SilverStone Sugo SG05 Case Review

[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

SilverStone Sugo SG05 is one of the smallest computer cases we’ve ever seen and yet it supports video cards up to 9” (22.8 cm) in length, making it a terrific case for building a very small but powerful PC. To shrink its size SilverStone decided to use a small SFX power supply, which comes with the product, and support only a slim optical drive, i.e., an optical drive originally targeted to laptops. Let’s see what you can expect from this new case.

The first thing that you will notice about this case is its tiny size, only 8 21/32” x 6 59/64” x 10 55/64” (22 cm x 17.6 cm x 27.6 cm) (W x H x D) and weighting only 7.8 lbs (3.52 Kg).

Figure 1: SilverStone Sugo SG05 case.

Figure 2: SilverStone Sugo SG05 case.

The reviewed case has two USB ports and the traditional microphone and headphone jacks on the front panel. The two USB ports are far away from each other, allowing you to install two “fat” USB devices at the same time.

SG05 has a 120 mm fan attached to its front panel. This fan rotates at 1,200 rpm and it uses a three-pin connector, so you can install it on your motherboard to monitor its speed. It has a washable dust filter, but in order to access this filter you need to remove the front panel. It would be nice if this case had a system to remove this filter without the need to remove this panel. The top and the two side panels are meshed to improve the airflow.

Figure 3: Dust filter.

As mentioned this case only supports a slim optical drive. This allowed the case to be smaller but on the other hand it increases the final cost of your computer, as slim drives are more expensive. The good news is that SilverStone offers a slim DVD burner (called SOD01) and a slim Blu-Ray player supporting DVD/CD burning (called TOB02) for this case.

In Figure 4, you can see the rear panel. It has two expansion slots and both come with a meshed slot cover, which helps improving the airflow inside the PC. There are also two meshes above the slots with the same goal. This case comes with a FSP300-60GHS SFX12V power supply and we posted a separated review for it. It proved to be a good product.

Figure 4: Rear panel.

[nextpage title=”Inside Sugo SG05″]

In Figure 5, you can see how SilverStone Sugo SG05 looks like right after we remove its top cover. On the rear part we have the small power supply and on the front part we have a tray containing the slim optical drive bay.

Figure 5: Inside Sugo SG05.

On Figures 6 and 7 you can have a better view from inside the case with the power supply and the drive bays still installed. As mentioned because of its reduced size this case only supports mini-ITX and mini-DTX motherboards. You can have CPU coolers up to 3 5/64” (78 mm) tall and this case supports video cards up to 9” (22.8 cm) in length. But you have to pay attention because the power supply that comes with SG05 has only one auxiliary power connector for video cards, so if you want to install a high-end video card that requires two auxiliary power connectors you will need to use an adapter to covert the peripheral power plugs into a second video card power connector – making sure that your video card is not longer than 9” (22.8 cm), of course.

Figure 6: View from the left side.

Figure 7: View from the right side.

We show in Figure 8 how Sugo SG05 looks like with its power supply, trays and front panel removed.

Figure 8: Sugo SG05 “naked.”

[nextpage title=”The Disk Drive Bays”]

This case has one external bay for slim optical drives, one internal 3.5” bay for hard disk drives and one internal 2.5” bay for hard disk drive or SSD units.

Figure 9: The optical drive bay.

The 3.5” and the 2.5”bay are located below the optical drive bay. The 3.5” bay can be seen in Figure 7. In Figure 10 we removed it from the case and installed a hard disk drive to show you. This case does not provide any kind of screwless or anti-vibration mechanism.

Figure 10: The 3.5” bay.

The 2.5” bay is located between the optical drive bay and the 3.5” bay, as shown in Figure 11 (the 3.5” was removed).

Figure 11: The 2.5” bay.

Figure 12: The 2.5” bay and the optical drive bay outside
the case (upside down).

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]

SilverStone Sugo SG05 case main specs include:

• Style: small form factor (SFF)
• Application: Mini-ITX and mini-DTX.
• Material: Zinc-coated steel (SECC).
• Power supply required: FSP300-60GHS
• Available colors: Black.
• Side panel: Meshed.
• Dimensions: 8 21/32” x 6 59/64” x 10 55/64” (22 cm x 17.6 cm x 27.6 cm) (W x H x D)
• Net Weight: 7.8 lbs (3.52 Kg)
• Bays: One bay for slim optical drive, one internal 3.5” and one internal 2.5” bay.
• Expansion slots: Two
• Fans: One 120 mm on the front (1,200 rpm).
• More Information: https://www.silverstonetek.com
• Average price in the US*: USD 100.00

* Researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this review.

[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

SilverStone Sugo SG05 is a small case targeted to users that want to build a small yet powerful computer. Here is a summary of what we found about this product.

Strong Points

• One of the smallest cases on the market today.
• 2.5” hard disk drive bay.
• Dust filter.
• Good power supply.
• Good price for a case/power supply combo.

Weak Points

• No anti-vibration mechanisms for the hard disk drives.
• No screwless mechanisms for holding daughterboards or hard disk drives.
• No eSATA port.
• The use of a slim optical drive increases the final cost of the computer.
• Could have come with thumbscrews.

In summary, we think this product will please users willing to build the smallest PC in town. Since it supports rather long video cards, you can still install a pretty decent video card on it, so reduced size does not mean reduced performance. It is a good product, but its adoption will be restricted by the offer of slim optical drives and mini-ITX/mini-DTX motherboards.