SilverStone Sugo SG12 Micro-ATX Case Review

By Julian Duque

Manufacturer: SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd
Product Name: Sugo Series SG12
Model Number: SST-SG12B
UPC: 844761012014
Price As Tested: $87.99 (Amazon l Newegg)

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

It seems that every month a new Android based HTPC comes out. This comes as no surprise as with the integration of XBMC, these devices keep getting cheaper and more attractive to the low-end market. Instead, SilverStone is trying to target a much different market, a market which many of our readers can feel identified with. SilverStone is a renowned designer of premium cases, offering a wide arrange of designs ranging from bulky full towers to small form factor HTPC cases such as the SilverStone SG12 Micro-ATX enclosure in this review.

At a price shy of the $100 mark, the SilverStone SG12 is not inexpensive. But for SilverStone, marketing is not a hard task. With so many unique designs, the SilverStone brand has led to a big fan base among PC builders. Added to that, SilverStone products tend to have impressive build quality as we saw with the Kublai KL05B-Q Mid Tower a month ago. The SG12 is one of many SilverStone cases targeting the HTPC market, but the SG12 takes a small twist by also targeting gamers with features such as dual graphics card compatibility, a carrying handle, and ATX power supply compatibility.

Back in 2008, SilverStone released the SilverStone SG02, a replacement to the SG01 evolution which was praised by many as the best Micro-ATX case back in the day due to it’s small footprint and quite unique layout. Unfortunately, the SFF designs back then lacked the cooling necessary to cope with the quad core processors emerging from both Intel and AMD. This in turn made SilverStone take the Sugo line-up into ITX cases similar to the SG02 in size but that could still accommodate beefy heat-sinks that could cool the scorching quad cores.

After almost a decade and many more advanced fabrication processes later, SilverStone has decided to bring back the unique Micro-ATX design. This comes as no surprise, with cooler than ever graphics cards and processors there is no longer the need to have an advanced cooling solution to have a powerful system unless you are overclocking. Unlike most of the Sugo line-up, the SG12 is a Micro-ATX case. Yes, if you are an HTPC user that does mean you will have enough expansion slots to have a dedicated graphics card, a tuner card, and even a sound card all together in a case with a 266 mm x 407 mm footprint. But this design will be most appealing to gamers by giving them an opportunity to have two graphics card and a powerful processor in a 23 Liter case.

Material	Aluminum front panel, steel body
Motherboard	Micro-ATX, Mini-DTX, Mini-ITX
Drive Bay	External	5.25” x 1
		—
	Internal	3.5″ x 3 (compatible with 2.5”), 2.5” x 9
Cooling System	Front	—
	Rear	1 x 80mm fan slot, Optional cross-flow fan
	Side	1 x 120mm intake fan, 1200rpm
	Top	1 x 80mm fan slot
	Bottom	—
	Internal	—
Expansion Slot	4
Front I/O Port	USB 3.0 x 2 audio x 1 MIC x 1
Power Supply	Optional standard PS2(ATX)
Expansion Card	*Support graphics card up to 14.5”, width restriction-4.46″
Limitation of CPU cooler	82mm
Limitation of PSU	PSU + optical drive/5.25” device = 370mm
Net Weight	5kg
Dimension	266 mm (W) x 210 mm (H) x 407 mm (D), 22.7 liters

Usually computer products are straight-forward to validate and test, as the title of “best one” is usually determined by quantitative data such as benchmarks. But unfortunately cases can not run the latest version of Unigine Heaven, so each person will have a different opinion on what the best case available is. There are various factors that buyers should take into account when buying a case such as compatibility, storage, build quality, and most importantly aesthetics.

The front shows a clear understanding of SilverStone’s experience in the HTPC market. The inclusion of a 5.25″ bay in the SG12 might seem strange in most modern gaming setups, but if you have a collection of blue-ray movies you will clearly find that SilverStone made the right decision. There is also a light blue, aluminum handle bar at the front that is strong enough to lift the entirety of the chassis with a full system inside. Ever dreamed of being able to lift your dual graphics card rig with one hand? Well now you can!

There is nothing surprising with the I/O, but the SilverStone SG12 has a major improvement over the SG02 by including dimmer lights, not the blinding LEDs that many hated about the SG02. Aside from that we see a power and a reset button (the reset one being slightly smaller), a headphone and a microphone jack, and two USB 3.0 ports, still no USB 3.1 type-C ports.

