SilverStone Kublai Series KL03 Case Review

Introduction

Launched under SilverStone Kublai series, KL03 is the latest case from this manufacturer, targeted to users that want a big case with high-end thermal performance but don’t want to buy a very expensive all-aluminum product, like the cases from Temjin series also from SilverStone. In fact KL03 is a hybrid product: its body is made of zinc-coated steel, but its frontal panel is made of aluminum.

We have to categorize KL03 as a four-bay case just to keep using the same standard we used for all our reviews, even though you can install up to seven 5.25” devices if you remove the hard disk drive cage and use that space to install three more 5.25” devices (more about this later).

KL03 is available in black or silver and with or without a transparent side window. We reviewed the silver model with solid side panel. Its upper part glows blue when the computer is turned on.

This case is so big that we couldn’t find a position on our bench to take good pictures of it, so we had to take pictures of it on the floor. Sorry about that!

Figure 1: SilverStone KL03 case.

As we mentioned this is a hybrid case, with steel body, aluminum frontal panel and aluminum frontal cover/door.

Figure 2: Its frontal door is made of aluminum.

In Figure 3, you can see the frontal panel with the frontal door opened. This case has four 5.25” bays, two external 3.5” bays for floppy disk drives, one internal 3.5” bay for hard disk drives (not shown in Figure 3) and four 3.5” bays for hard disk drives behind the frontal 120 mm fan that comes with the product. Of course we will talk about them in more details shortly.

Figure 3: KL03 with its frontal door opened.

One interesting feature of this case is that you can remove the frontal door by pressing its upper hinge, as shown on Figures 4 and 5. Not only that, you can remove the hinges and install them on the other side of the door, so if you don’t want the default configuration of the door – opening right to left – you can change it to open from left to right. This is a really good option to have.

Figure 4: Press the upper hinge to release the door.

Figure 5: Door removed from the case.