Contents
Introducing the SilverStone PS14 (SST-PS14B)
It’s time to look at a new type of case, one that incorporates all the recent innovations, such as bottom-mounted PSUs and back-mounted SSDs, but also caters to the budget-oriented user. Now there are two types of budget-oriented users… There’s one kind that’s looking for a case that will hold all his components in place and allow for a decent amount of air to pass through, and there’s one who’s looking to sell an office workstation to his customer without spending too much on one single component. So today we’re going to take a look at the SilverStone PS14 (or Precision Series 14), SilverStone’s successor to the PS13. In particular, we’ll play close attention as to whether this case can compete with OEM cases of the major desktop manufacturers in terms of appearance and quality. Will this case break the trend of the cheap, flimsy budget-oriented products from Thermaltake or Antec, or will it disappoint? Let’s find out…
| Size | Midi-tower |
| Motherboard size | Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, Full-ATX |
| Color/variants | black |
| Size | 459 × 210 × 465 mm (depth × width × height) |
| Skelet material | SECC, measures at 0.7mm (incl. paint) |
| Front panel material | plastic |
| Weight | 5.7 kg |
| Positions 5.25” | 1× external |
| Positions 3.5” | 2× internal |
| Positions 2.5” | 6× internal |
| PSU type | ATX |
| Fan positions | 2× 140 mm front, 1× 80 mm front, 1× 120 mm rear |
| Populated positions | 1× 120 mm rear |
| Front panel | 2× USB 3.0, headphone/mic jacks |
The PS14 comes with standard features that are usually present in cases of this price range, which is 40 USD when it arrives in March. What’s nice right off the bat however is that it is provisioned for a bottom-mounted PSU. The front of the case has done away with external drive bays (or internal ones for that matter), in favor of more fan positions. The USB 3.0 ports and front-audio jacks are mounted to a small PCB which is only held in place by pressure to the plastic bezel with two screws.
Packaging and accessories
The real estate on back of the PS14 box is overlaid with a useful diagram of the back side of the case with its panel removed. The motherboard tray is not removeable, but there is a large opening in it for easy CPU cooler mounting. This feature is getting quite common these days which is nice.
The side of the box has a good description of this model’s features, as well as an informative table of specifications.
The case itself comes wrapped in a plastic bag with the plastic feet already assembled to the bottom. The bottom foam piece has four holes in it as to allow the case to rest properly with its feet attached in these holes. The case therefore only fits into this foam in one direction, and must be aligned properly with these four holes when replacing it into the box.
The accessories come in a plastic bag that it twist-tied to the internal front panel wiring. There are already four metal thumbscrews in place for both side panels, but SilverStone was nice enough to supply two extra ones in this accessory bag. Also included are more screws that you would need during component installation, as well as some black zip ties to keep the cabling in order. Also included is a small pamphlet with the case specs.
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