Silverstone ld03 review in Spanish (complete analysis)

SilverStone LD03 is a different chassis, one of those that mark style and that we love to explore to see what it offers us. We are facing a tower in ITX format that wastes design and good taste on all sides, cube-type with three of its faces in smoked glass and quick opening. We can say that it is the evolution of the Silverstone FT03 Mini, with a great facelift. Do not trust its small size, because inside it supports enough hardware and even double 120mm liquid cooling.

If you are looking for the best way to decorate your home with your MiniPC Gami ng, this chassis is the best you will find.

And before we continue, we thank SilverStone for continuing to trust us and our analyzes, giving us this peculiar product.

SilverStone LD03 technical characteristics

Unboxing

This ITS SilverStone LD03 tower has come to us in a traditional neutral cardboard box with a very simple sketch of the product on the side faces and some of its specifications on the narrow face. The presentation that the manufacturer uses is different from what we see in the rest, since in this case it is lying inside and we will have to open the box through the widest area, which greatly facilitates things.

In any case, we find a chassis wrapped in a plastic bag with two expanded polystyrene cork molds for protection on the sides. Let's remember that three of its faces are made of glass, so let's be careful with the extraction.

The bundle will consist of the following elements:

• SilverStone LD03 chassis Cable clips Component installation screws 4-pin fan multiplier

On this occasion the manufacturer has included a hub to connect the two fans together, which means that we only occupy one header on the motherboard, with the limitation of not being able to manage the fans separately. It will be our decision to use it or not.

Exterior design

The SilverStone LD03 is a very different chassis than what we are used to, and rather it seems like a complete desktop computer than what some manufacturers commercialize. In fact, it reminds us a lot of the Corsair ONE, although this chassis is much broader and with universal mounting.

As we see in the photograph, we have a tower configuration in ITX format and cube type, that is, much higher than wide. In fact, the measurements are 265 mm wide, 230 mm deep and 414 mm high. It is not exactly a cube as we see, but it is high enough to fit large graphics cards.

Despite these measures, the weight is greater than 5 Kg, due to the fact that it has no less than 3 faces with tempered glass and a fairly high-quality steel chassis that supports the entire tower structure and hardware. It is only available in black for now, we hope that more configurations will come out in the future.

In my opinion, it would be an interesting option to include elements with lighting , for example, an LED strip such as the SilverStone RV03-ARGB or in its fans. It would be an excellent bet for a chassis as well designed and elegant as this one.

We are located in the first instance in what has been the right side of the chassis. We will have three very similar faces, so they can practically be explained as one. All three have 4mm thick tempered glass panels with a fairly dark smoked finish, we must say, so the interior will be inconspicuous unless we have lighting installed.

If you look, the crystals end in a diagonal cut on the upper face, in fact, the front panel will be tilted to the right. In this way we will be able to perfectly identify the two sides, since their inclination will always be seen backwards and parallel on both panels.

In these two photos you can see perfectly what we say, both sides are symmetrical and end perfectly on the back plate. All of them are supported by a black hard plastic frame and as we will see later, no type of screw is necessary to hold these panels, thus greatly improving the final presentation. It almost looks like a complete crystal cube .

We only have a part with sheet metal, and of course it will be the one that remains out of the user's view in principle. It is the only one that cannot be easily removed from the chassis, since it is fixed with pins to the main steel columns.

In it we can see two openings, the lower one will be the most notorious, and it is clearly located there to allow the SFX source fan to introduce air into the interior. In addition, it has a fine mesh dust filter, installed by means of an easily removable plastic frame and without screws. The other opening simply acts as an extractor for natural air convection.

Nor do we forget the upper area, which we can see perfectly in the general shot. It is also made of plastic and those two ears or clicks that we see will allow the entire casing to be removed to access the board and GPU ports as we will see later. In it, we will have a pre-installed 120mm fan that works to extract hot air.

We have gone a bit ahead and have removed the upper casing to be able to remark that the I / O panel is, in principle, fixed to the rest of the chassis and will not be removable. The entire clamping area is made of black plastic.

