Innovation does a lot more than give us fancy little toys that turn out to be all the rage. Sometimes, innovation causes others to come up with better ideas. Take the ATX motherboard in your computer for example. Innovative thinking resulted in the ability to take all the features and shrink it down to something called a mini-ITX motherboard. With companies like ZOTAC pioneering the m-ITX market and GIGABYTE stepping up as well, computer case manufacturer Silverstone has once again answered the call. Today they give us the SG07 enclosure from their SUGO series.
SG07 Features and Specifications
What other Mini-ITX (m-ITX) cases may lack in features, the SG07 does not. Whether building a Mini-DTX or Mini-ITX system, this little case packs a 600 watt power supply punch. The PSU features a very strong single 12V rail rated with enough amperage to support a full sized HD5870 or GTX480 video card. It’s also an 80Plus Bronze certified PSU which means you can expect it to keep up with whatever m-ITX system you plan to install.
The SG07 supports 1 x 3.5″ and 2 x 2.5″ hard drives. One could install two notebook or solid state drives while storing the rest on either a Seagate Barracuda XT or a Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB hard drive. The chassis also supports one slime optical ROM drive. You’ll find 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x Audio, and 1 X MIC port in the front panel for easy access.
Keeping the chassis cool is a large 180 x 25mm, 700 to 1200rpm cooling fan code named the Air Penetrator which produces about 18 to 34dBA of noise. At 1200rpm, this fan should be moving at least 80CFM or more. The 600 watt PSU also utilizes built in 120mm cooling fan which further keeps cool air circulating.
Currently, the SG07 can be your next elite mini-ITX enclosure for about $209.99 US which is obviously more than the SG05. But, the SG07 does offer a lot more in the way of quality than most of the comparable cases on the market.
SST-ST60F-SG Power Supply Features and Specifications
The 600 watt 80Plus Bronze power supply offers Active PFC, Over Current Protection, Over Power Protection, Over Voltage Protection, Under Volt Protection, and Short Circuit Protection. All this protection kind of makes you feel like you could stroll in to any war zone and block bullets with just the power supply in hand, at least in game.
The PSU utilizes a single 120mm cooling fan to stay cool. It’s rated to spin just fast enough to produce 19dBA to 30dBA of noise. Basically, about as loud as a discussion in progress right next to you. Overall the PSU is pretty compact which is why they’re able to get it to fit inside with room to spare.
As you can see, there’s the exact right amount of braided power cabling needed to connect your mini-ITX ZOTAC H55ITX-C-E motherboard, Core i7-875K, and ZOTAC Geforce GTX480 video card.
Unboxing and Overview of the SG07
To give you a unique inside look at the SG07, we decided to make a video to show you every inside detail. It’s worth watching so grab a coffee…
While the bundle is pretty basic, there’s clearly a lot more to this little case. Let’s dive a little deeper into some of the areas that we had to skip over for brevity. For that, we’ll take it to the written medium and head inside the SGO7 on the next page.
The SG07 Chassis Inside
The inside of the SG07 boasts just how clever Silverstone’s engineers can be when designing for both form and function. There’s efficient use of space for storage devices and components, even with the seemingly large 600 watt PSU tucked in the front.
Above the PSU are the hard drive bays including the slim ROM drive tray. These can be easily removed via a couple screws. There are yellow grommet holes to help cut down on some hard drive vibrations and noise. You can see that the PSU is oriented so that it has access to cool air at all times.
The top, back of the chassis holds the 180 x 25mm cooling fan snugly in place. It just requires a 3-pin power port like off the motherboard. The fan is easily removable in case you need to remove the rubber brace that is attached to the bottom of the fan. It’s a prevented measure for other sized cards, but can get in the way of the larger ones. We’ll show you what we mean right after we show you our humble set of test components.
Test System Specifications
We’re going with a rather powerful little m-ITX build here. Users can use our build as a very powerful Home Theater PC or one hell of a gaming PC. Check the specs out and you’ll see why.
- Processor: Intel Core i7-875K Lynnfield LGA1156
- Heatsink/Cooler: Stock INTEL Core i7 Heatsink Cooler
- Motherboard: ZOTAC H55ITX-C-E (Mini-ITX)
- Memory: Corsair Dominator 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
- Graphics: ZOTAC Geforce GTX480 Video Card – w/Zalman VF3000F
- Storage: Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+
- Power Supply: SST-ST60F-SG (600 Watt)
- Software Testing Apps: OCCT and FurMark
- Software Monitoring Apps: SpeedFan and HWMonitor Pro
Typically, we use four sensors attached to the CPU cooler, chipset heat sink, video card, and PSU to get our test results. But, the SG07 doesn’t make that possible. So, I’ve opted to monitor those components using OCCT and SpeedFan. If the chassis offer’s any cooling benefits, the software should still give us reasonable results. Case noise was also monitored throughout testing.
