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Introduction

Despite all the talk about SFFs being HTPCs and more, the fact is, while a cubic SFF looks great as a standalone HTPC receiver/DVD player/PVR, most stereo components are nothing like that. Most standalone DVD players and the like are rectangular, and therefore don't match with the square SFF cases.

For the home theatre buff who demands each piece of his/her home theatre components to match in color and size, enter companies like Silverstone and Ahanix. These companies produce high end cases for consumers that most Taiwanese companies have avoided in the past - people who would like a horizontally placed computer.

It's interesting how all these new-age cases just hark back to the good old days when a desktop computer literally meant it was on the desk, generally with a monitor on top of it. Of course, style-wise, cases today are also light-years ahead of their predecessors.

Today, we bring you our first Silverstone case, the LC17. The LC17 is one of Silverstones larger cases, coming with enough space for two optical drives versus the standard one. It has a simple design and no fancy external media features such as front audio input and output ports, nor is there an LCD screen on the case itself. Other than a few buttons and bays, the case is devoid of other features.