SilverStone PS11B-Q Mid-Tower Case Review

By Jason Maxfield

Manufacturer: SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd.
Product Name: Precision Series ATX Case
Model Number: SST-PS11B-Q
UPC: 844761011772
Price As Tested: $49.99 (Amazon | Newegg)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by SilverStone

SilverStone brings us the Precision Series PS11B-Q ATX case for the budget minded or entry level enthusiast. The Precision Series includes two variants, the PS11B-Q and the PS11B-W. This review will focus on the SilverStone PS11B-Q, which is the silent version of the Precision series.

The SilverStone PS11B-Q is a versatile entry level enthusiast case, featuring bottom-mount PSU, USB 3.0, variable size fan mounts and locations, a variety of hard drive mount options, noise dampening foam pads, and space enough for the most gigantic of graphics cards on the market. In this article for Benchmark Reviews, I’ll be putting the SilverStone PS11B-Q to the test.

Features & Specifications

Model No.	SST-PS11B-Q
Material	Plastic front panel, steel body (SST-PS11B-Q)
Motherboard	ATX , Micro-ATX
Multimedia	—
Drive Bay	External	5.25” x 2
		—
	Internal	3.5″ x 3 , 2.5” x 2
Cooling System	Front	2 x 120mm/140mm fan slot (1 x 120mm intake fan included)
	Rear	1 x 120mm fan slot
	Side	—
	Top	—
	Bottom	1 x 120mm fan slot
	Internal	—
Expansion Slot	7
Front I/O Port	USB 3.0 x 2 Audio x 1 MIC x 1
Power Supply	1 x optional standard PS2 (ATX)
Operating system support	—
Expansion Card	Compatible with expansion cards up to 16.2” , width restriction – 6.1”
Limitation of CPU cooler	161mm
Limitation of PSU	225mm
Net Weight	4.825KG
Dimension	215.3mm (W) x 426.5mm (H) x 481.5mm (D), 44L
Extra	—
Support VESA Mount	—

Product specifications taken from SilverStone’s website.

The SilverStone PS11B-Q comes packaged in your standard cardboard box. After unpacking the PS11B-Q, you’ll notice it comes with a small two page manual in various languages, and some mounting screws and a few cable ties. It has the SilverStone logo printed on to the front removable panel of the case with a mirror finish.

Here we can see the front of the SIlverStone PS11B-Q and the manual, hardware, included 120mm intake fan, and front panel cover.

We have a shot of the right side door with the foam padding insert on the SilverStone PS11B-Q. The foam padding is a bit over 1/8 inch in thickness and is of medium density. The bevel on the side door also gives you a bit more than half an inch of extra clearance for those tower-style CPU coolers.

The top of the SilverStone PS11B-Q is plain and doesn’t include mounts for fans. Instead the top has foam padding lined along the inside of the case to further help dampen noise.

The bottom of the SilverStone PS11B-Q has a removable plastic dust filter and a mount location for a 120mm fan. The plastic feet offer decent clearance for airflow to your PSU or an optional 120mm fan.

At the back of the SilverStone PS11B-Q we have 7 expansion slots, 2 pass-through grommets, motherboard plate, bottom mount PSU, and a 80mm or 120mm fan exhaust mount.

Here is a look at the SilverStone PS11B-Q removable front panel. As you can see there isn’t a plastic mesh filter, but instead foam padding to help dampen noise. Air flow comes in from the side of the front panel though holes all along either side of the panel that also has some mesh grille that will help act as a dust filter.

Now we’ll take a closer look at some of the detailed features offered on the SilverStone PS11B-Q.

With the side panel door taken off of the SilverStone PS11B-Q we can see all the various mounting positions for hard drives, optical drives, SSDs, and case fans.

At the bottom of the SilverStone PS11B-Q you have some foam padding where the PSU mounts. The mounting plate is good for mounting the PSU upright, or upside down, depending on how you want to orient your PSU. The bottom also has a plastic mesh filter that spans the bottom where the PSU fan and optional bottom mount 120mm fan are located.

The motherboard tray has a decent size cut-out for optional backplates for aftermarket CPU heatsinks, and is compatable with ATX, and M-ATX motherboards. The tray has M-ATX and ATX stamped into the middle of the tray, but are hard to see in the above image.

On the front end of the SilverStone PS11B-Q we have a three slot 3.5″ HDD mounting cage, with one 2.5″ SSD tray on top of it. Above that we have mounts for two 5.25″ optical drives and one 2.5″ SSD tray on the bottom side of the optical drive bays.

All of the drive mounts are tool-free and do not require any slide bars to be attached or plastic sleds. They simply slide into the slot and click in place with a plastic pin, that can be moved by pulling on the plastic tabs to keep the pin from being snapped off during installation. The same thing applies to the optical drive cages, with the exception of the tab being spring loaded and only having to be pushed slightly forward to release the drive.

The SSD trays can be removed by unscrewing the one thumb-screw and then mounting a drive in using the supplied screws that come with the SilverStone PS11B-Q. Reattaching the drive trays are easy. You just slide two tabs on the back into their slots on the HDD or optical bays and screw it back on with the thumb-screw.

