Silverstone’s sprawling LD03 gets a cramped facelift in its revamped 2020 model

Final twelve months, Silverstone released the Lucid LD03, a slender micro tower swathed in darkish tempered glass. Love its inspiration—the company’s standard FT03, which got here out in 2011—this mini-ITX case both rotates the motherboard by 90 degrees and vents air out the tip.

Now Silverstone has adopted up with the LD03-AF, a 2nd-abilities model that sports activities a key update in conserving with feedback on the first model. As you’ll factor in in our video above, undoubtedly some of the case’s three tempered-glass panels has a cutout to beef up air drift all the design in which by design of the graphics card and tackle concerns about GPU temperature. In theory, this addition would possibly well mute reduction decrease temperatures by permitting a graphics card’s fans to appeal to cool air from initiate air the case.

The other primary change is likely some of the many entrance I/O ports, where you’ll now secure a USB-C port slightly than a 2nd USB-A. Originate air of these two form tweaks, the LD03-AF is basically the a linked as sooner than—so the controversy over its layout and classification as a little-build-swear case will rage on. At a quantity of 26 liters, it’s significant bigger than a peculiar SFF case (on the total 20L or less), and the truth that it most attention-grabbing supports two 120mm fans, two storage drives, and little-build-swear vitality provides (SFX and SFX-L) opens it as much as criticism over a lack of home effectivity.

Formally, the Lucid LD03-AF launched in June 2020, but we’ve yet to investigate cross-check it in stock (or even lend a hand in stock) at main U.S. retailers. On the time of this article, the specific model we stumbled on used to be the 2019 LD03 on Amazon at an inflated note. When it does become on hand, rely on the likelihood that it would possibly probably maybe well presumably be priced elevated than its MSRP of $130; between a elevated quiz for laptop ingredients and third-birthday party resellers, costs would possibly well rise.