Silverstone PS14-E Case Review: Versatile Budget Contender

LOOKS like a workstation case.

Why is it I have to look at budget cases anymore to get an optical drive option? Just needs some mesh on the front.

"the removable front panel has a 5.25-inch drive bay for those who still use optical drives. " So, how do you install software? Downloading from the internet enhances the chances of installing malware and will often kill your data cap.
Also, what is it with cases coming with tempered glass panels? Tempered glass is NOT as strong as they imply. One good bang and you're stuck with a million pieces of glass to clean up. All steel is much better and also makes for a lighter case.

Wish there were more cases with more than 2 HDD mounts, these days. Seems like everyone in the budget space ditches drive cages to make room for radiators - which is fine, but it seems to me that people in this price segment are more likely to want to reuse HDDs than they are to want watercooling.

Or maybe it's just that the cases that get reviewed have a bias against HDD cages. All I know is that when I went to make a new rig last month, after spending a few hours sifting through reviews for cheap-ish cases - only to find that most of the candidates either had too few HDD mounts or bad dust filtration - I ended up grabbing a second Fractal Define R5. Not ideal, both because it's an aging chassis now, and because the price has actually gone up since the last time I bought one, but at least it's a known quantity to me.

And yeah, to echo kep55, the tempered glass craze seems a bit overwrought at this price point too. In my recent case-review binge, I came across more than a few complaints that this-or-that cheap case had its glass shatter.

Don't get me wrong; this is a nice looking case, and Silverstone tends to make good solid products. I appreciate the review. It just seems like the enthusiast case market is overcome with vaguely impractical fads every few years. Back in the day, it was millions of 80mm fan mounts making your PC sound like a jet engine, or overpriced all-aluminum cases that rattled (on top of sounding like a jet engine). Then we moved into the weird-plastic-shapes-and-tasteless-bling-everywhere phase, as if everyone who builds PCs is a 12 year old boy. Now the fad appears to be, "everyone watercools, even if they can only afford a case that costs half of what they'll pay for their AIO," and "everyone wants a transparent side panel."

I guess those two attitudes are related, given that AIOs do tend to look nice. But in terms of temps and noise, water cooling isn't even all that much better than air, unless you use a custom loop.