Like many others, SilverStone has been using plastic front panels for quite some time. Can’t really blame them, as this does not affect the structural integrity of the case and it also keeps costs low but that is not the case with the SilverStone SG12. The entirety of the front panel is made from anodized aluminum with a hairline brushed finish. Even the handle-bar is made from aluminum; the handle-bar itself has been sand blasted as SilverStone expects you to handle it without leaving any finger prints.However, there are two plastic plates on each the left and right ends of the front cover which have a clearly identifiable color difference between the front panel and the body of the SG12.

It has always occurred to me that the SilverStone SG02 was the potential prototype for the best LAN rig. Not because of it’s looks, but because of how portable it was and how hard it was to disassemble it. Some users might find that these features take away from the building experience by making it harder to open your case and gain access to components. The SG12 borrows some of these “secure features” by securing the side panels with regular hex screws, the same ones used to secure your power supply, and by including a cover for the screws holding the graphics cards. Too bad there is still not a kensington lock.

Before I start building a system I always like to get a general layout of how the build is going to look like. It is part of the planning needed to make sure that your parts are compatible. This should be an even higher priority for small form factor builds, since even things like power supply length and CPU cooler height are extremely limited. In this section we will go into detail about the guts of the SilverStone SG12.

After removing the three screws securing the external panel, opening the case requires pulling backwards and then up. This u-shaped panel is sturdy, and not easily bent. It does a really good job of keeping everything inside of the SilverStone SG12 secure but it is not other people that you should be worried about. Dust is probably the major reason as to why old systems fail, clogging up fans and causing your system to overheat. Unfortunately, the SG12 doesn’t solve this issue. Noting that the panels are not aluminum, I don’t understand why Silverstone did not include dust filters for at least the side of the panel with the 120 mm intake, specially at this price point.

Once inside I was happy to find a white box filled with accessories, not just a plastic bag like most companies do. Inside the box you will find all the necessary screws to completely fill the SilverStone SG12 as well as some cable management accessories like zip ties and a cable management clip that can be installed anywhere inside the SG12. Along with the box is a SilverStone manual, which has literally all the information regarding the case, including step by step information on how to remove every single component, cage, and bracket inside the case.

With the panel removed it is quite notable that SilverStone has made some changes to the original SG02 model. But the SG12 and SG02 still share a lot of things. The overall layout is identical, with the motherboard located at the bottom, the power supply right on top of the CPU area, and storage located at the front. Expansion cards are still cooled by two 80 mm fans located on the top, but like I said before, there are no dust filters for these fans.

If you thought the SilverStone SG12 couldn’t get better you are wrong. The SG12 allows up to 12 drives, three of which can be 3.5″ drives and are appropriately cooled by the only 120 mm fan intake located at the side of the cage. You could potentially add more by using a 5.25″ to 3.5″ or 2.5″ converter. However, even the ASRock Fatal1ty X99M motherboard only has 10 SATA ports and will most likely experience a bus saturation if you were to connect 10 SSDs to it. That being said, long graphics card will lower the amount of drives you can install, which SilverStone clearly understands as users using so many drives will most likely use short raid cards and use this machine as a home server and not a gaming machine.

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There will always be two sides of the coin when it comes to the interior appearance of PC cases. Many users will prefer a case that has a painted interior with all black cables to make the system look “tidier”. But in a case that has no windowed panels do those features really matter? SilverStone’s response is a big no; the SG12 has a completely unpainted interior and even the cables of the fan are not completely black. This leaves me to have only one complaint here: the front I/O cables are not flat, which makes them really hard to cable manage.

The last of our evaluations pertains to building a system inside the case.The SilverStone SG12 brings back the concept of small form factor cases that are compatible with Micro-ATX motherboards. That means that everything is compact, and in theory, hard to build in. However, with all the drive cages removed, there is a lot of space. Just note that the 5.25″ cage is held by rivets that are easily accessible if you wish to remove it. The rest is held together by very similar screws to the ones from your power supply.

Just to give you an idea of how much space there is inside the SG12, you can potentially fit an ATX motherboard by modding the chassis. As much space as there is, SilverStone has focused the SG12’s design in storage by allowing users to install up to 12 drives on the included brackets and cage. But there is still no cooling improvements, aside from upgrading the under-powered 80 mm fan found on the SG02 to a 120 mm fan. There is still no place to install a 120 mm radiator for an all in one water cooler, which would have been possible at the front. The fan mount located at the back only works with SilverStone’s own Cross Flow fan, which is out of stock in most retailers, and the two 80 mm fans located at the top only cool your expansion cards.

Something to take into consideration before installing the motherboard is that there is no motherboard tray hole to install back-plates once your motherboard is already installed. We decided to install our AMD Phenom X2 test system, which has a very low heat output, so low that we used a Cooler Master GeminII Ver. 2 without a fan. The only two fans in our system were the intake 120 mm fan located next to the drive cage and the 120 mm exhaust fan located inside our power supply.

