SilverStone Sugo SG07 Mini-ITX PC Case Review

SilverStone Sugo SG07 Buildout Part 2

While we didn’t complete the build with it, we couldn’t help but put the Sugo SG07 to the test by sticking in our 12.2″ Radeon HD 5970 card to see how well it fit.

It was a tight squeeze with the cables extending from the PSU but it did fit. Some manipulation of the cables to route them where they wouldn’t hinder the card fit and still reach their intended destination was necessary.

The width of the card was no problem with a few millimeters to spare. You can see just how far the card extends into the case as it is nearly 90% the length of the entire chassis.

We went with a more sane solution for a typical HTPC, snapping in a new Radeon HD 5670 by Gigabyte that features a Zalman fan rather than the reference card design so it sticks out a bit more.

As you can see, there are no clearance issues with this card and there’s roughly a half inch of room to spare.

There’s much more room in the case now with the smaller GPU and the rat’s nest of wires has a happy home in the dead space behind the PSU. This shouldn’t hurt airflow at all since there are no fans in the front of the case.

The expansion slot retention bracket was a little tricky. As you can see from the inset picture, the bracket has two prongs that fit into the area where you would find screws on most cases. These are what hold the GPU card in place. Getting the prongs in while also getting the top of the bracket cleanly under the AC socket was dicey and I thought at some point I would need to at least partially take out the AC socket but I eventually got it in OK. There isn’t much clearance there at all.

The other clearance issue I had was for the slim optical drive. If you don’t already know, these drives require different SATA data and power connectors than the normal drives. I had an adapter but as you can see there was no way I could fit the adapter plug and the normal cables due to the proximity of the 180mm fan.

Another view of the connector gives a different perspective on how it fits. This is one of several places that are a tight squeeze, yet work out.

Once everything was reassembled, it doesn’t look too cramped as I was expecting.

With the exception of the excess PSU wiring, the space is used efficiently and cable routing isn’t too much of an issue. I didn’t spend an inordinate amount of time with cable routing to make it ultra clean but what was done was sufficient.

The enclosure cover slides on easily and after fastening a few screws, the build is complete.