Initially designed for the venerable dwelling theater PC (HTPC) market, SilverStone’s Milo collection of PC instances has shifted from components designed to slide stealthily into a house leisure media rack to horizontal/vertical convertibles that may go anyplace you would possibly in any other case put a gaming console. That’s to not say you couldn’t put the corporate’s versatile Milo 12 chassis in your workplace, however most of us don’t want house for a triple-slot graphics card in our workplace PCs. The $179.99 Milo 12 (technically, mannequin SST-ML12B) seems to be designed for gaming, along with every little thing else that you just would possibly do with a slim Mini-ITX PC, however you will wish to be a bit cautious of pushing efficiency (and thus, warmth) too far on this tightly knit, barely expensive field.
The Design: Much less Is Much less
The Milo 12 weighs solely 11 kilos, so we anticipated little greater than a primary case with its slots turned sideways to allow a slimmer profile. SilverStone stunned us by flipping a number of options round in order that our preliminary pictures confirmed the case the other way up. However that was just about the one shock added to its plastic-faced, steel-shell building.
The route (up or down) is dictated by how SilverStone wished to put the Milo 12’s energy provide (backside) and graphics card (prime), and consumers can flip it round to a extra acquainted orientation of their alternative. In spite of everything, flipping the case upside-down would appropriate the USB Sort-A port orientation, and nothing within the design of the ft prevents this various.
The 2 vented aspect panels are similar and, regardless of appearances, not designed for use on a VESA wall mount. Whereas the blocked-in sq. could also be designed to assist the stand of a light-weight flat-panel monitor when utilizing the case in its horizontal (traditional “desktop”) place, these panels usually are not strengthened for mounting, or for supporting something heavier on prime.
The rear panel, with its three growth slots, I/O defend gap and adjoining vent, and power-supply extension socket, are additionally viewable from this angle.
Laying the Milo 12 on its left aspect exposes the motherboard tray and power-supply bay. There’s solely room for Mini-ITX boards, however the power-supply bay helps each PS/2-casing ATX12V and SFX/SFX-L provides as much as 185mm deep together with cables. (SilverStone charges the depth at 165mm, however that may have been a casing suggestion that left 20mm allowance for cable bends.) Two 2.5-inch drive trays are discovered atop the house adjoining to the motherboard, and a 3rd 2.5-inch drive bay occupies an inset on the entrance of the case. Beneath the entrance 2.5-inch bay is the slot for a slim optical drive that sits behind the power-supply bay.
An SFX adapter suits contained in the bigger power-supply bay, however the truth that a few of its screw holes aren’t reachable implies that including any energy provide begins with, at a minimal, pulling the adapter tray out to both mount an SFX-L unit to it or to place an ATX12V (PS/2-sized) unit as a replacement. A fourth 2.5-inch drive tray is positioned between the power-supply bay and the again of the case, behind the ability provide’s extension cable.
Flipping the Milo 12 in order that the motherboard compartment is upside-down reveals the graphics-card compartment in all its triple-slot-thickness glory. Becoming the case with an 80mm fan mount up entrance, SilverStone says that it helps graphics playing cards as much as 345mm lengthy. The narrowness of the hole within the tray behind the fan mount combines with the mount’s inset screw holes to restrict fan thickness to a mere 15mm, which we predict is foolish since all of our 80mm followers are 25mm thick. No matter fan presence or thickness, the mix of GPU size and fan thickness wants to suit throughout the 355mm distance between the entrance and rear panels.
Apprehensive about mud management? So have been we! The Milo 12 options completely hooked up filters on the aspect panels (held in by adhesive) and entrance panel (by folded tabs), and leaves the ends (prime and backside in tower orientation) unfiltered as exhaust vents. Oh, and in case you have been questioning about including a slim optical drive, the bay cowl unsnaps from the within, and you are able to do that in the event you’re nonetheless on the CD prepare.