In SilverStone LD03 we can find the following connections and elements:

• Power button 2x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A 3.5mm jack for audio 3.5mm jack for microphone LED activity indicator Beautification cap for power input

Perhaps the latter has been something strange to read, but it is that the 230V power connector is located in the upper area as well. An extension cable is responsible for taking the connection of the power supply outside.

We finish with the lower area of ​​the SilverStone LD03 to notice that in this area there is a pre-installed 120 mm fan to absorb air. And on it, because a large panel has been installed as a fine mesh dust filter that protects this entire area from any dirt.

The manufacturer has thought of everything, so it has left an open area right next to it that will allow the graphics cards to have a clear path for fresh air to enter this area. As a mere anecdote, we have four legs that are quite small and protected by rubber to suppress the vibrations of the set.

Process to disassemble all faces

As a curiosity, we are going to see the basic process that we must follow to undock the three main faces and the upper case of the SilverStone LD03.

We can see that the chassis will practically be left bare under our hand, and this is the best way to mount the hardware inside. First of all, we can remove the upper plastic casing just by pressing on the two tabs while pulling the element towards us. It is only held with two clicks on each side.

The next element that we must remove will be the front area, whose task will be as simple as pulling the glass out. This panel is attached with four low pressure plastic pins and is very easy to remove. So much so, that we do not recommend turning the chassis upside down in case it could fall over by accident with a sudden movement.

To remove the two glass sides, we must look at two circular anchors on both sides. These have already been used by the manufacturer for other chassis, and we only have to pull towards us gently to separate them from the metal column and thus extract the panels.

The truth is that SilverStone has done a great job on this chassis, and the fact of implementing these solutions means that we do not see a single screw on the outside. Without a doubt one of its strong points in aesthetics.

Interior and assembly

Given the way to extract all the panels, we are going to see the interior of the SilverStone LD03 which has a lot of crumb in the face of the assembly process, but not too much in terms of design elements.

Here we do not have different compartments or anything like that, although it could have been done, because there is space. The case is that we have a main plate where a Mini ITX or Mini DTX board will be placed, the two formats only supported. In it, we do not have any opening to work on the heatsink from behind, since behind we have the steel plate of the chassis. It supports CPU heatsink sizes up to 190mm in height, so no problem.

The installation mode of the board is very striking, vertical and with the I / O panel facing up, where we will have all the connections. The chassis supports a maximum graphics card size of 309mm long and 167mm wide. It is more than enough for most personalized cards. The maximum thickness is not specified, but we assure you that there is enough space for at least 55 mm (3 slots).

Just below, we find the space enabled for the power supply, which in this case must be in SFX or SFX-L format. We do not have any element or compartment to store cables for obvious reasons, but then you will see that there is plenty of space to leave everything very discreet and well ordered.

Storage capacity

The storage space enabled on the SilverStone LD03 consists of a sheet steel on the right hand side, just above the power supply. In this, we can install a total of two storage units that may be 2.5 or 3.5 inches. We can even alternate both formats in the two enabled spaces.

We do not have quick fastening brackets, but the holes for traditional screws and without anti-vibration rubbers. A fairly concise configuration in general, although a correct positioning for this hardware.

Refrigeration

Now we continue with the cooling section of the SilverStone LD03. We also don't have too many options as normal, so let's take a look at them.

We will always start with the ventilation capacity:

• Bottom: 1x 120mm Top: 1x 120mm

We only have spaces enabled in the lower and upper areas, and we also have the two pre-installed 120 mm fans. While it is true that the space is quite tight as proposed, we think that a compatibility with 140mm fans would have been a great advantage. Technically, there is space, and even needing to move some elements, it would have given more game.

We will continue with the liquid cooling capacity:

• Bottom: 120mm Top: 120mm

At least we have cooling capacity in an ITX chassis of this peculiar design. Of course, we would have liked it to support 240mm configurations on the side, for example, but this is impossible in the configuration and structure that the manufacturer has chosen.

