By: Hai Wang
May 8, 2020
I remember when I was young, the only thing I could not enjoy during the holiday season was to visit my grandparents. Please do not get me wrong, it was not because I could not get along with my grandparents. It was because of the traveling itself. We had to drive several hours to the destination. Remember that twenty years ago, there were no such things like tablets or smartphones. Yes, maybe some rich kids had a Game Boy, but that was not an option to me either. I was often so bored during the road trip and could not stop complaining to my parents. But now everything has changed. I find myself totally into road trips. Ask me why? Because now I have driver's license, and I can do the driving by myself. The thing is, you do not need to be a car enthusiast to enjoy driving. As long as you are behind the wheel, you have control of the road trip. Now I understand, it was not the road trip itself annoyed me when I was young, it was because of the lack of control, so I felt the trip was too long to tolerate. To another extent, we all love to have everything under our control. From road tripping to your computer, nothing is better than a nice do-it-yourself, right? Today's review unit, the SilverStone FARA R1, is a chassis that allows you to build your computer by yourself. Is it a good computer case for people who want to feel the whole computer building process is under their control? Let us read on and find out!
Today’s review unit was shipped from Chino, California, USA to us here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Chino is the location of SilverStone’s office in North America in pretty good condition. Usually, a good retail package design can draw people’s attention and make the product itself stand out among tens of other products on the shelf. However, the realm of computer cases is different. Most of the time, the retailer will either directly put sample cases on the shelf or just demonstrate some fully built computers using those chassis. Therefore, it is mostly unnecessary to have a fancy retail package for a computer tower. At least for me, I would not buy a computer case just because it looks great on the box. The retail package of SilverStone FARA R1 is a brown cardboard box. It shows a nice black-and-white sketch of the product. On the front, the company’s name is present. The model name "FARA R1" is located on the right side of the product picture. The clean look of the retail package may suggest the product itself will be compact and clean as well.
Upon opening the box, you will see the case is wrapped inside a big plastic bag. The plastic bag is strong enough to prevent the panels from getting scratched. You can keep the plastic bag, since it can be reused if you want to take your computer to other places. An extra layer of protection has always been a good thing. Since the whole chassis is supported by two pieces of foam brackets around the case, there is no direct contact from the shipping package and therefore no damage is found on the product. As a computer case with a sleek design, there are not a lot of things in the box other than the computer case and a user’s manual. The bag that contains all the hardware is located somewhere inside the case. We just need to take the tempered glass panel off and see.
Before we do anything else, let use quick look at the specifications of the SilverStone FARA R1 mid-tower case from their official website:
- Model No.: SST-FAR1W-G (White, tempered glass)
- Material: Steel, plastic, tempered glass
- Motherboard: ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX
- Drive bay: External N/A; Internal 3.5” x 1, 2.5” x 4
- Cooling system: Front 120mm x 3 / 140mm x 2; Rear 120mm x 1 (120mm x 1 black fan included); Side N/A; Top 120mm x 2 / 140mm x 2; Bottom N/A; Internal N/A
- Radiator support: Front 120mm / 140mm / 240mm / 280mm; Rear 120mm; Top 120mm / 240mm; Bottom N/A
- Expansion slot: 7
- Front I/O port: USB 3.0 x 2; USB 2.0 x 1; Audio x 1
- Power supply: Standard PS2 (ATX)
- Limitation of expansion card: Support up to 322mm with front fan
- Limitation of CPU cooler: 165mm
- Limitation of PSU: 160mm with 3.5” drive cage installed
- Net weight: 5 kg
- Dimension: 207mm(W) x 446mm(H) x 390 mm(D), 37 Liter; 8.15" (W) x 17.56" (H) x 15.35" (D), 37 Liter
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
