SilverStone Commemorates 20 Years With Fresh Case Designs at Computex 2023 | TechPowerUp SilverStone showed up to Computex with a variety of new cases on offer covering everything from a hybrid rack-mountable / pedestal 5U, to a retro-inspired April Fool's joke, to their largest and flashiest ATX full-tower to date. SilverStone has a reputation for quality and over engineering and it clearly shows in this year's selection. Starting off with the most engineered, and likely most expensive: the recently released Alta F2 was on display with a fully water cooled build showing off the expansive options available in the giant tower. Alta F2 utilizes a 90 degree rotated configuration taking design elements from the older Raven and Fortress series of cases. What the Alta F2 does different is where it allows the GPU to be installed; along the left side (traditionally the back) there are three expansion slots tilted at precisely 11.3 degrees.
These tilted slots are intended to offer as much forced air cooling as possible to the GPU from the bottom mounted 180 mm Air Penetrator 184i PRO fans, and SilverStone dialed in this angle to decimal precision to ensure this. There still exists a standard 9-slot layout along the top of the case (remember, everything is rotated 90 degrees so that's where the "back" is) for those that fill every slot on their motherboard. Since airflow moves bottom-to-top there are intake filters lining the lower chamber of the chassis, and the top panel is almost entirely open for exhaust. The lower chamber is also setup to allow four 3.5 inch drives to be mounted, while four more drives can be mounted in the optional forward mounted, and also angled, drive cages. The Alta F2 has already reached retail and demands a hefty $800 USD price point.
SilverStone has recently been working on products for home server and business customers, the fruit of this labor is the RM series of chassis. Each of the RM series is tailored for excessive cooling, and all models on display support traditional AIO water coolers. The RM600 is the largest of the RM family taking up either 6U in your home server rack with the rack mount hardware, or as a 6U pedestal complete with caster wheels to handle the weight of an SSI-EEB multi-CPU server motherboard, nine expansion slots, twelve SAS/SATA drives, optional redundant ATX power supplies, and of course a pair of 360 mm AIOs if desired. Stepping down a notch we come to the RM52 and RM51 which are both 5U chassis, again usable as either pedestals with swing-out feet or in a rack with the included rack ears. The RM52 is tailored toward supporting dual-CPU configurations with support for two 360 mm AIOs at the front intake, staggered top and bottom to allow fresh air to reach both radiators. It supports up to SSI-CEB motherboards with eight expansion slots, a standard ATX power supply, and both 3.5 inch and 2.5 inch drive mounts scattered around. The RM51 is tailored for single-CPU or standard ATX systems and exists to be a widened variant of the older RM44, which could not fit current generation RTX 40 series graphics cards due to the 12VHPWR that increases the height of already tall GPUs. SilverStone uses this extra height to improve the front intake cooling, fitting a pair of their Air Penetrator 180 mm fans which take up effectively the entire front of the chassis.
Just around the corner from the rack mountable designs sat somebody's new NAS: the CS382. This chassis featured the relatively uncommon inverted layout of having the motherboard flipped a full 180 degrees, GPU on top, while being micro-ATX. This allows for SilverStone to push the motherboard and GPU up and out of the way toward the top of the case to allow for eight hot-swappable 3.5 inch drive bays to occupy the front, and the PSU to be isolated at the very bottom. Due to this compartmentalized layout the CS382 can support some of the longest and widest GPUs with four expansion slots, or alternatively a 240 mm AIO at the top with any GPU that doesn't exceed triple-slot width.
Our final stop in SilverStone's booth was at their collection of concept cases which feature dedicated support for the new trend of mounting motherboard power and I/O on the reverse side of the board. SilverStone claims to be a driving force behind this trend and wanted to show that they intend to provide suitable cases for those who were most excited about the prospect of hiding nearly every single cable out of view. Still in concept phase, the C-542 still looks ready to ship with the stylish front mesh that leaves plenty of room for the fans to breathe, and the flush tempered glass side panel. Both the C-542 and C-541 feature a vertical GPU mount as the standard layout, with six total expansion slots to accommodate today's gigantic GPUs. It's not clear yet if these expansion slots will be convertible to the standard orientation in the final design. With the C-542 the right of the motherboard has a vented mount for up to a 480 mm radiator, as well as 360 mm support at the top and front of the case. The power supply is hidden in its own compartment down below, shielded entirely from view as all the cables remain hidden to the rear side where all the connectors are now situated. The C-541 lacks this extra vertical height for a 480 mm radiator but still features three places to fit a 360 mm. The C-341 is a more radical approach, taking the reversed-connector concept down to micro-ATX and flips the motherboard 180 degrees on its head just like the CS382 did. The front of the case hosts up to a 240 mm radiator, and the top can support another 240 mm if the GPU is less than triple-slot. Interestingly the C-341 appears to feature a punch-out in the front mesh for an optical slim drive.
The white C-541 PC case looks interesting.
