A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the interior of the FARA 514X, simply remove the thumb screws holding each panel in place and slide them off the chassis. The interior of the enclosure looks quite traditional with a metal shroud over the PSU and storage section. There is a dedicated cutout to route PCIe power connectors through as well as three general cable routing openings. Unfortunately none of these have any grommets, which would have been a nice touch. If you look closely, you can see plastic clips in the frame of the chassis which could be an alternative way to hold a glass panel which the 514X simply doesn't utilize. The shroud also has all the details to take on a cover to close off the opening in case you are not planning to install any cooling inside the chassis - similarly to what was the case with the 512Z as well.


The back of the motherboard tray sports a very large opening to access the CPU cooler mounting plate easily. There are several hooks for Zip Ties along the edges as well as down toward the front of the case. As such, with a bit of effort, you should be able to keep things fairly clean. Underneath the CPU cooler opening, there is a plate which allows for either two 2.5" drives. While it has mounting holes for a 3.5" drive, there is no clearance for this type of drive here and SilverStone clearly does not advertise this as an option either.


SilverStone also includes the same PCB inside the FARA 514X. While it is nice to see the wires pre-routed, you are left with an impossible cable mess, so the first thing to do is to disconnect everything anyway. That wiring mess is mostly due to the fact that all the fans come with passthrough connectors for the ARGB components, meaning you could daisy-chain these and connect them to a single header on the PCB or motherboard. The PCB allows for four ARGB elements which may be controlled with the dedicated button at the top of the enclosure. Alternatively, it may be connected to the motherboard for software control, using the attached cable. Unfortunately SilverStone still did not add a PWM control wire to the PCB even though there is a soldering pad present. On top of that, the four included fans are still RPM based and will run at 100% all the time. This incohesive implementation remains the achilles heel of the FARA series of enclosures, unfortunately. Users who opt for a case with a controller and built-in fans do so deliberately with a budget in mind and should also be able to expect a functional implementation.


In the front SilverStone has updated the cable cover from what we have seen in previous FARA cases. It is now an angled cover with a wide opening towards the motherboard. It has two placement options and provides openings that remain accessible no matter which of the two you choose to utilize. While it is good to have cable routing options, those openings don't seem to be very useful unless you opt to install fans on the interior of the case, which would defeat the purpose of the overall design of the FARA 514X. A small, plastic GPU support bracket is also included. While this seems a bit basic, it should be a bit of help to keep your GPU from sagging and thus certainly adds additional function and value to the chassis.


The HDD cage inside the case has two potential placement options. The one closest to the rear of the case not only hides it from view completely, but also provides the most room for thick liquid cooling setups you may want to employ in the front of the chassis. In that position, it does limit your PSU space, but there is still enough for a vast variety of potent, high-efficiency power supplies. Above that, in the front, you will find the three intake fans. Out of the box, the bottom most is installed so that its wires are clearly visible, so we will rotate this one 90° to run the wiring in a cleaner fashion.


In the rear at the bottom the PSU bay is straightforward and functional. Above that are the seven expansion slots, which unfortunately no longer come with reusable covers. In the very top, there is that aforementioned 120 mm ARGB equipped fan, which is identical to the three found in the front of the case.


Already teased before, the unique selling point of the FARA 514X is the fact that you can easily rotate the seven expansion slots for use with a vertical GPU. By doing so, five of the slots remain accessible, but odds are only the four farthest away from the motherboard will actually be usable. That is enough to hold even the largest modern GPUs, which is nice to see.


Looking at the ceiling of the case, you may easily install AIOs of up to 360 mm in size here. Thanks to the mounting hole placement and clearance above the motherboard area, such a unit should still provide you with ample of room to connect things to the top edge of your board as well. That said, it would have been nice to have grommets on the openings, just to add to the potential final looks.


The SilverStone FARA 514X ships with all black cables, with the USB ones using round wires. While this is fine, flat-band variants would really help with the bending radius which would work best with their cover on the interior of the case. The motherboard plugs are separate, which while just fine is not what we are seeing from more and more offerings these days which opt for the unified version to simplify plugging all these in correctly.