The SilverStone PS11B-Q has two intake fan mount options for 140mm or 120mm fans, and has an included 120mm intake fan.

The front panel connectors include two USB 3.0, power switch, power LED, hard drive activity LED, reset switch, and headphone and mic jacks.

The SIlverStone PS11B-Q has foam padding on both doors and the removable front panel. The foam padding is suppose to help dampen noise in the case, and seems to help reduce fan noise slightly.

Here is a look at the cable management side of the SilverStone PS11B-Q. There is plenty of pass-throughs and tie-down points to do an adequate job of managing the mess of cables that will be necessary for any PC build. The included front mount wires are power, power LED, HDD LED, reset, two USB 3.0 ports, and headphone and mic jacks.

There is no pass-through near the top of the motherboard tray to route the CPU power cable behind the motherboard tray, even though there is some tie-down points along the right edge of the tray.

The side panel has a bevel in it that offers a bit more than 1/2 inch of extra clearance to help keep those wires from pushing against the panel once your PC is built.

At the front of the SilverStone PS11B-Q you have a removable plastic panel that has foam padding on the inside for noise dampening. There isn’t a removable dust filter, instead the front panel draws air in on the side of the front panel, which has some mesh grille that will act as an air filter to help keep the dust out of your system. The panel is easily removed by gently pulling the bottom of it away from the case. The opening on the side of the panel seems to be open enough where airflow is not impeded and muffles the sound of the fans slightly.

At the very top you have your power switch, which is just simply part of the plastic face cut on 3 side to allow it to bend enough to depress the switch behind the plastic to turn the PC on.

You also have two USB 3.0 with the headphone and mic jacks located between them, and your power and HDD activity LEDs located to the left, with the reset button recessed into the plastic panel. The reset button is so small it requires a pen or pencil tip to depress it. I kind of like this feature since it makes it nearly impossible to accidentally reset your PC. On the flip-side of this, if your PC ever locks up and you need to use the reset switch, you’ll need to have something on hand to use the button.

Building the SIlverStone PS11B-Q was mostly a breeze. I had a couple issues with the doors not wanting to go on smoothly and the spacing at the top of the case that I will go into more depth below.

System Specs:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 @ 2.4Ghz

CPU Cooler: Intel Stock Heatsink w/60mm Cooler Master PWM fan

MB: ASUS P5LP-LE

GPU: EVGA Geforce 8600GT 256MB

RAM: Infineon 3GB (2x1GB + 2X512MB) DDR 2 667MHz

PSU: EVGA 100-W1-500-KR 500W

HDD: Samsung 80GB SATA, Seagate 160GB UATA 133, WD 80GB UATA 133

DVD: DVD-ROM SATA

OS: Windows XP Professional 32-bit

Monitor: Dell 17in. CRT 1024×768 @ 85Hz

The first thing I want to point out after finishing the build is the location of the motherboard. The board mounts almost plumb to the top of the case. This might conflict with some aftermarket CPU heatsinks. This wasn’t a problem with the stock Intel heatsink unit and the 60mm fan.

Also, I have to mention when building this case, I left the cooler installed on the motherboard. I would recommend installing the CPU cooler after installing the board because space is limited at the top of the case and some CPU coolers could get in the way of the mounting locations at the top of the motherboard. This wasn’t a problem with the Intel CPU heatsink though.

Keep in mind the clearance for CPU coolers is 161mm. The Intel stock heatsink fit in there nicely without any issue. I would be weary of using CPU coolers with 120mm fans. As an example, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO has a height of 159mm, which would technically fit according to the clearance numbers given by SilverStone, but again, do your own research well before hand!

One issue I had while building the SilverStone PS11B-Q was the fit of the right side door at the top front edge. It just would not fit plumb to the case no matter how much I fiddled with it. This isn’t a huge problem, but I would expect a bit better QA from SilverStone. This could of happened in transit as well, but the box it came in didn’t have any marks on it that would indicate it had taken a blow to cause this kind of misalignment of the side door panel. (EDIT) After talking with SilverStone, they managed to replicate this problem. They were able to fix the problem by putting pressure on the side of the panel. I tried that before, but it didn’t work. I had to use some brute force and slightly bend the corners inward to get the door to sit flush with the case. This seems to have fixed the problem.

This is the cable management side of things after installing the system. As you can see it’s quite the mess, and I still managed to get the side panel back on but it was a bit tight. That mostly had to do with the stiff molex power plugs I had to use to power the two IDE hard drives. The heat shrink tubing on the end of the molex plug wasn’t allowing me to bend the cables as much as I would of liked to get the side panel to slide on easier.

There might be a possible issue with the CPU back-plate for some users. The CPU back-plate is partially obscured by the top rail of the case and could make things a pain when needing to tighten down an aftermarket back-plate. I didn’t have an issue with it, since I installed the board with the CPU heatsink on already. I just wanted to point this out as being a potential problem when building with the SIlverStone PS11B-Q case.

Here we have a look at all of the components installed into the SIlverStone PS11B-Q case.

