When SilverStone released the original LD03 it turned heads with its cool looks, and garnered customer interest with excellent GPU compatibility alongside uncompromising space for potent air cooling for CPUs. When we reviewed the unit, pricing was a detriment to US buyers, with a much higher price tag stateside vs. places like Europe. With the LD03-AF, that has been remedied as the chassis clocks in at a much more aligned, $20 lower price tag despite its upgrades. The other issue we and many others noted was the full glass side panel that restricted the ability for a GPU cooler to draw on cool outside air, which resulted in high temperatures around the GPU. Hearing that feedback, SilverStone actually went pretty far by creating the first glass side panel we have seen with a built-in vent for that much needed access to cool air for the graphics card.

On top of that, the LD03-AF adds two subtle but welcome improvements, the first of which is the Air Penetrator 120i fan on the floor of the chassis instead of the classic type found in the original LD03. This improves airflow and increases the pressure inside the chassis, thus further helping by keeping smaller particles out and offering better thermals. The other is a USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C connector; while nice, it seems a bit overkill for an ITX chassis as a quick search shows that respective motherboards offering both are pretty rare, with my search result showing two out of fifteen Intel Socket 1200 ITX boards with such a combination.

All that said, the SilverStone LD03-AF naturally still offers all the facets that made the original such an interesting choice: from the bold design to the ease of accessibility and assembly, glass on three sides, and great compatibility—it's all there. Since we now also have thermal tests, we can confirm that the LD03-AF performs great, besting other ITX cases with more potent cooling while staying quieter and cooler overall.

In the end, SilverStone has improved on the functional design, fixed the pricing issues, and managed to eliminate or improve all thermal aspects with the LD03-AF.