SilverStone PS06 Review

SilverStone PS06 Review

Manufacturer: SilverStone
UK price (as reviewed): £82.87 (inc VAT)
US price (as reviewed): $99.99 (ex tax)

We’ve come to know SilverStone for its excellent line of inverted or rotated-layout cases. The company's FT02 and RV02 both offer superb cooling for ATX motherboards, and the micro-ATX FT03 and TJ08-E are similarly capable with smaller boards. All offer an inverted or rotated layout that positions the motherboard in an unconventional way. However, the company’s latest offering, the SilverStone PS06, goes back to basics with a conventional ATX layout, albeit with some SilverStone flair thrown in.


The PS06 is a full-height ATX case, and its design places everything exactly where you’d expect it, with drive bays at the front and a rear I/O at the back. The case is made from a painted steel core chassis, with a plastic fascia and roof plate. Both are firmly screwed into place, giving the case a solid feel despite its plastic exterior.

The fascia is mostly black, but as with the RV02’s questionable champagne garb, SilverStone has added a touch of colour to the case’s trim; our review sample was a rather drab grey, but it’s also available in a more eye-catching powder-blue.

The front of the case plays host to five 5.25in drive bays, along with a nifty 3.5in/2.5in hot-swappable hard disk bay fitted into the external 3.5in drive bay. Sprung flaps for both full-sized and 2.5in hard disks keep the layout neat, with white LED-lit power and reset buttons integrated into the trim on either side. Meanwhile, at the base of the fascia is a single 120mm air vent; this is protected by a removable dust filter that’s easily removed for cleaning.

The roof of the case also includes a removable dust filter, but its setup is more extravagant. The whole rear section of the case’s plastic roof detaches to reveal a speed-adjustable 180mm Air Penetrator intake fan, with the dust filter integrated into the removable plastic housing. It’s a neat trick, which highlights the PS06’s positive pressure cooling setup; both its cooling fans are intakes, with hot air left to naturally flow out of the case as cooler air is blown in.

Also found in the PS06’s roof is its surprisingly sparse front panel, consisting of just a pair of USB 3 ports (with a USB 2 step-down cable included), as well as a microphone and headphone socket.


Rounding off the PS06’s exterior is a third externally removable dust filter, which is placed along the floor of the case. This covers the fan grilles for the PSU and a 120mm fan mount, which are built into the floor of the case. The filter can also be easily removed by sliding it out of the rear of the chassis; a slightly different approach from the magnetic mount of the TJ08-E.

The PS06’s hefty steel side panels lift rather than slide off (and there’s a version available with a windowed side panel - the SST-PS06B-WA) revealing a black painted interior. It’s reasonably spacious, but there’s surprisingly little room behind the motherboard tray for routeing cables – we had to lean rather heavily on the right-hand side panel to get it back into place after building our system inside.

An array of well placed cable-routeing holes help matters (although they lack the popular rubber trim) and tool-less fittings for the 5.25in and 3.5in drive bays also make building a system inside the PS06 a little easier. The entire four-bay hard disk cage is removable too, making it even easier to juggle your drives, or you can just remove it entirely should you choose to prioritise airflow over drive capacity.

Peeking beneath the PS06’s plating also reveals room for a healthy count of eight expansion ports, and a super-sized motherboard tray cut-out for swapping out coolers without having to remove the motherboard.

Oddly, the PS06 eschews standard motherboard risers for raised steel nipples on which you mount your motherboard. The case also frustratingly routes the front-panel cables in front of the motherboard tray rather than behind it where they belong.

The PS06’s interior has one last treat in the form of a screwless rear 120mm-fan mount to complement the 120mm front intake, 180mm roof intake and 120mm floor fan mount. With no exhaust fans as standard, it certainly seems sensible to fit one, but we’ve found that tool-less fan mounts result in more vibration. Happily, the clip-mount can be removed entirely.

Specifications

• Dimensions (mm) 210 x 520 x 525mm (W x D x H)
  
• Material Steel and plastic
  
• Available colours Black with grey or blue trim
  
• Weight 9.05kg
  
• Front panel 5.25/3.5in HDD docking bay, Power, reset, 2 x USB 3, stereo, microphone
  
• Drive bays 5 x external 5.25in drive bays, 4 x internal 3.5in drive bays.
  
• Form factor(s) ATX, micro-ATX
  
• Cooling 1 x 120mm front mount (fan supplied), 1 x 180mm roof mount (fan supplied), 1 x 120mm base mount, 1x 120mm rear mount
  
• CPU cooler clearance 179mm
  
• Maximum graphics card length 310mm
  
• Extras Dust filters, speed adjustable 180mm fan