Not a candidate for pole position
Unlike many SilverStone cases, which use
flipped or rotated ATX designs, the RL01 has a traditional motherboard layout.
There’s still some SilverStone flair to it, though, with moulded side panels
and a smooth front fascia avoiding the black-box looks of some competitors.
Silverstone
Rl01
There are five fan mounts on offer, with a
pair of 120mm mounts, a rear 80/90/120mm mount, a floor 120mm mount and a front
120mm mount. There’s just a single red LED-lit 120mm fan included, though, and
it’s fitted as a front intake to give the front fascia a red glow when the PC’s
running. While the inclusion of just a single fan is disappointing, Silver Stone
has outdone itself with the Rl01’s dust filters; the front fascia, floor and
PSU are all mesh-filtered, with the roof fan mounts boasting an external
magnetic dust filter. Meanwhile, a pair of front-panel USB 3 ports is a welcome
extra.
There’s less to get excited about inside,
though, especially when you notice the lack of any cable- routeing holes around
the motherboard tray. Instead, there are bent metal clasps for securing cables,
but these are too weak to hold a 24-pin ATX connector. There’s 6mm of room
behind the motherboard tray, and an extruded side panel, but without pre-cut
routeing holes, it’s difficult to use this space effectively.
There
are five fan mounts on offer, with a pair of 120mm mounts, a rear 80/90/120mm
mount, a floor 120mm mount and a front 120mm mount
The drive mounts are unimpressive too, with
a rack for up to five 3.5in drives only offering tool-free clips on one side.
The other is inaccessible from the front, so drives can only be secured on one
side; not ideal should you want to transport your PC.
The case didn’t cool well either. The stock
CPU delta T of 60°C is the second worst result on test, and likely due to the
lack of an exhaust fan. The GPU delta T of 41°C is a similarly poor result,
with the majority of cases delivering temperatures 2-7°C cooler.
Adding a pair of extra cooling fans as a
roof and rear exhaust helped a lot, though, dropping the CPU delta T to 47°C
while the GPU dipped to 36°C delta T.
The
other is inaccessible from the front, so drives can only be secured on one
side; not ideal should you want to transport your PC.
The RL01 is capable of decent cooling, but
it requires at least a pair of extra fans to unlock it. There was one more
downside though: the bundled red LED-lit fan was intrusively audible, and
easily the noisiest of any on test.
Conclusion
The
Fractal Design Core 3000 (see p68) or Xigmatek Midgard II may cost $15 more,
but they’re both far better choices.
Other than its raft of dust filters,
there’s little we can commend about the RL01. The lack of cable-routeing
options and insecure drive mounts makes it a pain to build inside the case, its
fan is noisy and its stock cooling is comparatively poor. The Fractal Design
Core 3000 (see p68) or Xigmatek Midgard II may cost $15 more, but they’re both
far better choices.