The hardest task when building such a small system, aside from reaching into those small spaces when you have big hands, is cable managing. There is literally no form of cable managing inside the SilverStone SG12. The included cable management accessories are a nice touch, and there can be an argument made about not wasting time tucking cables away. But in a case were there is only a few airflow options every detail counts. You could easily take advantage of SilverStone’s own short cable kit if you own one of their power supplies. If you decide to populate all the drive options you might also consider SilverStone’s ultra thin SATA cables with low profile connectors. The task is certainly possible, but it will require more work than your usual full tower system.

Something to take consideration if you are going to use the included bracket to install seven 2.5″ drives right next to the 5.25″ drive bay is expansion card length. With no drives installed there is a 13.3″ length restriction which is more than enough for most graphics cards in the market, even the massive Asus Strix R9 Fury which measures 12″, almost 2″ more than the Reference GTX 980 ti. With all the drives installed you still have almost 10″ of length which should be more than enough to install an AMD reference R9 Fury X, that is if you mod the case to allow the installation of a 120 mm radiator.

 

The time has called for SilverStone to re-release such an efficient design, and I think it could not have been more appropriate. With the gaining popularity of LAN gaming events and SilverStone’s own HTPC fan-base, the SG12 has features that these markets might find appealing. Most importantly, the SG12 is compatible with Micro-ATX motherboards allowing gamers to install two dual slot graphics cards. HTPC users might also benefit by allowing a tuner card, a sound card, and a graphics card to be installed effortlessly in such a small case. The aluminum textured front panel and the very solid carrying handle simply put the icing on the cake.

Unfortunately, the SilverStone SG12 still has some flaws. Due to the power supply being located right on top of the motherboard, exhausting the hot air produced by the processor is handled by the power supply itself unless you have one of SilverStone’s SFF Cross Flow Fans. Water-cooling is impossible, even with SilverStone’s own Tundra series coolers which can not be mounted as there are no 120 mm radiator mounting locations. Lastly, there is no dust filtration available, not even for the included 120 mm fan. SilverStone could have easily added a magnetic dust filter to the steel side panel, and there is no excuse for not doing so at this price point.

The performance of the SilverStone SG12 is a bit of a mismatch. The exterior of the case symbols a gaming oriented case with a blue handle bar and a beautiful aluminum front cover. But the interior resembles more a NAS server with 12 different drive options and very limited cooling. If SilverStone would have simply added an option to install an all in one water-cooler, such as in the front near the 2.5″ drive cage the layout of the SG12 would have made a lot more sense.

Like the rest of SilverStone’s SG line-up, the SG12 is small and minimalistic. There are no windowed panels, or sharp angles, except at the front near the cutout located below the handlebar. The front of the case is made of aluminum finish, a much desired upgrade from the glossy plastic of the SG02. The sides of the front panel unfortunately look dull and are clearly a different shade from the rest of the body of the SG12. Overall, whether you take this case to a LAN event, or leave it in your leaving room it will not call a lot of attention, but it will certainly look stylish.

The overall construction of the SG12 is similar to it’s looks, which both follow the trend of other cases in SilverStone’s SG line. The SG12 is made completely of steel, with the exception of the front panel which is made from aluminum. The handlebar feels solid, and nothing creaked when it was used to lift the entirety of the case. The U-shaped side panel doesn’t bent easily, even if you were to stand up on the case. The body only flexed once you removed the drive cage and fan brackets found inside the SilverStone SG12, and even then the case felt like a tank.

The SG12 has a ton of functionality. Adding a second graphics card to such a small system means that you can carry your dual graphics card system with one hand. Having the space to install 12 drives will make the SG12 an excellent small server that can be easily move, or hidden depending on your needs. The small design and elegant exterior also make this case very appealing for HTPC users who want to have a graphics card, and an internal tuner card together in the same system.

At a price point of $87.99 (Amazon l Newegg) the SilverStone SG12 feels like a premium case with a premium price. It certainly feels like it isn’t exactly too expensive for such a unique case, but SilverStone could certainly make this case more appealing at this price point by including dust filters and at least one 80 mm fan.

+ Astonishing build quality.
+ Included handle bar.
+ Stylish aluminum front finish
+ Small form factor Micro-ATX Case.
+ Two front USB 3.0 Ports.

– CPU exhaust is handled by power supply.
– No dust filters included.
– Front I/O Cables are not flat.

• Performance: 7.50
• Appearance: 9.50
• Construction: 9.50
• Functionality: 9.75
• Value: 8.00