In any case, we must accept the existing limitations due to the design and let's stay with the good, which is a lot. In fact, this ventilation configuration is the most suitable for this type of chassis, since cold air enters from below, and is expelled from above when hot. Natural convection will greatly facilitate this exchange indoors and we assure you that the flow is great.

We do not have any type of controller for the fans, so we will have to connect them to the motherboard for them to work. It is a good detail to have a hub to connect both fans in a single head of the board, although of course, this way we will not be able to manage them independently.

Installation and assembly

Now we are going to carry out the assembly for the SilverStone LD03 tower, which consists of the following elements:

• AORUS B450 I PRO WIFI motherboard and 16GB of RGBAMD Ryzen 2700X RAM with stock heatsink Wraith PRISM AMD Radeon Vega 56 PSU Corsair SF750 modular graphics card

We will start as usual by installing the power supply, and in this case they will be located inside the entire chassis. It only supports SFX sizes, and we can even remove the clamping frame to install it better, since the screws below cannot be placed if we do not remove it. This is a slight inconvenience if we are perfectionists.

Then, we must make sure to plug in the power extender cable and leave the source connected so that it powers the hardware.

Next, we recommend laying the cables on the power supply if it is modular, and then connecting the 8-pin CPU cable to the board. Why? Well, once placed, the space to install this key in the chassis is very small and it would be quite difficult to do so.

Next we must place our graphics card and the corresponding power supply. We can see that there is plenty of room for all the cables we have used, and even more that we will need for hard drives. In fact, the interior has been kept very clean with all cables well routed to its target.

After finishing the interior installation, it will be time to place the panels that cover the SilverStone LD03 chassis. We see that both the motherboard and GPU ports are in the upper area. This will be good to have them well placed for accessibility, in addition, the upper casing has multiple holes to remove them.

In the first screenshot we can see precisely the power connector, which is also located at the top and quite hidden and discreet by the plastic plate on top.

Final score

Let's go to see the final result with the finished assembly and in full operation.

Final words and conclusion about SilverStone LD03

We finish this review not without first giving our final opinion about this ITX chassis. And undoubtedly one of the main strengths is the design, very refined and original with a cube configuration with 3 faces of darkened tempered glass and without any visible screws, which greatly improves the final result.

Regarding hardware capacity, the truth is that we have very good possibilities. We are of course limited to an ITX board, but it supports graphics cards with more than 30 cm and a thickness we would say about 50-55 mm judging by everything that is left behind the Vega 56 that we have installed. Similarly, it supports full-size CPU coolers.

Regarding refrigeration, it is also very remarkable considering the adopted configuration and the cube measurements. We have a vertical system provided with two included 120mm fans that generate positive flow. Also, the vertical position of the board makes the heatsink fans stay in the flow stream as well, which is great.

We also recommend our article on the best chassis of the moment

Perhaps the only thing missing in this cassis is some integrated lighting. With the great aesthetic result that we have as a base, some interior LED strips or two RGB fans would be fabulous to mount a gaming PC. We can even install liquid cooling of 120 mm, a pity that by design it does not support 140 mm configurations for fans, and the truth is that there is space

The assembly is really comfortable and very clean, all the side panels are removable and it makes the job a lot easier. Just take into account the details that we have told during the review and everything will be perfect.

Finally, this SilverStone LD03 chassis can be found for a price of approximately 108 euros. It is a price quite in line with what it offers us, since the whole set is of high quality and with careful and studied design. The fact of being so different makes it more expensive, but more or less than expected. For our part, a highly recommended purchase for a mini PC Gaming.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ YOUR DESIGN IN GENERAL	- NO INTEGRATED LIGHTING
+ QUALITY OF MATERIALS	- DOES NOT SUPPORT 140 MM FANS
+ CAPACITY FOR LARGE HEATSINKS AND GPU
+ EXCELLENT REFRIGERATION WITH FANS INCLUDED
+ VERY SIMPLE AND QUICK ASSEMBLY AND DISASSEMBLY

The professional review team awards him the gold medal and recommended product:

SilverStone LD03

DESIGN - 92%

MATERIALS - 89%

WIRING MANAGEMENT - 79%

PRICE - 88%

87%