august 14 2010 review by burnedin

The Sugo SG-04 is the successor of the SG-03 SFF case. This case is a newer revision of their original SG-04, with a few mprovements between the two. This newer case has two SKUs, one with the top handle and the side vent: the SST-SG04B-FH, and one without: the SST-SG04B-F. They are also available in silver: the SST-SG04S-F and the SST-SG04S-FH.

Bundle:

The SG-04's bundle is fairly standard. A good Manual, some cable ties, a bag of screws. Of interest here is the 4-pin ATX12V extender- this is designed to be connected to the socket before installing the PSU, allowing the cable to reach even while the PSU is installed. This can also be avoided by connecting the 4-pin connector just before the PSU is installed. Additionally, we have an optical drive cover, which is secured to the front of the optical drive's tray with the provided 3M mounting tape. SilverStone includes this to avoid breaking up the front-panel theme with an ugly DVD drive.

Overall, the build stage did not make it feel as if the case was worth its asking price, but that's the compromise you make for the size. There really isn't any room to add more features than what SilverStone already has in the case, and compatibility is impressive. The Sugo has no problem fitting even the longest 1000W+ PSUs, and it fits dual 10.5" video cards quite well, but you cannot place a Radeon HD 5970.

Test Setup:

• CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
• CPU Cooler : Stock
• HDD : Samsung SpinPoint F3 250GB
• Mainboard : Intel DG965OT
• Memory : 2x1GB DDR2 800MHz Crucial Ballistix
• Optical drive : HP DVD+/-RW
• OS : Windows 7 Home Premium x64
• PSU : PC Power & Cooling Silencer 420W
• Video card : GeForce 9800GTOC

Conclusion: The Sugo SG-04 seems a worthy successor to the SG-03 series. The build of the case is incredibly high quality, and you can't get a case much smaller than this one unless you move down the the miniITX formfactor, which of course brings even more sacrifices than mATX. If you're wanting a powerful SFF computer, the SG-04 is your ticket to a solid case. A few minors of this expensive enclosure are the cramped interior, thare are no no tool-less features, the CPU cooler height is limited.