Building a quiet gaming system inside SilverStone SG03, part 1
In this post I explain and show building a quiet gaming PC inside SilverStone SG03. This is generation 2.5 or 3 of this particular machine, so some component choices reflect that.
The system is used by my better half, who mostly uses it for playing back video, surfing, word processing and EVE. I wanted the system to be quiet and utilize standard components, she wanted it to be small and stylish. While you can build mini-ITX gaming machines these days, they still carry hefty premiums and often need to cut corners on things like IO connectivity and power delivery. So, a case that can fit µATX motherboard, ATX power supply and gamer graphics card without being any larger than it has to be to fit those was needed. And SG-03 fitted the bill.
The images link to gallery where you can view all the images from this build and see larger-sized versions of them. License: CC, Attribution, Share-alike, Noncommercial.
Assembled system from left side:
Assembled system from back:
As you can see, the case is really small for µATX case: 360*312*200mm (H*D*W). Power supply sits on top of the motherboard, which seriously restricts the height of CPU cooler. However, graphics card has almost as much room than in mid-tower case - the width and height available for it are decent. Super-long cards might be a problem, but the AMD Radeon HD 3850 used here fits with room to spare.
The system from front, as first assembled:
The SG03 ships with one case fan, 120mm SilverStone one. I complemented it with Scythe SY1225SL12VBL, a 120mm fan that sports blue leds and comes with integrated speed control. Fan speed can be adjusted from 800 to 1600 rpm. Because she liked the leds, I replaced also the stock SilverStone fan with another Scythe unit.
Hub of the Scythe SY1225SL12VBL showing rated specs:
The system from front, with fan grille removed for dust cleanup before proceeding to install the latest generation:
I’m a bit suspicious about filters that are this open (ie. not filter cloth but coarse-grained plastic mesh), but judging from the amount of dust collected in the filters after year of use they indeed have some merit.
To be continued on next post.
