A Detailed Look – At the Outside
The exterior panels on the SG06 all have a brushed metal finish, including the all-aluminum front panel bezel. I was happy to see that Silverstone didn’t skimp on the front panel bezel and make it plastic because many enthusiasts appreciate quality bezels on their cases, especially ones that will be seen by everyone when they are placed in their home entertainment systems.
The front panel has room for one slim optical drive and supports two USB 2.0 devices and audio/mic inputs. The power button is found at the bottom of the case as well as the power and hard drive LED activity lights.
The left panel has a large wall of ventilation holes that should help exhaust heat from expansion cards and other PCI devices. Our readers can also see the side vents on the front panel which should help bring cool air into the case through the 120mm fan behind the front panel.
The right panel has a smaller vent that is located next to the CPU and heatsink. It probably would have been a good idea to extend this vent all the way to the front of the case so we could have better cooling for the hard drives too.
The top panel has a large vent over the power supply and expansion cards. I wish there was room for some type of blowhole fan, but Silverstone really had to sacrifice a few cooling options to make the case as small as possible.
The bottom panel is pretty flat until you install the four rubber feet that have been included in the accessories box. You can also see some more small vents under the front panel bezel, which is a very subtle, yet important cooling feature that should help keep any HTPC running nice and smooth during operation.
The back panel is exactly like the SG05, but with one small exception – the reset button above the back I/O panel. There’s room for two PCI devices or a dual-slot graphics card.
