SilverStone Grandia GD05 SFF HTPC Chassis

Packaging and Accessories:

The SilverStone GD05B HTPC chassis comes in a glossy retail-style box. The front of the box pictures the case, and highlights many of its features. The back of the box shows off the specs of the case. Looking inside the box we see two Styrofoam inserts sandwiching the plastic wrapped case. Everything arrived perfectly and was packaged well.

The GD05B is accompanied by a little white box that came packed inside the case. Inside is all of the motherboard standoffs, screws, cable ties, a 3pin to molex adapter for the fans, and some rubber mounts to mount under your PSU to reduce vibration. Silverstone printed the manual on some extremely nice paper. It is exceptionally well written and has nice easy-to-follow diagrams.

Exterior of the SilverStone GD05B:

The SilverStone GD05B’s form factor reminds me a lot of some of the early generations of DVD players. It has a nice black brushed aluminum finish. In the front there is one exposed 5.25" bay that you can use for an optical drive or any drive bay device such as an LCD or fan controller. The power and reset switches are beveled and accented in chrome; this gives the chassis a very upscale look. In the middle there are two USB ports as well as two audio ports.

Moving onto the left side of the case we see the 120mm fan intake. The airflow on the GD05 moves from one side to the other, rather than from the traditional front to back. The opposite side has two 120mm fans that can be configured as exhaust or intake depending on if you want negative or positive airflow in your case. The fans themselves have a “golfball” texture on the blades to help with airflow. This is the first time I’ve seen anything like it, but I will say they did push a good amount of air very quietly. Looking at the rear of the case you can see that the Grandia GD05 will take a mATX motherboard with full height cards. There are also two empty spots for two more 80mm fans, but I don’t think they are really needed as the case has great airflow as is.