SilverStone PS10 Review

Conclusion

At just £49.99 the Silverstone Precision PS10 isn’t exactly going to bankrupt you, but as you all no doubt already know, cheap isn’t always necessary good.  With the price and this thought in mind then, let’s re-cap on our musings with regards to the PS10.

Build quality is good for a £50 case.  The PS10 well-built and well put together accepting that compromises have been made to keep the price down.  Examples of this can be found in the lack of grommets and the clip on plastic feet.  What isn’t so good though is the huge tonal mismatch between the” black” of the metal and plastic portions of the case.  Tom could tell you exactly how many shades out it is, but even to my untrained eyes the tonal variation sticks out like a turd in a punch bowl.  From a styling perspective the case also appears to be having something of an identity crisis, appearing as it does with its smooth panelled front to nod towards the sleek and silent camp whilst at the same time flexing its power bulges at all those looking for a testosterone bubbling gamers case.  This confusion continues when we take the side panels off and find that they are partially, but not entirely lined in sound absorbing foam, and bizarrely for a case that wants to be quiet appear to be the only panels that are lined.  At least on the inside things are the same shade as black, not that they’ll be seen as there’s no window option.  A decent sized CPU cut out though will allow coolers up to 169mm to be mounted, and there are a fair few cable management holes, with the PSU hole being mounted very anteriorly so as to mitigate any chance of a PSU occluding it.  Stock ventilation is provided by a single 120mm fan in the case front, with room there for an additional 120mm unit.  There’s also space in the rear for a 120mm fan although none is provided.  Up in the roof there are also mounts for either a pair of 120s or even a pair of 140s, and, as those who have read the full review will already know native water cooling support for any rad/fan combo up to 60mm in depth.

There are however a few issues when we look more critically at the interior of the PS10.  Issues and missed opportunities.  In generously providing room for up to four 5.25″ drives or devices, you might think that the boys at SilverStone have done you proud, but who these days needs more than two of these, or for that matter any at all.  Under these 5.25″ bays we find a rack that is able to take up to five 3.5″ or 2.5″ drives.  So what’s the problem?  The problem is that that unlike a good many cases these days where the inner wall of the 3.5″ rack is demountable to extend the max GPU length, the wall inside the PS10 is firmly fixed in place by rivets.  This limits the max GPU length to just 11.5″ which by modern comparative standards isn’t a lot.  It also represents the missed opportunity we were alluding to.  Imagine for a minute that Silverstone had only made room for two or three 5.25″ drives as opposed to four, and had made the HDD rack removable by means of simple screws as opposed to requiring a visit from Mr Drill and Mr Dremel.  What could we have done with this space?  Uber thick 240mm rads that’s what!  Ok, so it may have added a few quid to the price, but surely not that much, what it shows is that unlike a few of case manufacturers out there who are really thinking outside the box Silverstone, at times, appear to be just buying off the shelf OEM chassis and tarting them up a bit without any real research, thought or design going into their inception.  Don’t get us wrong, this isn’t a bad case, and even just a year ago we’d have been delighted with it, but things move on, and right here, right now it’s just not cutting the mustard.

And so to the competition.  Take a look at the number of cases available for £5 either side of the £50 being asked for the PS10 and you’ll be blown away by just how saturated this area of the market is.  By’eck have you got a lot to choose from, and not just no name budget buys either, there are cases from NZXT, Cooler Master and BitFenix available at this price point.  The main problem for the PS10 though will we think, be the utter domination of this sector of the market by the Corsair Spec series of cases.

For providing native water cooling support in a case that costs just £50 we award the Silverstone PS10 a value for money award.  Unfortunately as a result of the missed opportunities and poor colour match we don’t feel we can award anything else.  Shame really, this could have been another great chassis from Silverstone. 

    

Thanks to Silverstone for sending in the PS10, you can discuss your thoughts in the OC3D Forums.