Page 3 – Physical Look – Inside
After removing the side panel, you can see the internal design of the SilverStone Precision PS14-E. To be consistent with the exterior, the interior of the case is also painted matte black. The paint is sprayed evenly inside the chassis. At bottom of the case, there is a power supply chamber with no ventilation holes on top. Not only is it designed to shelter the power supply, the chamber is also the place for you to put up to two 3.5" HDDs. The cool air for the power supply chamber can be blown into the case through the dust filter protected ventilation holes at the bottom of the case directly. If your SilverStone Precision PS14-E is fully loaded with fans, graphics cards, and long radiators, cool air can be pumped by the fans of up to 360 mm radiators into the chassis through the air intakes at the front panel, hit the graphics card, and be expelled out through the exhaust grille at the top panel. If the user only plans to use a small radiator or just a CPU heatsink with the top ventilation grille covered, the hot air can be expelled out through the rear exhaust grille on the back panel. A 5.25" drive bay is present in the product, though its low profile nature means it will not obstruct airflow. In addition, it is removable if you are not using it.
As a mid-tower, the SilverStone Precision PS14-E can support ATX sized motherboards and, of course, smaller boards such as micro ATX and mini ITX. All motherboard risers were screwed on to the tray from the factory. Users do not need to apply the required risers according to the size of motherboard that will be used. After bolting the motherboard into position, the heatsink or water cooler block can then be easily installed and removed, thanks to the big rectangular opening on the tray. From the above photo, you can see there is a 120 mm fan from the factory on the case’s rear exhaust opening. If the user wants to use a closed loop water cooler system, it requires an extra step to install the radiator directly onto the chassis, which is to remove the preinstalled fan. The expansion slot covers of this chassis feature slotted holes to allow better ventilation, but I would prefer for it to be a solid piece for better dust prevention, since I really doubt it makes a significant difference to just have several small holes here.
5.25" drive bays have been on personal computers since early 1980s. Nowadays, USB flash drives and the Internet have practically replaced the need for these old drives. However, if you have some old games, you may still need the old disc reader. On the other hand, if you do not need the 5.25" drive bay, it can be easily removed. I like this design a lot, since it means the users can decide whether to keep the 5.25" drive bay or not. From the above photo, it can be seen the place has enough room for up to three 120 mm fans behind the front panel if the 5.25" drive bay is removed. However, not a single fan is provided at the front by SilverStone and I would like to see at least one fan at the front. To keep the computer components clean, dust filters are expected behind the front panel. However, in this case, there is no dust filter provided for the front panel. The case can fit graphics cards up to 357 mm long without the front fan mounted. For those long and heavy graphics cards, there is one GPU holder for additional support is available from the factory.
Upon removing the right side panel, you will see the other side of the lower chamber and the motherboard tray. Two 3.5" HDD trays are located to the left side of the power supply area for easy installing and removing of the hard drives. For the 2.5" drives, you just need to screw them on to the motherboard tray. In total, you can have up to four 2.5" drives installed in the case. Regarding cable management, SilverStone did a fairly good job here. Between the motherboard tray and the right side panel, the room for cable routing is about 15 mm, which should be sufficient for most cables. According to the above picture, no Velcro straps are included, which would have helped for better cable management. By the way, there are two long openings to route cables. Even though there are no rubber grommets on the openings, the metal is not sharp at all. There is no need to worry about the safety of the cables or your fingers during installation.
Generally speaking, the interior design of the SilverStone Precision PS14-E is pretty good. All of the components you need for building a computer can be nicely accommodated and kept cool. The paint job quality of the interior is also good. More importantly, you do not to be an expert to route cables to do a good job, since there are big openings to allow easy connections between the PSU and the motherboard.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
