The Neon Rush

How I got an exclusive peek at the Silverstone GD03 while building a home theater PC

Aug 12, 2009 01:29

I've never been much of a gamer. I'm embarrassed to admit that I never beat the original Super Mario Bros. and I regularly cheated at Duck Hunt. So when I first started working in the hardware industry here in Taiwan, my first thought was, what can I do with all this cool gear at my fingertips?

I soon discovered the wonderful world of the home theater personal computer, or HTPC. I've a decent DVD collection and a ton of photos, music and TV shows that have accumulated over the years.  A dedicated DIY media box to serve content to my TV was just what the doctor ordered.  

It took a fair bit of research because I wanted to make sure of the following: 

• Low power and quiet since an HTPC is on pretty much all the time (file server, too)


• Fairly stylish--I don't want a bulky PC tower sitting in my living room


• Expandable storage--multi-terabyte storage for futureproof goodness

So, after deciding on the right gear and consulting with experts wiser than myself, I finally pulled the trigger.

• Silverstone GD03: Two hot-swappable HDD bays, six HDD bays in total


• CPU: AMD X2 245, 2.9GHz, 65W


• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GG-DS3H


• RAM: Transcend 2GB DDR2 800MHz


• Power supply: 800W Gigabyte GE-S800A-D1)


• HDD: Two x 1TB Hitachi 3.5-inch 7,200rpm

To me, the most important part of this rig is the case. I asked a friend who works for a major PC manufacturer to recommend a good HTPC case and the first brand she mentioned was Silverstone. So I drove down to its HQ in Zhong He and met with Tony to see if they'd be interested in providing a case for this build. 

It turns out Silverstone just released the GD03, so I think I'm pretty lucky to have a world exclusive preview of this beauty.  



The GD03 has a full aluminum front panel and accommodates both ATX and micro-ATX motherboards.



With the front panel open, you notice the two hot-swappable bays. This is a great feature for HTPCs because it allows you to quickly change hard drives once they're full. 



The top view also shows the case's large storage capacity. On the left are two 5.25-inch bays for optical drives, and on the right are the two hot-swappable drive enclosures plus the four regular HDD bays. Since I used only a single DVD drive, I could employ the second 5.25-inch bay for additional HDD storage. This would equal a total of seven HDDs, which puts the GD03 at the top of its class; a real beast for media storage. 


Install the HDDs in the hot-swappable enclosures.


Put back into the case.


Installing the DVD burner/player.  


Everything is finally in place and functional. The 800W power supply is probably overkill for this system, but I figured I'd connect it to the rear 80mm x two fans anyway for additional control. 


My entertainment center isn't fancy at all, but I did want to make sure the case I got was sleek and stylish, but more importantly that it would fit into the center console.

I absolutely love the fact that there aren't any flashing lights or bells and whistles on the front panel of the GD03. There's nothing more annoying than trying to watch a movie in the dark with a bunch of LEDs winking at you.  

Overall, I'm quite happy with how this turned out. The 2.9GHz AMD processor hasn't been put to the test, but the computer is running at full steam. It is very quiet and hardly generates any heat. I haven't put the 2GB of RAM through the ringer yet, either, but I'm pretty sure it will do the trick for the simple task of video playback.

The only thing I still need to add at this point is a TV tuner card with remote that works with Windows 7 MCE to record analog cable and over-the-air digital TV. If I can record live TV and have time-shifting control like on a TiVo, then maybe one day this rig will be as sweet as Princess Peach herself.

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