SilverStone Sugo SG13 Review

Interior

As a streaming box it's obviously a bit more at home and you could always opt for an external slim optical drive. The entire three-side lid of the case pops off to reveal the insides, which are pretty cavernous despite the small size of the case. There are no drive cages or other features - just an open box. The motherboard sits in the base of the case, much like Cooler Master's Elite 130, and again similar to this case the PSU is then mounted above motherboard.


The result is a severe CPU cooler height limitation of 61mm. This is enough for very low profile coolers, although our 65mm Noctua NH-L9x65 for our usual low-profile mini-ITX testing was too big. SilverStone has, however, allowed enough space to install an all-in-one liquid cooler in the front of the case using a 120mm fan mount. This will obviously allow for better cooling than any air cooler you can install, even if the CPU cooler height was increased by another 20mm or so, and the mount also sports a removeable dust filter too.


The downside is that to install an overclocked gaming rig in the SG13, you will undoubtedly have to opt for an all-in-one liquid cooler to keep things cool, especially for AMD CPUs, which you may well be using if you're on a tight budget. To further compound the issue, the instructions point at installing the PSU with the fan pointing downwards - competing with a top-down CPU cooler for air. Graphics cards are a little better catered-for, with up to 267mm or 10.5in of clearance - just enough for most stock-cooled graphics cards - even high end models.


Storage is relatively well catered for too given the size of the chassis. There's a dedicated 2.5in SSD mount in the base, plus a removable bracket in front of the PSU, which can house either a further two 2.5in SSDs or a 3.5in hard disk. However, the cables for this lay very close indeed to the PSU - so much so that you need to lift the drive tray out, mount the PSU, then squeeze the drive tray back in. Another 10mm here would make a world of difference.


There's little in the way of cable tidying options, but then you're not going be dealing with a massively complicated system anyway. A clip is included to attach to the base to gather some of the cables and you can pass many under the motherboard too. To stop vibrations there are large rubber feet, which should limit hard disk noise.