Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
Getting to the interior of the SilverStone FARA 512Z is a simple feat. Two thumbscrews hold in each side panel. They are easily removed, but they are not captive, so make sure you keep track of where you place them. The one side panel is tempered glass, allowing you to see inside the case. The glass connects to a steel frame, which the thumbscrews sit in to connect to the case. The back panel is a flat piece of steel. What I do appreciate about the SilverStone FARA 512Z are the cushions on the side panels. They help to ensure a clean fit without rattles when you place the side panels back on. More importantly, it is another safety measure to keep the glass from breaking. The tempered glass is also tinted meaning it does look quite dark inside. This should help in reducing the visibility of loose cables. There is a completely blacked out frame around the tempered glass, which will hide handling marks.
As with many cases, the SilverStone FARA 512Z has a large and open interior. The motherboard area has a big cutout as well, which makes installing coolers a much easier process. Accessing the backplate for any and all mounts makes the installation process much faster. The SilverStone FARA 512Z has many options for motherboards, from ATX at the largest to mini-ITX as the smallest. A couple of extra standoffs are included, so you can easily mount any of these motherboards. On this end of the case, there are plenty of cooling options. A 120mm fan can be mounted as an exhaust, although one is not included. Along the top of the case, a 280mm radiator with fans can be installed. This would obviously make accessing the top of the motherboard slightly harder, but being able to mount a 280mm radiator here is a great feature. If you are considering air cooling, the maximum height the tower can be is 162mm.
On this side of the case, we find the seven rotatable expansion slots. Having seven is fairly standard for a mid-tower case and rarely does the average consumer fill all seven. However, this will very much depend on your configuration. The rotatable expansion slots is a unique feature, meaning you can mount your graphics card horizontally instead of vertically, but you will need your own riser cable and extension slot to be able to mount the graphics card in this orientation. The SilverStone FARA 512Z does offer a bracket to support your graphics card. This type of feature is becoming more important with graphics cards growing in size and weight. Modern GPUs will put quite a bit of strain on the motherboard without support, so a bracket is tremendously helpful. The SilverStone FARA 512Z can accommodate a graphics card with a length of up to 360mm. Keep in mind that sometimes the front radiator may limit the length a bit as well. Otherwise, the SilverStone FARA 512Z has a couple of cutouts on the power supply shroud. These make it easier to hide cables and route them to where they need to be. Other than the small holes, the power supply area is completely isolated, so most air that the power supply pulls in will stay down there.
The front of the case features three 120mm ARGB fans. These are one of the major selling points for the SilverStone FARA 512Z. As well, along the front, a 360mm radiator can be installed. This would provide ample amounts of cooling for the internals. Including the front fans and the front I/O, there is a large amount of cabling heading towards the back of the case. Luckily, it is well-routed, but it is something to manage along the back. Instead of large cutouts with rubber grommets, there is a channel that hides most cables. It is also this channel which the graphics card bracket mounts to. This large cutout channel hides the cabling and makes it quite easy to route all required cables to where they need to go. I still would like rubber grommets on the other holes around the case though.
The back of the SilverStone FARA 512Z does not look too different from other cases. There are some Velcro straps to help with cable management and a fan hub to help to control the ARGB fans. This hub connects to the motherboard, which will then control the fans. Similarly, an ARGB connector runs from the hub, which needs to be plugged into the motherboard. All of this controls the front three fans. The setup is easy enough to configure and SilverStone has provided enough cable management options to make things easy to manage. There is an ample amount of room on the back of the case with about 2.5cm gap to put all of your cables.
There are a few options when it comes to storage. First is the drive cage, which can house up to two 3.5" drives. One of those two spots on the drive bay can be used to instead mount a 2.5" drive. There are two additional 2.5" drive mounts on the back of the motherboard tray. A bit of a drawback is the second 3.5" drive mount does not have rails to be mounted on, which makes a quick install or replacement a bit more problematic. Overall, this support for storage is a bit on the lower side, but it should be enough considering most modern motherboards support M.2 options. The drive area is far enough away from the power supply so you can mount a long unit. There is room to place cables to keep things clean. The drive bay can be moved around to accommodate power supplies of up to 190mm in length, depending on its position.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
