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SilverStone KL02B-W


Date
: 03/31/08 – 03:43:05 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cases

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
SilverStone

Silverstone has long been a company known for their high quality full tower cases and elegant home theater PC cases. While their Temjin series of cases always garner a lot of attention for high quality and great cooling, they also make mid tower cases for those seeking something a little, more modest in size but with the same quality.

It has been quite some time since I decided that a mid tower was not enough room and moved into a full tower case. While full tower cases offer more roomy interiors, they also are much larger on the outside and such not everyone has the room to accommodate such size in their office. Today I am taking a look at their latest in the Kublai series, the KL02B-W, aiming to offer high quality construction like the Temjin series without all of the high end features. The KL02B-W still offers a variety of unique features, read on to find out how well it all comes together.

Page 2 : Package

The KL02B-W comes in a black and dark blue box, matching the color style of the case itself.

On the front of the box you get an exterior view with a list of features. On the back is an exploded view with a few of the features highlighted.

Both ends of the box give you an introduction to the Kublai series and a list of the features in several languages.

Inside the box, the case is enclosed in a plastic bag with two Styrofoam shells on the top and bottom. The foam shells give ample room for protection from your trusty delivery person.

Inside is a small box of accessories to include a bag of motherboard standoffs and screws, hard drive mounting screws, a 5.25′ to 3.5′ brackets, locking mechanism and manual.

Page 3 : Specifications

Straight from Silverstone's
Manufacturer:
website, here is a rundown of some of the Kublai KL02 features and specifications:

Here are some features listed, which most we will cover in our tour of the case to come:

-Mid-size tower chassis for all around integration
-Temjin quality aluminum finish and construction with removable drive bays
-Dual 120mm fans included for excellent cooling
-Perforated expansion slot cover for graphics card cooling
-Highly flexible drive storage options with hot-swappable SATA adapter
-High airflow design (via side venting holes)
-Includes SilverStone CP05 adapter to make any 3.5′SATA hard drive hot-swappable

Now that we have run through the features and specifications, let's move on to a closer look of the Kublai KL02B-W.

Page 4 : Exterior

Now to remove the KL02B-W from it's protective shell and get a look.

As you can see the KL02B-W comes with a protective coating over the window. Once removed you have a clear view of the guts. The window is held in place by eight screws. The first thing that strikes me is that the case has a very clean and sophisticated look. Not too flashy and not dull.

The first thing of note is the front mesh covers and aluminum construction of the faceplate. The front side panels swing out to reveal the removable bay covers including one bay cover with a 3.5′ cutout. While it is easy to remove the covers, it seems a bit awkward trying to push in the small notch on the side, where a little bit of a lip on these would make it that much easier. Also note that the power button is located at the top right side of the case.

The front I/O panel includes the fairly standard layout of a FireWire connection, 2 USB connections, headphone and microphone jacks and a reset button hidden behind a drop down cover. At first I found it odd that the USB connections were split apart unlike most other cases. However this is a great setup especially if you need to plug in two different devices where one or both are larger in size.

A favorite feature of mine on the KL02B-W is the front hot swappable 120mm fan. The fan is removable just like the bay covers and uses a contact plate supply its power. Behind the fan are the four removable hard drive holders.

The hard drive modules are easily removed by pulling a lever which ejects the holder. The hard drive gets mounted to the holder using four screws and four rubber washers to help dampen noise and vibrations.

The back of the case has your standard power supply and I/O panel openings, along with a 120mm exhaust fan. The main note of difference here is the perforated expansion slot covers, which allows for greater airflow around warm devices such as video cards.

Finally on the bottom of the case are the case feet. The case feet are plastic with a chrome like finish around the outside and a rubber inside pad. They look good and offer a solid grip on any surface.

Page 5 : Interior

After exploring the outside, it is time to move along to the insides.

Removing the side panel reveals my first disappointment with the KL02B-W, the lack of thumbscrews. Most cases these days include thumbscrews and it's kind of a shame that Silverstone failed to include them. While we have toolless clips for the 5.25′ bays, you are going to have to whip out a screwdriver to get inside the case and install any expansion cards.

Here is the hard drive cage which in turn houses the 4 removable hard drive modules when removed from the case. You can see the 3-pin fan connection running from the panel for the front mounted 120mm fan. Also included is a

Moving closer inside, you can see the wire for the power button routing up towards the shop. Notice the latch that is included for cable management to help route cables from the power supply.

The included 120mm exhaust fan has a 4 pin molex power cable along with separate 3 pin connector for RPM monitoring. This allows you to still retain monitoring without having to use the power from the motherboard fan header. The included fans use a 9 blade design to help reduce noise instead of the standard 7 blades used by most fans.

