SilverStone Kublai KL07 Review

Stripped, Build and Cooling

There are very few plastic parts to the KL07, but what there are, can be easily removed to reveal the steel under-chassis.  What at first view appeared a rather poorly ventilated top section now reveals itself to have a large  magnetic mesh covered slotted mount panel, which looks to be well offset from the motherboard area.  We can also see that the front of the case likewise has an easily removed mesh filter, this time covering an area which if we're not very much mistaken looks like it could fondle a 360mm radiator.

If we're honest, both the instructions and the accessories could do with a little beefing up, as in this day and age, a small "bag-o screws", and an A4 sheet of very small instructions really doesn't cut the mustard.

And so to the build, but before we show you the front side, let's bask in the simple cable management goodness that is the revers of motherboard.  OK, so we haven't wired in all the 2.5" drives, but we're confident that they're not going to be an issue, but as usual, make sure you have plenty of straight attachment SATA power and data cables at hand to make your cable management life that much easier. 

Is it just us, or do cases that don't have 3.5 drive cages look a little odd without anything up front?   Maybe they do, but with their absence comes great water cooling possibilities.   SilverStone are remarkably coy about the potential to be had here, but we reckon there's room for a fat 280 without the false floor removed, or a fat 360 if you're willing to go under ground.  For the time being though you must satisfy yourselves with the fact hat the KL07 can accept traditional air coolers up to 173mm tall, bearing in mind that you hit the foam at 162mm.

Well we reckoned that you could get a 360 in the front, and we were right.  We're quite surprised that SilverStone don't make a little more of this in their advertising blerb, but hey, who are we to know. 

Regardless to say that here's a total of 110mm of water cooling thickness on offer here, should you wish to get all wet and slippery.  Ok, so a good third of the radiator is going to disappear beneath the false floor, but being as this case doesn't have aw window, that's hardly of any significance.

But what of the roof we hear you ask...No really, we did....  Well, you can't get a 360 up here, but you can still find lodgings for a decent 240 should you wish.  Now, although there's a bit of an off-set, it's only slightly on the generous side...What do we mean by this, well we're basically getting down to how many coats of paint the radiator manufacturers put on their products.

Coats of paint????What is Mr Dubs banging on about???  Well take a look at the image below and we think you'll understand what we mean.  Here we're showing pretty standard height Corsair RAM, and the Rad fits just fine.  another couple of mil however and it would be a totally different story.