SilverStone SST-LD03B Lucid Mini Tower Mini-ITX Computer Case, Silent High Airflow Performance, 3x Tinted Tempered Glass

Hopefully this review will help inform anyone who is thinking of pushing the performance envelope with a build and using this case. The specs of mine that matter are i7 6700k, gtx 980ti, z170 itx motherboard, ssd, evga supernova gs 650w Psu and a kraken x31 aio cooler.I spent a lot of time thinking about what components to put in. Such are the restrictions with this case, I highly recommend you copy the cooler, reference style card and psu. I will try and explain my thought processes quickly. If you want to give yourself room to overclock, you simply must use a aio water cooler. It is what this case was designed for. The issue here is that you are limited in space as the psu comes close to the front of the case where the radiator is mounted.A thick radiator would be ideal as it will cool better. Unfortunately there isn't really enough clearance for a beefy one (unless you want the single fan to be practically touching the psu). You can give yourself some room by choosing a short psu. Silverstone strider is the smallest one of reasonable quality (140mm). However, as you will be using the psu to exhaust air out the back of the case (I'll explain shortly), ideally you want a more reputable psu. The evga supernova gs 650w is 150mm (all of the other decent psu's are 160+). This gives you room to put in a kraken x31 which has a slightly thicker radiator than most, and it does make a difference. With this combo, I can hit 4.6ghz+ and keep it under 70 degree c, which is quite impressive considering. Even with the psu cables going quite close to the fan, this combo gives good airflow and I literally think that this is the optimal set up for this case. The x31 is significantly better than the likes of the H60, and the psu is solid, reliable and can easily be used as an exhaust and remain mostly silent.You should really use a reference blower style gpu with this case as they are far more effective at ejecting hot air out of the case than the custom ones which just bounce it all around your case. In a larger case a custom one may be better, but not in this little shoebox.I won't lie and say building in this case is a breeze, but it isn't difficult if you think logically about what order to insert everything.This worked for me:SSD mounted to case floorRam and cpu added to motherboardMotherboard insertedRadiator + fan mountedPump mountedWires plugged in and left in logical places where they can be more easily managed after the next steps,Gpu inserted through the front (took 10 seconds for my reference gtx 980ti - easy)PSU mountedTry your best and manage those wires (don't buy a non modular psu, really..)And to finally sum up what I think about this case... It's amazing. I have a 4k gaming powerhouse which is quiet and sleek. With a set up like I listed above, it all stays nice and cool and gives you fairly substantial overclocking headroom. I'm never going to touch another ugly tower again and Silverstone should have charged more for it. I would have paid at least double. I haven't seen any itx case that hits all these sweet spots like this one does. It is an extremely well thought out design and I 100% recommend it.

Did some research on an ideal ITX case, which is not expensive, as some of the new crop of sandwich type cases seem to be. Components I installed are,Asrock Z390 gaming acI7-8700K16gb DDR 4000 steel viperCorsair 600 psuCorsair H80I cpu coolerGTX 1070 evgaAll the components fitted well, just had to re-orientate the cpu cooler twice to fit under the power supply ( make sure you use the silverstone psu bracket, its positioned higher than some others ) . I left the IO bracket out for better airflow. Really impressed with the thermals, was not expecting to overclock. The corsair ICue fan setting software has quiet, balanced and fast. Heres the results on a 5.0ghz overclock with LLC level2 and -90mmvolt offsett and using Aida64 extreme software for 30 minutes.Quiet setting on idle - cpu31 - vrms41 - fan930 revs - vcore0.64Quiet setting on max - cpu78 - vrms49 - fan1280 revs - vcore1.248Balanced setting on idle - cpu28 - vrms41 - fan1270 revs - vcore0.64Balanced setting on max - cpu73 - vrms46 - fan1890 revs - vcore1.268I have been using the quiet setting and for a few weeks for gaming and its brilliant, no thermal issues whatsoever. much quieter than expected. If you decide to use the balanced setting, might be better to use a notctua fan.Ps . the results are with the outside case lid fitted !.Hope this helps.

I set upon this case after seeing LinusTechTips cram a super powerful system into here, despite the modest dimensions - I don't have much room to spare, and was looking for a simple Torrent box / Teamspeak server, and while there were a few other options, none were this cheap, this upgradable and this small - every case sacrificed one of these aspects, save for this one.When it arrived, the metal piece that covers the top and sides was already slightly bent, certainly not much of the budget went into this part of the construction, and the packaging foam looked decent but clearly wasn't totally sufficient. My build was fairly simple if a bit strange for this form factor : a cheap msi am1 itx board, an athlon 5350 and whatever graphics card I could find, with storage as a 3.5 inch drive I had lying around and the front (and only) fan being a decent corsair 140mm fan.In terms of build quality, a solid steel frame, base and back is basically all there is to it. There is a plastic front mesh which is well built enough, and the before mentioned flimsy top/side panel, although when a system is in place there is no issues with build strength anywhere as far as I can tell. Passes well in this regard especially for the price point.In build process, it is a little more complex than most. Due to the compact internal layout, there is a very specific method to installing the parts, and as such building should be done in one go, and upgrades handled by almost full dis-assembly followed by re-assembly. The fan mount is where the first issue is found - there is only three holes for a 140mm case fan. This, combined with the very thin metal used here, means there not nearly as much rigidity as I would consider sufficient for such a high speed moving part. It is by no means flimsy, but solid it isn't.The second main issue I ran into is with the hard drive mount. I opted for a 3.5inch HDD I had lying around, but because of the fan placement, the bracket simply couldnt fit with a hard drive installed - this is a limitation of the design, and it's a pretty big limitation if you ask me, because installing a radiator or a thick fan in here (a radiator is specifically mentioned in the instruction manual) would not allow any drives to install on this mount, thus rendering the majority of storage options in this case unusable, and there weren't many to begin with!This leaves only space for a 2.5 inch drive mounted to the bottom of the case, which essentially rules out mechanical drives due to vibrations. If you are looking for storage, this isn't the case for you, and I would advise a larger case like the bitfenix prodigy or it's ilk.The third issue was with the graphics card - the only way I could fit my admittedly large 7870 by sapphire was through the front of the case, which was slightly too much hassle considering the case was designed for larger graphics cards, with the manual advising a removal of the front panel if the graphics card is too large - I had so much issue with my graphics card that fit in the case, I don't want to imagine what it would be like to fit a 295x2 in here!The fourth and final issue was cable clutter. There is simply no place to store any cables without obstructing airflow. A modular power supply should almost certainly be considered a requirement - my non-modular power supply's extra cables ended up sitting between the fan and motherboard, blocking a lot of airflow to the CPU cooler. While this is not an issue in my case, due to the low load of my CPU, in a gaming or even normal workload system this could be fatal to the components within.With all the above out of the way, you may be wondering why I gave it four stars, despite seeming to be annoyed by most of the case. In fact, the low price and small footprint makes this case a very interesting base for a build, and it's ability to house some serious power means I cannot take too many marks off for the minor inconveniences above, as such are the compromises when dealing with this size - and I am glad the compromises are limited to the building process instead of build quality or modularity, as in some other cases.Heck, in order to get around some of the issues described above, I simply turned over the hdd bracket and mounted my HDD so it stuck outside of the case, and forwent the top/side panel entirely until I had some alternative storage sorted out. With the power supply cables, I just used cable ties to attach them to the steel frame at several points, and improved airflow significantly.All in all, this is a case that gives you space and options, which is surprising given it's small size and lack of features, but it's the truth. There is little you cannot do with this beauty, and I will continue using it in any small form factor builds I make in future, and I would recommend you consider this an option if doing the same.