The bundle of front panel connectors includes USB, FireWire, audio, power switch, reset switch, power LED and hard drive LED. The front panel audio includes connectors for HD Audio and AC97.

While there is room behind the motherboard tray for wires, you really cannot access this area without cutting some holes yourself. The holes that are there do not allow very good access to this area which could be vital for good cable management.

Now that we have finished going over the case, lets install the hardware.

Page 6 : Installation

I'm not going to bore you with a step by step guide on how to install a system, as most of you have done this already, but I want to touch on a few things about the installation into the Kublai KL02B-W.

Installation really was quite painless aside from slightly more cramped conditions than your typical full tower case. Since I wasn't able to use the space behind the motherboard, I managed to tuck most of the wires into the empty 5.25′ drive bays, though this would be a bit tougher if you used more than the one that I did. Even so cable management wasn't too bad and I'm sure with a little more time and patience it could be made to look even better.

Here is the area where the close quarters really take a turn for the worse. On the left is an XFX 7800GT installed, which is a cramped situation without it being a full sized card. On the right, is the spacing when we install a full size card, in this case a Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT. Luckily the PCI-e connections are on the side, but should you have a card with connections on the end, this would render the second from the top hard drive module useless. Also I had to remove the SATA hot swap unit to install the 2900 XT, since it stressed the connections a little too much in that top position. Granted a lot of this crowding would be much less if the hard drives were SATA drives with the much thinner than IDE cables.

Finally here is a look at the front LED's in action. On the right is the power LED and the left is the HD activity LED. I am not sure if the difference in LED brightness is the standard or if it is just a defect with this particular case I have.

Installation was pretty straight forward with just a few bumps, now let us see how it performs.

Page 7 : Testing

The following system was installed and used to gather temperatures:

Ambient Temperature: 24-25C
CPU: Athlon64 3700+ – Thermalright Ultima-90
MB: DFI LP NF4 Ultra-D
RAM: G.Skill 2x1GB PC-4000
GPU: XFX 7800GT
PSU: Ultra X3 1000W
HD: Western Digital 40GB IDE, Seagate 80GB IDE
DVD-Rom: Lite-On 18x DVD Burner – SATA
Case:
SilverStone Kublai KL02B-W
, CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000

For stock temperatures the system was allowed to stand at idle for a minimum of 3 hours before temperatures were taken. Load temperatures for CPU and chipset were taken by running the Folding@home client at 100% for one hour. GPU temperatures were obtained by running 3DMark06 and observing the highest temperature reached, and finally temperatures for the hard drive were reached by moving 6 gigabytes of files to and from the drive 3 times in succession.

I included in comparison data for the CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000 just to give an idea of where the numbers compare. As you can see the KL02B-W doesn't lose a step when compared to the full size Cosmos, and is even quieter when turned on than the Cosmos. Basically what you have is a smaller space to move air through, and the two 120mm fans move it quite well, so naturally 2 fans are going to be quieter than the 4 120mm fans in the Cosmos. The hard drive temperatures are not really a surprise since the KL02B-W has a 120mm fan blowing directly across the hard drives while the Cosmos lacks this active cooling.

Under load results are pretty much a mirror of our results from the idle test. Once again we see the benefit of the 120mm fan blowing across the hard drives. I have to say I am quite pleased with the performance of the KL02B-W, SilverStone has designed it well when it comes to cooling.

Page 8 : Conclusion

I have some mixed feelings about the KL02B-W from Silverstone, while it has a few very innovative features; it also falls short in my opinion in some basic areas. The first area is the lack of thumbscrews, it's a simple addition and I would expect it from a mid tower in this price range. Also while support for full length cards is there, it really gets crowded around the hard drive module with one installed. My final suggestion would be to open up some areas for easier access to the area behind the motherboard for better cable management.

With only a few warts, the positives outweigh the negatives. I love the look and solid feel of the case and the cooling performance is actually quite good and silent. The quick disconnect fan is a very innovative idea that I wouldn't mind seeing used in other cases. The tool less feature in the case, 5.25′ bays, are really easy to use and hold the hardware solidly in place. While a purely personal opinion, I think the case has a clean and elegant look to it that would fit in any office or room. In the end Silverstone has a solid case, but could use a boost in a few areas.

Positives

• Quiet

• Solid construction
• Good airflow
• Innovative features

Negatives

• More of the case could be tool free

• Some cramped spaces

Overclockers Online would like to thank Silverstone for supplying the Kublai KL02B-W for review.