Silverstone Crown CW03 HTPC Case

Features
By
published

Conclusion

Conclusion

The Silverstone CW03 has proven it is a king of the HTPC market, with only a few minor flaws that can either be fixed or worked around. This is a truly professional level case and should be considered for any high-end HTPC.

The Good

  • Great touchscreen LCD display
  • Software works well with touchscreen
  • Professional quality fit and finish
  • Excellent construction makes unit stackable and rackable
  • Stylish enough for high-end home theaters or A/V
  • Supports ATX motherboards
  • Includes solid IR remote and receiver
  • The WOW factor from your guests

The Bad

  • Price
  • Fan noise
  • No PSU
  • Eject button issue
  • USB header issue
  • VGA header instead of DVI for LCD

The Silverstone CW03 is the highest quality case I have seen in a long time. It was extremely easy to install all components, and the quality of the construction is exceptional.

That said, it would be nice if Silverstone could do a few things to make this case even better. They could replace the two fans under the HDD cage with one 120 mm fan; if they could find a way to replace the two rear 80 mm fans with a 92 mm or 120 mm fan, that could also help lower fan noise. They need to fix the optical drive eject button on the case. It would also be best if they would provide a single-headed USB solution to support both the IR unit and LCD display. These are not deal breakers, though, as I was able to work around the last two issues, and by installing fans with speed controls I was able to force them down to a very quiet level without sacrificing performance.

Bill Lake
28 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Jakt
    It's a good review of a case, but it's a bit misleading to title page 5 "Making an HTPC". Making a good HTPC involves a lot more than slapping some good componenents inside a spiffy HTPC case. Readers interested in "Making an HTPC" would benefit from a discussion of video capture cards, cpu cooling fans, hard drives (cooler and quieter, and discrete pvr drives that are seperate from the OS hd), video cards (passive cooling!) and even pvr software, such as Windows Media Center, BeyondTV, Myth TV, or others.

    Maybe I didn't read carefully enough, but I didn't see what the street price of this case is. Also, are there competitive alternatives worth considering?

    I'm not here to shoot this article down, but I was hoping to see some of these issues addressed after reading 7 pages.



    Th
    Reply
  • TeraMedia
    For anyone building an HTPC with this case, they would probably want cooler, larger HDDs. The GP series from WD would be better for that.

    The CPU and GPU are probably overkill unless the person using this is an avid gamer.

    You did not say much about the touchscreen and how it works with Vista's built-in Media Center software. You stated that the instructions say to set it up as the secondary display in an extended configuration. Does the touchscreen echo the information in Vista's MC? Or did you use iMedian?
    Reply
  • BillLake
    I actually used Vista MC, iMedian and the HDMedian also. They all have their benefits and weaknesses. When connected to the big TV, I used Vista MC, it worked better for me with the remote, when connected to a local LCD the others worked better as they really like the use of the touch screen. Going back and forth was easy with the software, sorry I did not put more on that in the article but I wanted to keep it more about the case than software because that can be tweaked and changed. I can say when connected to my big TV, I really like the little LCD show one thing and maybe have something else on the TV. Kind of like Picture in a picture.

    As far as more on HTPC, check out Tom's other articles as there are several and this was just about this case. You can compare them there, same for the software as there are articles on that too. As for the cost of this case, they usually use the search engine to provide that but just google it and you will find prices running about $699. http://www.google.com/products?q=silverstone+CW03&rls=com.microsoft:*&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1
    Reply
  • resonance451
    I've been building MicroATX HTPC's, and find them just as quiet and operational, and a lot cheaper, even with adding a screen (and why would I even want that, as I've got a 56" 1080p HDTV?!)
    Reply
  • Jakt
    I have an Ahanix mce701 (not sure if they make them anymore) for my htpc. Very similar to the Silverstone, but not the same high level of quality. At less than half the price, I am extremely satisfied with the Ahanix. The touchscreen is wonderful for doing everything that the television isn't needed for, such as selecting and playing music, catching the latest weather forecast, or simply looping a slideshow of the kids while it's idle. The screen also adds a certain geek-cool touch to my entertainment center. I keep my components at eye-level, but if it were stacked below the tv, I could see the benefits of the little touchscreen greatly diminished.
    Reply
  • boysdaddy
    What CPU cooler did you use?
    Reply
  • While this article is fine for reveiwing the case itself, it really falls short on the build aspect. Tom's Hardware is far too long overdue for an updated HD HTPC build. It seems like they are focused just on gaming. With DVD recorders with built in HDD's pretty much banned in the U.S., HTPC's are really becoming popular.
    Reply
  • wcrank
    I have a Coolermaster CM Media 282, you can use 4 120mm fans in this case. Its not the most stylish, but with Noctua 120mm fans it is exceptionally silent (due to the position of the fans I run passive cooling on an EVGA 8600 gt GPU, & AM2 5200 CPU). Plus I built this system for probably the cost of the silverstone case... Not a power house system, it is only a PVR.
    Reply
  • BillLake
    boysdaddy: I used the stock cooler on the Q6600. I thought it was very quiet even under load and was impressed with it. It is not a highend cooler but I did not have time to do much more.

    niknik, I was going to do a Blu-Ray drive with some results of it but the Pioneer blu-ray software did not work, it said not a supported pioneer system and then the replacement did the same. I am investigating it further before I say any more but I think an HD HTPC system is a good idea.

    I build a PVR on the KPC system like I reviewed, it works great, is quiet and I spent less than $400 on it
    Reply
  • For $700 there should be no flaws. Ridiculous.
    Reply