The SilverStone FARA 514X in black clocks in right at that magical $100 mark. It continues to offer plenty of fans, and an ARGB / PWM PCB in combination with the structural quality that one would expect to see from a case in this price segment. The front of the case also feels very nice, with minimal use of plastic. It manages to improve in several areas when compared to the 512Z, while also simplifying others.

The—by far—biggest issue remains with that misplaced resilience to use old-fashioned, outdated fans and a cut down ARGB controller. That is simply not something you should expect from this case - regardless of the price point. We need the controller to come with the ability to interface with the motherboard, and we need the fans to be PWM in future iterations of the FARA line-up. By modern standards there is simply no way around this anymore, unfortunately. A perfectly acceptable compromise would be retaining daisy-chaining wires for the ARGB aspect of the fans and implementing that same method for the PWM connectivity, thus eliminating the need for the controller - as long as that is also reflected in the price point.

Regarding the body, the SilverStone FARA 514X looks really nice - especially that front panel design is both timeless and functional. The frame feels sturdy with the clean glass implementation, even if we would have loved to see some modern touches like captive thumb screws. The case also offers improvements in tooling and cooling compatibility, while adding a fourth fan over what the FARA 512Z could provide. But unfortunately, at the same time the SilverStone FARA 514X cuts back on some other aspects, making you feel like all the changes come at the cost of adding pain points in other areas. For example the break-out expansion slots.

It should be made abundantly clear that the SilverStone FARA 514X has the potential to be a clean, mainstream chassis that offers all the trusted and true implementations one would want for a modern $100 case. With so much competition in price, cohesive features or even unique tooling out there these days in this price segment, we really hope that future FARA variants manage to bridge the gap again.