Silverstone CS383. Do my eyes decieve me or is it my dream case?!

Hardware Hub Cases / Chassis
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I’ve just been looking at the product images on the Silverstone Tek website and I’m afraid my interest has just all but evaporated.

The production version of the case has one very significant change that has taken it from a guaranteed purchase for me, to an almost guaranteed hard pass… which really, really sucks.

The version of the case shown Computex 2024 uses two 3x 5.25" to 4x 3.5" HDD cages. Meaning that the case potentially had 10x 5.25" bays. But the production version looks to have two built in 4x 3.5" bay modules, which whilst they appear to use standard 5.25" bay mounting, are also integrated into the front bezel.

The optimist in me would like to think that the bezel looks like it wouldn’t be too difficult to modify, and that because the CS383 appears to still have standard 5.25" mounting positioning… my dream of the case with 10x 5.25" bays might be possible still. I can’t help but ask why Silverstone went this route though?

Using 5.25" HDD cages would have opened up more use cases for the case. Not least of which being removing the cages altogether to get some more airflow to the GPUs. GPU cooling has always been the biggest question mark that I was waiting for reviews to answer. Now the case has the solid front bezel, I’d be amazed if two high end GPUs, as shown at Computex, can stay cool in the CS383 without sounding like a leaf blower.

Let’s also not forget that using standard 5.25" mounting would also have given the consumer more choice and more repairability… but perhaps therein lies the answer as to why Silverstone made the choices that they did?

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It certainly looks like all the 5.25" bays could be recovered with a different front bezel.

I’m kind of disappointed in how big the case has become compared to how many bays it has.

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I don’t think that the CS383 is primarily aimed at the NAS market. I think that it’s target audience is AI / LLM developers who need a fair bit of local storage, as well as a lot of GPU performance but who want such a system in a desktop tower format.

For such users though, perhaps having the possibility of another couple of 3.5" disks (in 3x 5.25" to 5x 3.5" cages) would have been as big of a plus for them as it would have been to me?

Since writing my previous comment, I have cooled off a bit and after looking at the photos again, I am very slightly cautiously optimistic.

The front bezel looks like it might be made up of two parts or more. My current copium is that there is an outer bezel which forms the exterior of the front bezel as well as the frame for the door, and an inner part which is entirely covered by the door. It does look like that in some shots on the website but not others.

If that’s the case, then it raises the possibility that modding the CS383 to have the full compliment of optical drive bays, might not involve cutting the case but rather just dissembling the front bezel and door, and then maybe replacing part of it with something 3D printed. That would be the ideal scenario.

I’m gonna wait for some proper reviews of the case in order to get a better idea of the feasibility of such a mod. Because, as the product images on the Silverstone website look to be renderings and lower res ones at that, it’s difficult to make out enough detail.

I might also email Silverstone and enquire about the availability of replacement front bezels… it’d be a lot less of a gamble, modding the case, if I could replace anything that I destroy.

I hope that we get a good look at that area in any upcoming reviews. It’d be especially helpful to have some clear shots of the rear side of the front bezel when it is removed, as well as the case itself. Including whether there’s anything else that might make such a mod difficult or even practically impossible for a novice case modder.

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I had a CS380, but the cooling of the drives was insufficient, so I replaced the case after three months with a RAIJINTEK Zofos Ultra case.
Yes, it doesn’t have hotswap, but it offers plenty of space, and I don’t need hotswap for privat use.
In my experience so far, all the consumer grade hotswap solutions are garbage

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Did you look at the downloadable high res images? There are some real pictures as well as renders in there

I see this as well in the real pictures, so should be removable. And another real picture shows 5.25" mounting holes the whole height on its right side, the bottom 2 slots seems to be missing full length holes and the one above seems to be behind a rail, but there’s only a rendered image for that side.

I hope someone takes this case apart and shows some pictures

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I have seen them but thank you for mentioning them non the less.

I’m starting too cool on the idea of it being multiple parts. My original theory was based on me thinking that there were certain parts of the bezel that would be difficult to achieve with a single injection mould but I think I may be wrong there. In any event though, having 5.25" bays at the top and the bottom of the case hopefully simplifies any potential cuts that would need to be made, to just straight cuts with a clearly defined beginning and end.

If you look at the rendered images of the left (motherboard chamber) side of the case, you’ll see that there are full length mounting holes up the entire height of the plate, including where the 8x 3.5" cage(s) is, yet there’s no sign of screws for the 8x 3.5" cage(s). The same is true of the rendered shot of the right side (back of the motherboard). There’s also no obvious way that the 3.5" cages could be screwed into any short length 5.25" holes (which non of the images show). Which would lead me to believe that the renders are not 100% reliable in terms of small details such as screws… the mounting holes are there though.

As further proof of the renders demonstrating functionality without them being 100% true to life. You only have to look at the pictures with the mocked up AIO cooler. The hoses, on there way paste a mock motherboard chipset labelled “Tomatillo”, bend at right angles. Perhaps it’s meant to be hardline water cooling though.

