blocked by an ugly grey piece of metal…



The window is made from hard plastic and won’t break easily; it’s riveted to the metal side panel.



This metal panel can hold 2x120mm fans, it would have been more esthetically correct to have the fan(s) integrated into the side panel. As now you have to open a second panel to have access to the mainboard area:



At the bottom of the photo above you can make out the plastic feet, which spin outwards 90°C to provide better stability.

The metal panel swings open on its own hinge and at the inside you’ll find a series of plastic/rubber combo rails, which slide out and hold your PCI(e) cards in place.



The other side of the KL03 is less interesting:



The front door swings open to the left in standard config, but this can be changed as we already mentioned. The 5.25” bay covers are transparent, but this is only noticed when using flash photography.





Cooling

Silverstone equipped the KL03 with 2x120mm fans, one in the front and one in the rear, creating the ideal airflow path for ATX computer systems. The one in the rear has a finger guard at the inside, you can also see the PCI slot covers in the photo below which have ventilation holes. These covers are held in place with normal screws.



The 120mm fan in the front of the case is quite special; it’s integrated in the front 5.25” panels, removing it requires a screwdriver pushed in from the side:



Two things of note in the photo below, the fan has no wired connection to the front of the case, you can remove it without having to unplug anything! Quite an inventive design and it works great. Secondly you can see the 3.5” hard drive racks from the front, as you can slide up to 4 HDDs from the front.



Time to install some hardware ->

Installation

The KL03 features almost no toolless features, so have you screwdriver ready, as most step requires the use of it. Power supply and motherboard are installed as in any ordinary case, not much room for cable routing left, so you have to find a way to hide them somewhere in an empty 5.25” bay.

The Optical drives and 3.5” devices (not HDDs) can be installed without the use of your screwdriver as the case’s goodie bag comes with a series of drive rails:



The drive rails click in place and then you slide the device until you hear in it snap lock tight:



If you have half length 5.25” devices, like fan controller or LED display, you can use the screws provided.




The star of the show in case of the KL03 is the hard drive mounting system; it features hot plug and play SATA data/power all-in-one preinstalled cable (or cables if you purchase extra units). You can see a single one installed in the photo below:




You screw your hard drives into the HDD plastic mini racks:




Then you just slide them in and close the rack cover, which fixes them in place, then you reinstall the front 120mm fan and you’re good to go!

Test Setup and Test Methodology

Intel Test Setup
CPU	Intel Core 2 E6400 @ 2.8Ghz (from CSMSA)
Cooling	Coolermaster Hyper TX
Mainboard	Intel 975X Bad Axe (Modded by Piotke)
Memory	2 * 1Gb PC6400 OCZ
Other	XFX Geforce 8800 GTX Coolermaster Real Power M520 520W PSU 2x Western Digital 74Gb Raptor SATA HDD

Room temperature was 20°C during testing, ambient noise clocked in at 37.8dBA. Noise measurements were taken at 50cm from the front of the case.

Realtime HDR and Orthos were used to stress the Dual Core system; Core 2 Temp was used to monitor Core temperature (duh) and Speedfan to check the temperature of HDD and Motherboard. Rivatuner’s temp monitor checked the G80 GPU at regular intervals. Maximum values were recorded.

The Intel Bax Axe motherboard features several thermal sensors, the “mobo” values are those recorded by the sensor which can be found between the DDR2 memory banks, marked A in the overview:



Cable routing & Fitting larger video cards

The KL03 is a very deep case and has no issues fitting a large VGA card like the 8800 GTX:



Cable routing options however are completely absent and you’ll have to use zipties a lot to keep a clear airflow path.



With the side panel installed, you really wish there was no window to look at the mess inside:



Luckily… after dark things take turn for the better. Silverstone has eschewed LED lightening for all their case series, but they changed their decision with the KL03 Kublai, featuring a blue LED lighting around the front I/O panel:



The fans don’t have LED lights, but you can swap them out. The front fan is most challenging to replace, but it’s quite easy when you figure out that there’s a standard 3-pin connector hidden on the inside of the bracket.



With a blue LED fan installed, it definitely fits the theme:



Onto our performance tests ->

Performance Tests

Our stress tests compare the cooling performance of the enclosure with the standard included fans to that of all previous cases we have tested with the same hardware since January 2007. We test with different fan configurations to measure the impact; in case of the Silverstone we hooked up the 2x120mm to a 5.25” fan controller which allowed us full control from 0 to 12v;

These are three test configurations we used:

• Two fans at maximum speed (Front/Rear)
  
• Two fans + one Papst 1200rpm at maximum speed (Front/Rear/Side)

These are the results:



Performance wise the KL03 is not the best case we’ve tested yet, nor is the worst. Temperatures are acceptable, although the VGA cooler is running close to full speed here, which accounts for the higher noise levels.

We found the impact of installing an extra fan in the side panel to be negligible; the ventilation holes in the window are not very big, which can explain the rather small impact.

Conclusive Thoughts

From the moment we removed the side panel of the KL03 we had a big *deja-vu* moment… maybe it’s because we tested an almost identical case back in 2004.



Silverstone most likely bought the design specs for this case and tweaked/modified a bit for today’s standards, which comes down to providing 2x120mm fans. They also spend a large amount changing the hard drive rack, the one back in 2004 faced towards the side panel, held up to 5 drives. The Silverstone edition faces forwards, fits only four HDD but has hot-plug functionality for SATA drives.

Unfortunately they did not bring over much of the features of the original case, which is actually a step backward. In 2004 the design included thumb screws for the side panels and a locking mechanism. The metal inner-side panel could hold fans and/or hard drives. There were extra cooling options (fans at the other side of the case and in the top panel).

Overall, we’re not very impressed with the KL03, it’s based on an outdated design and it shows in the feature set, easiness of use and production quality. While the hotplug SATA function is nice, it doesn’t solve any issues.

Last but not least, the case back in 2004 could be had for as little as ~€100. The Silverstone KL03 sells for €150. You get a fancier front panel, 120mm fan support for the extra cash, but the original design still remains more than 4 years old.

When we asked Silverstone their motivation for building this case, they told us that the Kublai series is to bridge the gap between their high end enclosures and the entry level models found in stores. Unfortunately the KL03 doesn’t really deliver, luckily the other two Kublai cases, KL01/KL02 stand a better chance. For the price, there are better choices for a mid-tower case than the KL03.



We thank Stefan from Silverstone to allow us to test and evaluate their products. Until next time!