SilverStone Technology Grandia 11 Compact ATX Home Theater PC (HTPC) case with 240mm Radiator Support, SST-GD11B

Pretty good case for a desktop/HTPC-style build
I was looking for a PC case of a horizontal/desktop type to fit PC shelf in my home office desk, and came across this case. Key requirement for me (other than horizontal case style) was ultra-low noise level since this PC is right on the side of my work desk, any noise would be annoying and may be picked up by the speakerphone during calls.Previously I was using Dell mini-tower (lying horizontally on a side), but fan noise was noticeable, also I needed to upgrade that machine due to its age.This case works pretty well for my purposes – it is practically silent (when equipped with Noctua fans), it looks good, and it also has plenty of space for a regular-size motherboard with full-length graphics card etc.The case design is well thought-through – it provides excellent access to installed components and super-easy to open, at the same time the case is solid and there is absolutely no rattle. Venting design is excellent, with two 120mm fans inside front panel behind mesh, with space for three 120mm fans on sides and two 80mm fan slots at the back. Only two fans are installed (on the front panel) and I did not need to install any additional fans – cooling is already good enough. Factory supplied 120mm fans are OK, but with Noctua ultra-low noise fans you can make the case silent even under load.USB ports (including USB-C) on the front panel are helpful, and overall the case looks pretty good. Certainly would recommend.

Very nice case for HTPC with one caveat
This is a nice case with a well-though-out design. I had no problem fitting my 240MM rad in there. It doesn’t interfere at all with my 2080TI. The full length of that first slot is available for larger cards. My only issue is that for a full-size ATX motherboard, the edge of the MB is right up against the location where fans are supposed to be to bring in cool air for the video card. See photos. There was no way I could get the front-panel USB connectors hooked up, even with a 90-degree adapter, and still have fans. I ended up mounting the fans on the outside of the case to still blow air in and it works great, but it does take away from the aesthetic.Obviously different MB will have connectors in different places, but with mine, the MSI MEG X570 ACE – it just wouldn’t fit as designed.With the 240mm rad and the two included 120mm fans mounted outside blowing air into the video card section, temps are very good (GPU runs at 33 idle and 62 at 100% full load) and there is almost no noise at all unless the GPU is running full blast – but at that point I’m gaming, so that drowns out anything else.

I’ve tried several different HTPC cases and this one is the best of them all. My goal was to build a quiet HTPC case for my media rack and I was looking for the one large enough to fit a full-size ATX motherboard and incorporate enough high performing while quiet cooling capacity for a high performance build. I did find this case way too expensive but understand that the high price tag is most probably associated with the niche nature of this product. I picked quiet Noctua coolers for my build – 2 x 120 mm coolers (Noctua NF-S12A PWM) for intake on the side and 2 x 80 mm coolers (Noctua NF-A8 PWM) for outtake air flow on the back. Side 120 mm coolers blocking access to all the bottom edge connectors on the motherboard so make sure you do not have any USB connectors in that area. Motherboard lights and switches connectors do barely fit but nothing taller will. All of them are VERY quiet and completely non-audible. Not sure why some reviewers complained about noise. Have them working pretty much all the time for more than half a year. I also went with Corsair RM 850x power supply due to it’s compact size, reliability and quiet mode – exhaust fan is off up to a 340 Watts load which allows it to stay completely silent under most typical loads. 850 Watt power supply may be an overkill for the purpose (I plan to upgrade video card later to play games on the big screen) but for CORSAIR RMx series silent mode threshold depends on the power supply power – it ranges from 400 Watts for a 1000 Watt unit to only 220 Watts for 550 Watt unit. So I went with a more powerful option to allow for as much silent operation headroom as possible. Current build has 12600K CPU installed which has And of course I picked the motherboard without any active cooling on it. I also installed front mounted 240mm Liquid AIO and picked CORSAIR H100x RGB Elite model. I didn’t connect LED controller at all since otherwise they would be visible through the front grill which I do not want. It proved to be whisper-quiet and efficient so far. I am a big fan of ARCTIC COOLING Liquid Freezer II series but this case can not fit its radiator due to the notch in the perpendicular bar. Some people reported cutting a bigger notch with a Dremel but to me that seems like an excess AND you will most probably end up with 5.25″ drive cage interfering with AIO radiator.

Like: Style, size, layout, ability to fit full ATX power supply, 146mm tall / standard 4U air cooler, and full graphics card.Dislike: HDD tray is in a very awkward spot – NOT good as a NAS/HTPC combo. I had to get rid of my hard drives and go with some SATA SSDs to fit my cooler properly. As others have mentioned, I’m not sure why they didn’t design it for 3x-120mm fans at the front – it would’ve fit easily. The power switch/power led/hdd led/reset switch headers on most motherboards are very hard to access with this case’s layout -luckily you only gotta deal with that once.