Constructing With the SilverStone Milo 12
The Milo 12 is full of an uncommon accent set. You get a versatile GPU riser cable and set up screws to affix one finish of the riser equipment to the case. The chassis vertical stand is the massive plastic “X” you see right here, together with 4 half-inch-thick, self-adhesive rubber ft (they’re hemispheres) for sticking on the corners of the left aspect panel when utilizing the system in horizontal orientation.
Two screws and a tab are included for securing the again of a slim optical drive to the portion of the motherboard tray that runs below the ability provide. Additionally within the field: 5 ratcheting cable ties, and a pack of screws for affixing inside elements.
The inside header cables embody a front-panel button/LED group, HD Audio for the entrance panel’s combo audio jack, a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 header for the Sort-C port, and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 header for the 2 Sort-A ports.
We ditched the Milo 12’s SFX adapter plate in favor of the one which got here with our personal SFX energy provide, and used the case’s optical drive bay as a helpful cable path for each the ATX and ATX12V (EPS/EPS12V) leads. Our CPU cooler cleared the aspect panel by slightly greater than a quarter-inch, however a spot greater than an inch in width separated our graphics cooler from the aspect panel. All cool there…at the least by way of fitment.
Our most up-to-date case-testing components combine suits practically something with even a single 120mm fan mount, however the Milo 12 doesn’t attain that set up minimal. Digging by way of a pile of older slim CPU coolers to search out one with sufficient energy for our mildly overclocked Core i5 we use for case thermal and acoustic testing, Scythe’s Large Shuriken 2 Rev. B stood out as having a big sufficient sink however too little fan, and its KazeFlex 120 fan would give us the additional airflow we would have liked. Whereas our unique RGB reminiscence turned out to be too tall to suit below the choice CPU cooler, Essential’s new Professional Collection DDR4-3200 supplies the diminished profile wanted to clear its overhang.
Our system initially examined cool sufficient to run our unique 4.8GHz overclock, however placing it within the case turned it right into a warmth monster. We dropped the frequency by 200MHz and voltage by 50mV to convey issues again below management. Here is a breakout of all of the bits we used…
We wished to be as honest as attainable in testing the Milo 12, however we don’t have any current instances with comparable cooling limitations to match. So, we pulled the panels off to learn the way nicely our take a look at system carried out within the Milo 12’s vertical orientation, then put all of the panels again on to learn the way a lot the case would limit cooling to the important thing elements.
Testing the SilverStone Milo 12: Sizzling Stuff
No, your eyes usually are not deceiving you: These are temperature deltas for the Milo 12, not the total studying. (Good factor the room was cool?) Placing the Milo 12’s aspect panels again on pushed our CPU temperatures 10 levels C additional into the toasty zone in contrast with the identical system fully opened.
Our voltage regulator temperature, in the meantime, was “solely” 8 levels C hotter with the case closed than open.
GPU temperatures rose by a full 13 levels C after closing the case. The bigger affect when in comparison with CPU temperatures might be due, partly, to the larger distance between the GPU’s cooler meeting and the Milo 12’s aspect panel.
Surprisingly, we didn’t measure an SPL distinction between the closed and open configurations, at the least when listening from the entrance/proper nook. The left aspect panel seems to have slightly extra impact on decreasing GPU noise, however not a lot.
A great case would assist to ship cool air to elements whereas additionally serving to to dam within the noise of these elements’ followers, and we haven’t seen a really perfect compact case but. Conversely, the Milo 12 has little affect on noise however takes a very excessive toll on temperatures, when in comparison with the identical elements, in the identical place, in open air.
The Verdict: Discover a Method to Hold Your Cool
We should always in all probability deal with the Milo 12 as a modernized model of an HTPC case and never a compact gaming beast, since our checks present that it isn’t very nicely suited to housing extremely burdened midrange gaming {hardware}. Whereas it appears a disgrace to restrict a case with so massive a graphics-card bay to such menial work, the presence of 4 2.5-inch drive bays implies that it’s at the least designed to fill that traditional HTPC function with ample native storage. This is not your supreme compact gaming case by a protracted shot, however you may whoop it up with CDs, DVDs, and domestically saved media to your coronary heart’s content material, and get together prefer it’s the early 2000s.