As for a rail being in the way of the screw holes. There is a larger access hole for a screwdriver, that would line up with one of the holes blocked by the rail.

Speaking of rendered images… I’m gonna split this post in two, save it becoming too long.

[EDIT] I was gonna make this a separate post but I that rather than go into excessive detail, I can be much more brief.

The product image on the Silverstone website that shows the case’s dimensions, is clearly marked incorrectly. It shows the case as being 528mm tall and 588mm deep, when it should be the other way around. I’ve sent Silverstone a quick email letting them know about this.

I’m currently trying to make a 3D model of the case, which is where I verified that the dimensions above are transposed. I also found that the closest I can get to scaling the product images so that the case is 528mm tall and 588mm deep, is if I include the case’s feet (as is the usual convention) and if I included the side panel thumb screws in the depth measurement… which seams little odd to me. I don’t remember cases doing that in their product specs?

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Aha! Thought I’d update myself on this today and was very pleased to see the Silverstone page as the first result.

After reading through all your messages, I think I echo a fair bit of how some of you feel on the front bezel. I’m a bit confused why they went down the path of building an aesthetic facade that really limits what those 5.25’ bays can be used for but I’m lucky that it seems to fit with my usecase.

For me, I don’t expect to want to ever have more than 2 43.5’ vdevs (well sorta, as I have dual actuator drives) and all I needed was two adjacent 5.25’ bays for an icydock 162.5’ conversion. It would be nice if those other two 5.25’ bays were adjacent for shenanigan, but oh well.

Altogether, I’m still excited as this will be well below the price of anything like it in Australia. I just wish it was a better fit for the rest of you.

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Oops markdown :slight_smile:

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One more bit of kvetching…

One of the issues I had noticed about the case is, that like the majority of other cases on the market, it’s PSU dust filter is removed from the rear. Which is especially annoying when your case is as large and as heavy as a fully laden CS383, that could weigh well over 20kg… it’d be so heavy in fact, that I doubt it could even make it off the ground, let alone have a measurable airspeed velocity.

I had dismissed this criticism though as it’s far from being unique to the CS383. In fact, it seams like Fractal Design either has a patent on it, or other manufactures would also rather just save the few cents that it’d cost in a larger dust filter, and the machining to the bottom of the case. Because it seams that Fractal are the only ones doing it.

Then I realised that it’s especially noteworthy in the case of the CS383, as it touts it’s ability to have two ATX PSUs installed. The second of which would be in place of the 3x 5.25" at the bottom front of the case. Unfortunately that area of the case’s floor, is not ventilated. It does look like there would still plenty of clearance for airflow to the second PSU but it’s still an area of the case that I have a question mark over, and which I look forward to seeing in upcoming reviews.

Man… I’m really nitpicking this thing aren’t I?

One more thing. Another thing that clicked in my head last night is that the CS383 is 248mm wide. For a case that uses a conventional, front to back cooling design. As opposed to all the screwy layouts these modern, tempered glass monstrosities use… that’s really wide! I’m guessing a lot of it comes down to the GPU support bracket and the slightly odd inclusion of a 3.5" on the backside of the motherboard tray but hey, it should mean cable management should be a doddle.

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50

still waiting to get this wonderful case from any retailer here in Europe D:

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I may have found the first product listing for the CS383 but I can’t say for sure because the website in question never loads. When the page in question turns up in search results (linked below), it appears to show a price of “nt $ 9290”. Which covnerted to GBP and USD, works out as £230 and $308 respectively. I would point out though that I have no idea whether these prices include local taxes and that the website, like SIlverstoneTek, is Taiwanese. So the price will likely be much cheaper than anywhere where the case has to be shipped to. Hopefully though it may indicate that the case won’t get too close to, or too far beyond the $400 price point that Steve from Gamers Nexus mentioned in his Computex 2024 video.

[EDIT] I didn’t realise that repeating the same search seams to yield different results each time. So here’s a screenshot instead.

cs383-9290-site-nt66.com.tw
cs383-9290-site-nt66.com.tw1398×908 115 KB

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Fingers crossed!! :slight_smile:

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Has anyone seen any good coverage on the 383 from computex? Gamers nexus pan past it in their video on Silverstone’s booth but I’ve not seen anyone look at it closely yet. Hoping to see what people think about it hands on!

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I’ve been searching and searching but haven’t found anything that focuses on the CS383, or adds any new information. I have a found a few pictures from 2024 that are new to me though but non of them show anything we didn’t already know about.

I think a lot of the spotlight is being stolen by the admittedly lovely FLP02… if it wasn’t for the CS383, I’d have my sights set on the FLP02.

[EDIT] I’ve just found a video from Computex 2024, that is new to me… it was only uploaded a month ago. It’s the best look at the CS383 that I’ve found so far but it is the prototype version of the case. https://youtu.be/Ezb0sf3vHm8?si=xZnPzkl_Ymv2ygX_&t=134

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