There are a few other things I’d like to point out. The CPU power cable had to be routed along the back end of the motherboard since there wasn’t a pass-through at the top of the motherboard tray to route it behind it. This wasn’t much of an issue, it’s just more of an aesthetic gripe more than anything else.

Another item to point out is the front audio jack has an issue with it’s length. With the M-ATX board installed it wasn’t a big issue, but with a full size ATX board it could be a stretch. SilverStone should think about adding another couple of inches to this cable since a lot of the front panel audio connectors are located near the back of motherboards.

The other point deals with mounting fans in the front of the case. As you can see there is a metal grille cage in the front part of the hard drive bays and with the 120mm pre-installed fan already set in place, I had to remove the 120mm fan and the whole front bezel to mount one additional 140mm fan and then replace the 120mm fan back in it’s original spot in the front of the SilverStone PS11B-Q.

Removing the front bezel was a little nerve wracking as it is just held in place by plastic snap-on style posts. Also, when removing the bezel all the wires from the front are mounted to them and you have to be careful you do not yank them when removing the bezel. You can feed some slack on the wires to help with this. I was careful and didn’t damage anything, but I have to wonder if SIlverStone could not of made access to the front of the case easier.

Installing three mechanical hard drives into the PS11B-Q did cause vibration. The drive cage simplicity is nice, but it doesn’t offer any dampening for vibration. This resulted in excess case vibration and noise. The noise of the vibration was to the point where it was louder than the fans themselves. The foam padding does a decent job in lowering fan noise, but doesn’t do much of anything for the vibration caused by the hard drives.

The room for the GPU is nice. The EVGA 8600GT is a short and single slot card and has plenty of room to spare thanks to the open space above the hard drive cage being left open. I also like this layout because the top front fan has no obstruction in airflow to the graphics card and also supplies cooling air to both of the 2.5″ drive trays.

Everything else not previously mentioned installed easily enough. I didn’t have any problems installing the PSU, hard drives, or optical drives.

 

Here is a look at the front of the SilverStone PS11B-Q with PC components installed. The SilverStone case logo is stylishly imprinted on the front of the case with a mirror finish.

SIlverStone has built a solid budget enthusiast case. The PS11B-Q is a nice case that has enough features for most enthusiasts and is simple enough to use for novice PC builders.

I would like to suggest a couple things to SilverStone in regards to some of the design flaws after building with PS11B-Q case. The audio jack cable is a bit too short in my opinion. I would rather have a couple more inches of cable to better route them than not. Even if I had to deal with excess wire, because if it’s too short to make it to it’s connector on the motherboard, then it’s just a useless wire that has to be stuffed away somewhere in the case. This may not be an issue to some people, specially if they do not plan on using a headset with mini-jacks, as it really isn’t for me since I use a USB headset. For the sake of the build, I have to pursue all functionality as fully as possible even if I do not intend on using part of it.

Most of the build quality on the PS11B-Q is spot on. The only nagging issue with build quality was the side mount panels. They just don’t want to close smoothly most of the time. The right side panel in particular with the gap is not something that should of passed QA inspection. This is a small irritant, but a point I have to bring up.

The only other suggestion I have is that the top of the unit can get crammed really fast with the motherboard being mounted all the way at the top. SilverStone might want to consider a revision that gives an extra inch or two of space at the top to improve motherboard and CPU heatsink clearance.

To answer the question readers might have on their minds, ‘is it really silent’? I would have to say in my case, no, it is not silent. The fan noise is somewhat muted by the foam dampening. If you remove the front panel while the PC is turned on you can tell the difference. The problem I had is the vibration caused by the three mechanical hard drives. They simply made the case vibrate to the point where more noise was being created by them instead of the fans. It’s all really subjective, since it is unlikely that anyone else would build this case with the same PC components I used. I think the problem could be lessened if the hard drive cages had some form of dampening built into them, but they do not.

The SilverStone PS11B-Q is a budget enthusiast case with most of the features you want or need, and all of the extra features left to the higher end cases, all packaged into a stylish looking case.

The SilverStone PS11B-Q is well built, with a few minor grumblings about the side panel doors not fitting as smoothly, and the right door panel having a gap that should not have passed QA inspection. Plus the front audio jack being a bit too short for my liking. Everything else in the PS11B-Q fit perfectly.

The SilverStone PS11B-Q is easy enough for new builders to use and has a good value to boot! The PS11B-Q is priced online for $49.99 (Amazon | Newegg) at the time of writing. You can’t go wrong with the PS11B-Q if you are in the market for something inexpensive that will fit all of your gear and have enough cooling options to keep it all running cool.

+ Tool-free design
+ Good cable management
+ Nice mounting trays

– Side panel doors don’t close smoothly
– Front audio cable a bit short
– Top clearance might be an issue for some boards
– Vibration can become an issue with 3 mechanical HDDs installed

Ratings:

• Performance: 8.75
• Appearance: 8.5
• Construction: 8.25
• Functionality: 9.5
• Value: 9.25

Quality Recognition: Benchmark Reviews Silver Tachometer Award.