SilverStone Technology Grandia 11 Compact ATX Home Theater PC (HTPC) case with 240mm Radiator Support, SST-GD11B

I was looking for a PC case of a horizontal/desktop type to fit PC shelf in my home office desk, and came across this case. Key requirement for me (other than horizontal case style) was ultra-low noise level since this PC is right on the side of my work desk, any noise would be annoying and may be picked up by the speakerphone during calls. Previously I was using Dell mini-tower (lying horizontally on a side), but fan noise was noticeable, also I needed to upgrade that machine due to its age. This case works pretty well for my purposes - it is practically silent (when equipped with Noctua fans), it looks good, and it also has plenty of space for a regular-size motherboard with full-length graphics card etc. The case design is well thought-through - it provides excellent access to installed components and super-easy to open, at the same time the case is solid and there is absolutely no rattle. Venting design is excellent, with two 120mm fans inside front panel behind mesh, with space for three 120mm fans on sides and two 80mm fan slots at the back. Only two fans are installed (on the front panel) and I did not need to install any additional fans - cooling is already good enough. Factory supplied 120mm fans are OK, but with Noctua ultra-low noise fans you can make the case silent even under load. USB ports (including USB-C) on the front panel are helpful, and overall the case looks pretty good. Certainly would recommend.

I've tried several different HTPC cases and this one is the best of them all. My goal was to build a quiet HTPC case for my media rack and I was looking for the one large enough to fit a full-size ATX motherboard and incorporate enough high performing while quiet cooling capacity for a high performance build. I did find this case way too expensive but understand that the high price tag is most probably associated with the niche nature of this product. I picked quiet Noctua coolers for my build - 2 x 120 mm coolers (Noctua NF-S12A PWM) for intake on the side and 2 x 80 mm coolers (Noctua NF-A8 PWM) for outtake air flow on the back. Side 120 mm coolers blocking access to all the bottom edge connectors on the motherboard so make sure you do not have any USB connectors in that area. Motherboard lights and switches connectors do barely fit but nothing taller will. All of them are VERY quiet and completely non-audible. Not sure why some reviewers complained about noise. Have them working pretty much all the time for more than half a year. I also went with Corsair RM 850x power supply due to it's compact size, reliability and quiet mode - exhaust fan is off up to a 340 Watts load which allows it to stay completely silent under most typical loads. 850 Watt power supply may be an overkill for the purpose (I plan to upgrade video card later to play games on the big screen) but for CORSAIR RMx series silent mode threshold depends on the power supply power - it ranges from 400 Watts for a 1000 Watt unit to only 220 Watts for 550 Watt unit. So I went with a more powerful option to allow for as much silent operation headroom as possible. Current build has 12600K CPU installed which has And of course I picked the motherboard without any active cooling on it. I also installed front mounted 240mm Liquid AIO and picked CORSAIR H100x RGB Elite model. I didn't connect LED controller at all since otherwise they would be visible through the front grill which I do not want. It proved to be whisper-quiet and efficient so far. I am a big fan of ARCTIC COOLING Liquid Freezer II series but this case can not fit its radiator due to the notch in the perpendicular bar. Some people reported cutting a bigger notch with a Dremel but to me that seems like an excess AND you will most probably end up with 5.25" drive cage interfering with AIO radiator.

Pros: Excellent customer service* Case looks nice and can fit into a home theater cabinent/area Can fit coolers up to 138mm (I am using a 135mm cooler) Lots of space for fans Cons: All the different screws and parts came randomly mixed in a single bag Missing some screws and missing some motherboard standoffs Some scratches in some parts Fan is noisier than the fans from other Silverstone models Revising my review due to the excellent customer service from SilverStone. I let them know I was missing some parts and they sent me a bunch of extra parts very quickly. Bumping up my review to 4/5 stars

replaced old silverstone gd09, this one have a proper space for front 2fan rad( i don't know why manufacturer decide to not have 3 fan rad instead,THERE IS A SPACE FOR 3RD FAN anyway,not everyone using beefy rtx4090 or similar)if you diy-er you can easily cut that steel for 3rd fan :). anyway, inside is nicely redesign from gd09 to have unobstructed airflow from the left side directly to gpu ,THANKS SILVERSTONE FOR USING A BRAIN ;) i have ryzen 5700x with rtx 3060,rad deep cool castle 240 which keeps cpu below 65degrees when play cod:mw(1080p,and frames locked to 120) plus 5 other fans on sides and back. but like you see on pic, will be nicer to have 3 fan rad,will looks better than this.you can always switch off rgb ;) same setup (except rad) i have in Fractal design Ridge case,but after 10min play its overheat and shuts off pc. with silvertstone nothing happening,just 3 times bigger case ;)

I have been a long time HTPC enthusiast; Never before have PCs and TVs been more compatible than they are now. I have to say that I was excited when I saw this design. I tried to use the case as it was designed but on 4k games I was having overheating issues; To be fair I9s are known to have heat issues with a single 240mm radiator, even with good air flow. So, I decided to modify the case to hold a 360 mm and a 240mm radiator. This solved several problems: No longer overheats and by placing the 240mm radiator on the left side I was able to mount it high enough that I could clear the pins at the bottom of the motherboard and still be able to install 2 120mm fans. To get the clearance for the 360mm radiator I had to water cool the GPU; not a bad idea anyways for a higher end RTX, as they also run hot. I found with my setup that it ran cooler by using the 2 120 side fans as intake and the 2 rear 80mm fans as intake and using the 3 front 120mm fans as exhaust tweaking the fans in software to create a slight negative air pressure. Having bought many Silverstone HTPC cases over the years; I am a bit disappointed that there are no extras with this case, no remote start, no controller, and no way to install an internal optical drive. Problems that could easily be solved. (no need for a controller with today's motherboards) but having some kind of visual temp reference on the front would be nice as this case will collect dust over time and lose its cooling capacity and need to be cleaned. I used LED fans on the front then synced them to temperature, green for cool then yellow for warm, and red for hot...Have not seen them turn red yet! This just makes it easier to monitor temps without having to dig thru software. Also added a remote start and went with an external optical drive. Would like to see the next generation of this case to include a remote start, some kind of temp reference on the front, and if the case was an inch taller a slim profile optical drive could fit under the radiator where the logo is, an inch taller would also give clearance for the bottom motherboard pins. Also adding the third fan to the front is a must for today's hardware. Final thoughts: this HTPC case has a lot of potential, if someone is building this just for streaming then you would be better off buying an android box. But if you're wanting to take advantage of the latest gen TVS with vrr, fast refresh rates, fast input speeds, and clear text then this is a very good case for doing that.