Of course, our operating system of choice is Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. All of the latest available drivers and BIOS available as of this review were installed to ensure best possible results. But before we get to the testing, let’s compare some notes as we shoehorn these components into this little wonder.
Installation Notes
I didn’t find any issues removing or installing any of the hard drives. If you’ve installed them before, you won’t have any issues. There’s plenty of room to run cables even with the large 180mm cooling fan close by. However, that large fan does limit your CPU cooler options. A low profile heat pipe does the job nicely, but in a pinch, the stock INTEL Core i7 cooler in our setup does the job. The only real obstacle was installing the large GTX 480 video card into the tiny chassis.
The heat pipes on the GPU stand just a little too high and hit the 180mm rubber shroud. The fan can easily be removed via 3 screws. Plus, there’s 2 more screws that fasten the rubber spacer. Before installing the fan, it’s the ideal time to install the video card and connect the power cables. When its all done, it looks really cool.
Silverstone SG-07 Thermal Testing
First, I let the system settle at desktop while rummaging through some files like regular folks do when checking pictures and email. Not to taxing, but it gives us a good baseline temperature average of the system. Next, both FurMark and OCCT were executed to completely load up the system to get the CPU and VGA really hot.
What we see here is that the SG07’s large 180mm cooling fan kicks thermal butt. That single cooling fan directs very large amounts of cool air on to the motherboard and throughout the rest of components. Unfortunately for the GTX480 video card, the reference heat sink doesn’t benefit from any of that air flow.
Silverstone SG07 Noise Measurements
The ambient room noise was about 12dB with other time sensitive projects going on in their prospective area. It’s obviously not complete lab perfect environment, but we’re educated enough to do the math and still give you respectable results. Noise was measure from 12 inches away from target.
The SG07 by itself actually produces only about 17dB on low and 28dB of noise on high. So, the case actually blocks a bit more noise than expected. This is a good thing given that the GTX480 can be a near 50dB monster under the poorest conditions. However, the SG07 does keep air moving efficiently enough that this system didn’t top 43dB. With the right components, the SG07 will be nearly silent.
Testing the SST-ST60F-SG Power Supply
Since the PSU carries an 80Plus Bronze efficiency, the PSU was put through the standard paces keeping an eye on noise, ripple, and output efficiency. Results were tabulated and monitored at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% load. Obviously, this isn’t an ideal scientific lab setting with the best equipment, but it will more than suffice. Here is what the PSU did for us.
The PSU’s single 12V rail design does have its benefits. The PSU held its 80Plus Bronze efficiency and maintained voltages easily enough. A low ripple smaller than many average “good” power supplies was detected mostly towards the limit which isn’t enough to cause worry. In fact, even if you added a component to every available cable plug, the PSU would keep up. This is really all that matters right?
Final Thoughts
Overall, I like the presentation of the SG07 much more than the original SG05 which we reviewed months ago. While the SG05 is great in its own right, offering a 400 watt PSU along with a slightly more compact design, the SG07 reveals that Silverstone really listens to its users. The SG07 delivers more space, more refinements, and plenty of cooling. It definitely helps keep the components cooler more efficiently than before.
Unlike the SG05, users are no longer limited to certain video cards due to power constraints. With reliable power on hand at all times, the 600 watt PSU removes any system limitations and gives users the tools need to create a powerful little gaming system with confidence. There are some bragging rights to having a nice mini-ITX system that will play every video game, stream every HD movie, and format your favorite media. Now if only the SG07 came in white, silver, or red for that $209.99 US price tag!
Pros
- Compact mini-ITX enclosure
- Efficient use of space and features
- Great cooling capacity with easy cleaning
- Includes a 600 watt power supply
- Compatible with the largest video cards around
- Simple, yet attractive design
Cons
- Slim ROM tray limits choices
- Deep VGA coolers won’t fit
- A little more height for taller coolers
Overall Rating: 8.75 / 10.0
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Silverstone SG07 SUGO Series Mini-ITX Computer Enclosure – Photo Gallery
