SilverStone Redline Series RL06 Pro Case Review

Introduction

After putting one of SilverStone’s cases to the test last week that promised superb performance over aesthetic pleasure, today we have another case which appears on the face of things to offer a little bit more “bling”.

In the office today we have the RL06, the newest addition to SilverStone’s Redline Series…which the company describe as their range of value products for enthusiasts. The newly released RL06 comes in 2 colour variants; black or white. The Pro versions also add red LED’s to the black tower (which we have here), and blue LED’s to the white Pro case. From the promotional shots I’ve seen of the case, it looks really nice, so it will be interesting to get some quality hands-on time with it.

Specifications

* For 120mm / 240mm radiators and fans, total thickness may not exceed 30mm depending on motherboard component clearance.

Closer Look – Exterior

The SilverStone RL06 features a steel body, with a plastic front panel, which features an interesting angular design, which gives a nod to the previous styling cues of its predecessors in the Redline range.

Dominating the front panel is a huge grill, that covers the entire width & height of the front face of the case. Surrounding the grill is a gloss red inlay, which sets of the inverse angles nicely.

The front side panel features an acrylic window, which is extremely generous in size and gives a good view into the cases main chamber. Unsurprisingly, the back side of the case is just a plain steel panel.

To the roof of the case, we have the square power button situated to the front left side, framed with LED lighting. Moving right we then come to an impressive array of USB ports, 2 USB 3.0, and 2 USB 2.0. For a value case, having four front USB ports is a real bonus.

Rounding off the I/O features is the headphone & microphone ports. Dominating the roof is a large dust filter, finished with a magnetic trim to hold it in place. It’s not the highest quality filter I’ve ever seen, but it isn’t the worst either, and more than acceptable for a value case.

Flipping the case over to look underneath, we find four large plastic moulded feet, trimmed with a very thin layer of anti-slip material. There is also a PSU filter, but it’s of a really low quality…just a thin piece of mesh, held in place with six flaps fashioned from the floor of the case.

Closer Look – Interior

Popping off the front panel was very easy…much more so than on the SilverStone KL07 I had last week. We are immediately greeted by a huge dust filter, that clips right onto the frame of the chassis. With it removed we get a peek at the wall of LED fans that are stacked up front…very impressive!

Removing the windowed side panel with two non-captive thumb screws opens up the main chamber of the case. There’s a full-length solid PSU shroud, that features a very subtle SilverStone logo. There’s plenty of room up front for a radiator to be mounted, but the bottom of the three front mounted LED fans is below the solid PSU shroud, so it’s clear that a 360mm rad is out of the question.

We can see lots of access points for passing cables through the motherboard tray, although none of them have rubber grommets, which is a shame. Finishing off the interior is a rear mounted 120mm exhaust fan.

Upon removing the rear side panel, we find two SSD mounts secured with a thumb screw each and a fan hub. Given that there was no fan control up on the I/O, it seems that this hub will just power the fans at full power 100% of the time…another clue is the Molex connector that we find tucked into the PSU bay!

Down in the basement, there are three tool-less drive bay cages, and as they are located all the way to the left of the chassis, there’s a plentiful amount of space where the PSU will be located.

That’s pretty much it for the rear of the motherboard tray. There’s a huge cut-out for installing a CPU cooler backplate, along with a few mounting points to secure the cables to when we come to the build. Talking of the build…let’s do it!

Closer Look – The Build

• CPU – Intel Core i7 6700k
• Motherboard – Asus ROG Maximus VIII Hero Alpha
• Cooler – Cooler Master TX3 EVO
• GPU – Asus ROG Radeon RX460 Strix
• RAM – Crucial Ballistix Elite 16GB DDR4 3000MHz
• SSD – Crucial MX300 525GB
• PSU – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 11 1000w

I have to be honest…building the system into the SilverStone RL06 was a pleasure. There’s plenty of space to tuck away excess cables under the PSU shroud, even using the BeQuiet Dark Power Pro, which is a pretty chunky bit of kit. I used an air cooler CPU cooler for the build, but there is plenty of room for a radiator to be fitted to either the roof or mounted to the front. In fact, with the existing LED fans fitted on the outer part of the chassis, you could quite easily fit a 240mm AIO radiator in push/pull config.

The only downside and I hate to sound like a broken record, is the lack of grommets to hide the cables passing through the motherboard tray. I understand that this is supposed to be a “value” case…but how expensive can a handful of rubber grommets add to the price of a case?

Conclusion

The SilverStone RL06 is brand new case released this week, and it’s recommended retail price comes in at £69.99 in the UK. At that price point, it has some pretty stiff competition, notably the NZXT S340, the Phanteks P400 and the Corsair Spec Alpha.

The case itself has some really interesting design cues, and whilst it will no doubt be a little garish for some, it’s certainly a striking case. It’s very easy to build in, and the open cavity of the main compartment allows for a good deal of flexibility with regards water cooling. The PSU shroud makes for a clean look, with all excess cables neatly hidden away.

Look closer though and its apparent that this is a budget case. The steel used in its construction is really quite thin, and there a fair amount of flex. The plastics used are also of a low quality, particularly the main body of the front panel. The lack of rubber grommets on the motherboard tray cut-outs are also a dead giveaway. I’m also not very fond of the different coloured wires used on the case fans. The interior of the case has been fairly nicely finished in satin black, only for those ghastly fan wires to really stand out. Surely black sleeved wires wouldn’t have broken the bank?

If the RL06 had come in at the sub £60 price point, then for the features you get, as well as four case fans included (3 of which are LED) then would have been really good value and a great buy for people on a budget. The fact that it’s up at £70 however, means that it’s up against some pretty tough competition…which are quite frankly better quality.
That’s not to say that this is a bad case, however my advice is certainly to check it out if you get the chance.

Purchase from Amazon UK: £69.99

Massive thanks to SilverStone for sending in the Redline RL06.