Silverstone Sugo SG09 Case Review

1. Introduction2. Silverstone Sugo SG09: Packaging and Bundle3. Silverstone Sugo SG09: Exterior4. Silverstone Sugo SG09: Interior5. Silverstone Sugo SG09: Installation6. Testing Methodology and Performance7. Closing Thoughts8. View All Pages

Today we are going to look at Silverstone's latest small form factor case, the Sugo SG09. This case is designed for those users who want to build a powerful compact system, boasting enough room for a long graphics card and a full size power supply. This makes it ideal for use as a powerful small form factor gaming system or a home theatre PC.

Silverstone are well known for their innovative design department who have come up with some very interesting products over the past few years.  These include the Fortress and Raven ranges which are quite unlike anything else available on the market.  The Sugo SG09 isn't quite as distinctive in terms of aesthetics as the Fortress and Raven cases but has been cleverly designed to support an array of powerful components within a very small space.

Features

The SG09 is supplied in an attractively designed box which features a large image of the case on the front alongside a list of key features and specifications.

Turning the box around reveals another image of the case with some of the internal features highlighted.    The box itself seems solidly constructed and should provide a good deal of protection to the case during transit.

The included accessory bundle contains all the items we would usually expect.  More specifically, there are a series of installation accessories included which include all the required screws and an installation guide.

Silverstone haven't felt the need to give the SG09 a beautiful visage like the FT03, opting for a more pedestrian approach.  In fact, we would go as far as saying the SG09 is vastly inferior to the FT03 in terms of aesthetic design and build quality.  The entire of the chassis is constructed from a combination for black plastic and powder coated black steel.

The front of a chassis features a large vented section which lets the forward-mounted power supply breathe.  At the top there is space for a slot loading optical drive for those users who one.  About half way down, we find the front panel connections.  Silverstone have provided two USB3.0 connections as well as headphone and microphone jacks.

Moving round to the left side of the case, there are a plethora of air vents which can be populated with fans if required.  There is also an exhaust vent for the power supply and a large fan vent on to the top of the case which is populated with a 180 mm Silverstone Air Penetrator intake fan which can either run at 700 or 1,200 rpm.

The back of the SG09 features four expansion slots as well as a standard 120 mm exhaust fan vent.  Silverstone have populated this with a 120 mm 1,200 rpm fan to exhaust hot air from the chassis.  At the top of the back panel there is a 3-pin power cable socket which feeds the forward mounted power supply.

Accessing the inside of the SG09 isn't the simplest task as a result of the unusual side panel design.   There are two sections that need to be removed; one large section that spans the right side, top and half of the left side of the system and a smaller panel which covers the remainder of the left side of the system.

The smaller side panel features three fan locations, two 80/92 mm and one 120 mm.  The 120 mm vent is populated with a 120 mm Silverstone branded unit which spins at 1200 rpm.

Silverstone has continued the black theme throughout the inside the case.  This should compliment most component choices aesthetically.  The case supports Micro ATX motherboards even though we will be documenting the installation process with a mini-ITX motherboard.

The motherboard stand-offs are pre-installed into the case which saves a few minutes when building a system in the case.  There is also a large cut-out in the motherboard tray for installing CPU cooler backplates.

Over on the right hand side of the case there is a large void where the power supply must be installed.  This features a removable bracket which helps secure the power supply in place.

Moving round the back of the motherboard tray, there is a fair amount of room for cable routing.  This is necessary as all of the hard drive and solid state drive mounting points are located in this area.

First of all, the power supply was installed into the system.  There isn't room for larger power supplies like the Silverstone Platimax 1000W in this case, however most standard sized ATX units like the Corsair GS800 will fit without issue.  There are a few different holes cut into the motherboard tray here and there which makes cable routing fairly simple.

