Test System

Assembly

Installing the motherboard is done by traditional means and bears no surprises. Thanks to accessibility on three sides, every header is a breeze to connect, including the CPU power plugs between the cooler and the case fan. In regards to cable management, you have to get a little creative, and I managed to route them alongside the board underneath the motherboard tray itself to keep things tidy. Even though the LD03-AF is compact, you may easily install a CPU cooler of up to 190 mm in height here, which puts it well into ATX tower territory for compatibility. For this review, we used a compact 92 mm unit. This was done not to be mean, but to show you what kind of thermal performance benefit this setup has, as we usually use a bigger and thus more expensive top-blow cooler for our ITX system reviews. Adding the PSU requires you to remove its mounting plate by taking off three screws and securing it to that first, before sliding it back into place. There is plenty of room to work with and none of the connectors/cables get in the way of any of the components, or even the airflow really.


Placing storage within the chassis is quite easy even with everything else fully assembled, as you may take off the plate and screw drives on outside of the confines of the case. As you can see, I installed a 3.5" and 2.5" drive, which is possibly a popular configuration within this case for most.


Once those major components are installed, plugging in the GPU is easy as pie as well. There is some space between the dual-slot GPU, so even a 2.5 slot card will fit. While we use a shorter EVGA card for consistency in thermal benchmarks and noise across ITX systems, you can easily install big units like the RTX 2080 or 3080 as long as it is under 309 mm long.


With everything assembled and the bare case upright, you can clearly see that the GPU and storage elements are on the edge, with airflow in the funnel from bottom to top essentially unobstructed. This is a nice touch and will definitely help in keeping system temperatures down by pushing cool air from the bottom past the board and out the top.

Finished Looks

Once turned on, you can see the dim glow of the various LEDs within the chassis. Due to the heavy tint, things are a lot more subtle, which benefits a home theater environment, for example. A blue power LED lights up around the square power button to let you know the system is turned on.


Looking at all three glass sides, you can barely see what is inside the case because of the tint. SilverStone is clearly focusing more on glass as a design element rather than a means to show off your cool hardware, which is certainly a viable approach.


Lastly, in the rear, the PSU opening fits the SFX unit nicely. As you can see some red LEDs coming through, it is apparent that SilverStone made this opening large enough for up to SFX-L units to get as much airflow as possible. Thanks to the top cover, you can see the power lead, and any other cables can easily be routed out the back and out of view.