A Closer Look - Outside

The loose parts of the chassis are secured with tape right out of the box. The case interior is bound to hold quite a few surprises, but some may not like the way the front looks, purely from a design standpoint. While SUGO cases are usually quite edgy and understated, the SG09 has a surprising amount of detail, and several round shapes are a part of the front. This may take a little getting used to for some.


The front is designed with the air vent of the PSU in mind. While there is no full-sized external drive-bay, you will find a slot-loading one in the very top. Turning the chassis around, it becomes apparent that the mATX board is to be installed upright, but the lack of a PSU bay means that the power supply will be somewhere else within the SG09.


You will find a small air vent on the left side of the SG09. The right side also has two separate air vents. The top one is not covered by anything, and the bottom one holds a plastic dust filter. Behind it are three separate mountings for fans. Two of them take either 80 or 92 mm fans, while the big one already has a pre-installed 120 mm unit.


In the front, you will only find a basic set of I/O consisting of a pair of USB 3.0 connectors and the usual audio connectors. In the very top is the slimline optical drive-bay which, for some strange reason, lacks an eject button. This was already the case with the FT03 Mini, but I attributed that to the fact that Silverstone meant to keep a clean and understated design. As the Sugo SG09 has a very elaborately designed front, an eject button would not have been a disturbance at all.


Turning the chassis around, the four expansion slots are protected by individual covers that are secured through the exterior of the case. Silverstone has clearly done everything they could to keep the chassis as compact as possible. Above that is a 120 mm exhaust fan and an interesting contraption for the power plug. Silverstone has, instead of just having a straight, traditional connector, angled the plug by moving it to the exterior of the chassis. The main reason for this is simple: there is no plug inside the case, which further helps in keeping things as compact as possible.


Another clipped-on plastic dust-filter on the top of the chassis covers up the 180 mm Air Penetrator fan. The filter can be removed easily and should be quite easy to clean. There are absolutely no openings on the underside of the case - just four little bumps for the supplied rubber feet.