The Gigabyte Z77IA-E53 mini-ITX motherboard was screwed down with the cooler and memory pre-installed.  There isn't a huge amount of room available inside the chassis so this makes things a little easier.  There is plenty of room for large CPU coolers so cooling isn't an issue.

Installing the graphics card is fairly simple although a small plate has to be removed on the back of the chassis before the expansion covers can be removed.  The graphics card can then be screwed into place.  There is plenty of room for long graphics card in the case, too.  In fact, there is enough room for every graphics card on the market.

Finally, the storage drives can be installed into place.  There is room for a maximum of two 3.5″ drives and four 2.5″ drives in the system.  These can all be screwed into the brackets located behind the motherboard tray.  This keeps things nice and tidy as there are no drive cables restricting air flow in the case.

As mentioned earlier, there is room for a slimline slot-load optical drive in the top of the case.  This will require a special adapter to connect up to standard SATA and SATA power connectors.

For our tests we will be using an Intel Reference Cooler to cool the Intel Core i7 3770K CPU.  Our test system also features an AMD Radeon HD 6950 graphics card.  We overclocked the system to 4.4 GHZ for our tests using a voltage of 1.25V.

Test System:

• Processor: Intel Core i7 3770K
• Motherboard: MSI Z77IA-E53
• Cooler: Cooler Master TPC 800
• Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-2
• Memory: 4GB (2x 2GB) Kingston HyperX Genesis
• Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6950
• Power Supply: Corsair GS800
• System Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 TB (7200 RPM)
• Monitor: Viewsonic VX2260WM
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Software:

• CPUID Hardware Monitor
• Prime95 64-bit
• Furmark V1.9.2

To test the thermal performance of the Silverstone Sugo SG09 we loaded our test system for 15 minutes using Prime95 and Furmark and recorded the maximum temperatures reached using CPUID Hardware Monitor.  We then restarted the system and left it for 15 minutes before recording idle temperatures.

Room temperature was maintained at 20 degrees C for the duration of our tests.

The temperatures recorded are fairly impressive, especially for such a compact chassis.  This will make it an excellent choice for those looking to overclock their system.

To conduct our noise level tests, we replaced the graphics card in our system with a AMD Radeon HD 5550 Silence which was passively cooled.  We also momentarily disconnected the fans on the CPU cooler so we were only taking into account the noise generated by the fans in the case.

This case isn't exactly silent so may not be suitable for those looking to build a quiet system.  Most of the noise seems to come from the large Air Penetrator fan in the roof of the case so this could be replaced with a quieter model if necessary.

Overall we have mixed feelings about the Silverstone Sugo SG09.  It's very compact for a Micro-ATX case which is sure to impress those looking to build a compact gaming system with dual graphics cards.  However, for those who only require a single graphics card, a mini-ITX system would suffice.  We've seen a couple of impressive mini-ITX motherboards pass through our labs in the past months like the ASRock Z77E-ITX which offer a similar level of overclocking performance as full size ATX motherboards.

The aesthetics and build quality of the Silverstone Sugo SG09 are a little uninspiring, especially when we compare it to the Fortress FT03.  Sure, the FT03 is about £20 more expensive but we feel the difference in design and quality more than justifies this amount.   That said, the SG09 has been very cleverly designed internally so that you don't have to compromise on hardware.  There is room for full height CPU coolers, ATX power supplies and long graphics cards.

The Silverstone Sugo SG09 can be yours for a little over £90 from Scan which we think is a little pricey considering what you get.  We would like to see it falling to around £75 before we would say it was a high value purchase.

Those looking for a plain case which offers good value for money should also consider the Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced.  At £35 from Ebuyer, it's very cheap indeed and could be used to build a powerful system if you select the hardware carefully.

Pros

• Good cooling.
• Clever internal design.
• Very compact.

Cons

• Dull design.
• Fairly loud.
• Steel Construction.
• Pricey.

KitGuru says: Another interesting case from Silverstone which can pack a series of performance components into a very small space.

Become a Patron!