Inside The PS05B
While several of the PS05B’s steel panels are designed identically to those of AeroCool’s VX-R, SilverStone specifies fan mounts for the top. These even have offsets of 0.1” for the center and mounting holes, adding around 0.2” of distance between the fan blades and grille for quieter operation.
Installing fans on the other side requires finding fans that perfectly fit the top-panel grill. The fans that came with our Swiftech cooling system did not fit over its centering pegs, and the frames in our Scythe S-Flex fans were too thick to fit under the edge clips. Reinstalling the fan grille is also more difficult once fans are installed, since the center clips will be pushed out of alignment with the four relief holes punched into the sheet metal chassis. We'd suggest SilverStone-branded fans to those who really need the extra airflow, at least until the company comes out with a more exact list of recommendations.
SilverStone’s PS05B motherboard tray is also dimensionally-identical to AeroCool’s VX-R, but SilverStone turns its hard drive cage sideways to ease drive access. This prevents the drives from interfering with card installation, and vice-versa.
SilverStone uses trays, rather than rails, for its hard drives. This makes it easy to keep track of the mounting hardware, since it is already clipped into position by the factory. SilverStone also adds the fan filters missing from AeroCool’s dimensionally-identical bottom panel, though the power supply must be removed to clean its filter. We’ll count that a second, less-significant design issue.
A hinged card holder unlatches from inside the PS05B, extending through a rectangular hole in the back panel. We mentioned that many of the case’s panels are designed identically to those of AeroCool’s VX-R, and both enclosures have this hole, though only the PS05B uses it.