Retro beige PC case goes from April Fools' joke to retail — SilverStone's sleeper PC with modern internals ships in Q1 2025

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Old on the outside but thoroughly modern within, making sleeper PC building easy.

SilverStone FLP01 beige desktop PC case
(Image credit: SilverStone)

Cases, cooling, and power specialist SilverStone has announced that a desktop PC case that it previously showed off as an April Fools’ joke is heading to retail. An unashamedly beige SilverStone FLP01 pre-built system was on display earlier in the week at the firm’s Japan Expo. Japanese tech media reports that FLP01 cases will be released sometime in Q1 2025 priced at JPY 19,800 (~$130).

Some of us tech old-timers started on systems that look a lot like SilverStone’s new FLP01. This particular design is said to have been strongly influenced by the NEC PC-9800 series, which was popular in Japan. The desktop form factor doubles as a monitor stand and puts the swapping of essential floppy and CD media within easy reach.

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SilverStone FLP01 beige desktop PC case
(Image credit: SilverStone)

Looking more closely at the not-shiny new FLP01, the front has a couple of faux 5.25-inch floppy drives to the right. Sadly, they look fake, even from a distance, with the filled-in slots and single-color plastics. However, these two artifices flip open to reveal an optical drive (upper slot) and front I/O array including headphones, USB-A, and USB-C ports (lower slot). A power button, plus disk activity and power LEDs appear to be present on the left front side of the desktop case. You can see these details in a series of images shared by ascii.jp.

At the expo, SilverStone had an FLP01 system configured with some powerful modern components, presumably to show its flexibility and capacity. It packed in a full-sized ATX motherboard, full-size PSU, water cooling, Intel Core Ultra 7 265K CPU, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GPU, as well as buckets of storage. Plenty of room seemed to be left for bigger GPUs than the Asus Dual model featured, up to a maximum of 300mm in length. CPU coolers up to 138mm tall can fit in. The demo system was configured with three intake fans (two on the left, one on the right) venting from the back and top.

Other details we gleaned about this case were that it measures 440mm x 362mm, and is 170mm tall. Apparently, some slight cosmetic changes will be made to this prototype, to make it a closer tribute to the aforementioned NEC PC-9800.

Hopefully, this, or a similar beige retro tribute case from SilverStone, will be made available outside of the Japanese market. Features and pricing aren't bad if you are on the lookout for an easy sleeper PC build.

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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • vern72
    I'd really like to see a Gateway 2000 retro case, cow spots and all!
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Honestly this should be an option for all office PCs. Given today's much more compact parts they could even have a half height option with an open bottom so it would double as an open bottom monitor riser (as compared with this being a solid bottom), or have the bottom half be enclosed but the front panel fold down to double as a storage compartment.
    Reply
  • ezst036
    FLP01 Is that supposed to mean the Floppy01?

    I love this case design. Really looking forward to the in-depth reviews.
    Reply
  • Li Ken-un
    I’m happy this has any 5.25″ optical drive bays at all. The contemporary consumer use cases are gone, but enthusiasts, home labbers, and professionals can stick an SSD enclosure in these for swappable SATA/SAS/NVMe storage.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    Honestly this should be an option for all office PCs. Given today's much more compact parts they could even have a half height option with an open bottom so it would double as an open bottom monitor riser (as compared with this being a solid bottom), or have the bottom half be enclosed but the front panel fold down to double as a storage compartment.
    About 1/3 of the systems in my office are horizontal. Same cases as the other 2/3.

    My system is vertical, behind the monitors in otherwise unused space.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    I want one :)
    Reply
  • Ogotai
    Li Ken-un said:
    I’m happy this has any 5.25″ optical drive bays at all.
    thats why im still using a TJ07.. all the rom bays for a 5, 3.5 inch hdd rack..
    Reply
  • Findecanor
    Recognised the "inspiration" before reading the article. The role model is obviously the NEC PC9801 VM line's early models, such as VM0, VM2 and VM4.
    This copy lacks levers on the floppy drives.

    There was also a hatch on the front that I think had PC-98 - specific ports for mouse and keyboard.
    Why not put the USB ports and headphone jack there instead of behind a fake floppy drive?
    Reply
  • dwd999
    If they had made it a little taller, like their Grandia GD11 case, it would have allowed users to go with air cooling like a Noctua NH-D12L. And anyone with a steady hand and an artist's brush could fill in the disk drive slots with some MUSOU BLACK paint which would make them look more realistic.
    Reply