Like the Storm Enforcer, SilverStone’s Kublai KL04 (KL04B for black; add –W if you want a side window) uses a bottom-mounted SSD cage behind the hard drive cage. But with room for six 2.5" drives, the KL04 holds three times as many SSDs. Its 3.5” cage also has more capacity (up to eight drives) in the removable portion and one hidden bay in its base. What's more, the SSD cage can be moved from the KL04’s base onto the removable hard drive cage.

SilverStone’s attempt to cut cost without sacrificing durability or performance shows through in places like its missing internal grommets and folded-out card holder tab, both of which appear out of place on a case with such a flexible storage configuration. One of the ways SilverStone retains its hallmark quality is through rolled edges on all cable holes, which really make grommets superfluous.

The KL04’s installation kit includes a 5.25”-to-3.5” external bay adapter, a USB 3.0-to-USB 2.0 header adapter, and a bag of miscellaneous mounting hardware complete with cable ties and a miniature screwdriver.

A ribbon-style front-panel lead and HD Audio support (no AC'97) clean up and simplify the KL04's cable bundle.

Elegant simplicity is found in the KL04’s external drive latch. If the latching tab doesn’t appear secure enough to you, holes in the mechanism also support screws.

We installed our SSD without removing the cage, since the case has screwdriver access from both sides. The rest of the enclosure is large enough to accept our slightly oversized motherboard without blocking its cable access holes.

The finished build again looks more like a workstation than a gaming PC, but that’s fine with most of us. Reduced noise is a benefit of the windowless, ventless panels, and we look forward to finding out if fans and vents in other parts of the chassis can still give us the cooling performance we require.
- Do Cases With More Features Offer More Value?
- Building With The Antec Eleven Hundred
- Building With The Cooler Master Storm Enforcer
- Building With The Fractal Design Arc Midi
- Building With The Raidmax Agusta
- Building With The SilverStone Kublai KL04
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Temperature, Noise, And Acoustic Efficiency
- One Value-Oriented Chassis Satisfies Most Buyers
Antec, I think, has fallen behind in case design as of late. While the Eleven Hundred is much better than the aging 900/300 design, it still has some small points of meh such as only one 2.5" drive bay when there are other cases close to the price (not current price but original price) trat support 2.5" in every drive bay.
Also the design is a bit meh. Though I have fallen in love with the Corsair 500R so its a bit hard to make me think of another case. And the CM Storm Enforcer is ok. Had one in the shop the other day. Nothing amazing honestly but its not overly bad.
BTW, you should at least read the ENTIRE conclusion before calling an article a fluff piece. Thanks!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
As long as the case functions and has what you need -- it's all what YOU like and flips that switch.
Yeah but that's when people choose crap or junk brands like Raidmax, Xion, Ultra and Apevia - those have serious flaws and horrible build quality, I really try to persuade people not to buy those under any circumstances. The computers I work with on a daily basis all use these cases and they suck - I moved a computer built around an Apevia case from one desk to another and the door fell off in the process! There's a lot of crap brands out there and that's why sites like this exist - to help people sort the good hardware from the junk. You don't want to get a case that's poorly made for your new quality components.
The things I never recommend on builds are monitor, keyboard and mouse - I don't like spending hundreds on these things and I don't cut corners to get say a $140 keyboard, that's not what I want people to concentrate on their builds.
Of course, like everyone else, I think my case (Antec P280) is the best and should be the recommended buy. It is $30 more than the Eleven Hundred, but only $10 more than the Raidmax.
I used the CM Storm Enforcer for a friends build and it's quite a good case, thanks to it's price in a 99%, lol.
It's not bad looking and very quiet. Fit's the 7970 perfectly and it's build quality is quite good.
Cheers!