SilverStone ALTA T1 Unibody Super Tower Case Review

One of my favorite cases from SilverStone was the TJ10.  This was a fully aluminum tower case designed with multiple cooling zones for key components.  For instance, your rotational drives lived in a special cooling area at the front of the case while behind them was a fully open area to bring fresh air into the main body to cool your graphics cards.  The TJ10 was part of the Temjin Series and featured several high-end case designs that ranged from full towers like the JT04 down to smaller Form Factor designs like the TJ08.  A unique feature of the Temjin Series was the inclusion of Aluminum parts.  I mentioned how the JT10 was fully aluminum while the TJ04 was mostly steel with the front bezel featuring an anodized finish with machined edges.  Overall, the cases were extremely nice at the time and have become cost prohibitive due to the cost of raw materials.

In this review we will be looking at the SilverStone ALTA T1.  According to SilverStone this case is a Super Tower supporting the largest motherboards, multiple graphics cards and dual power supplies.  Despite the solid unibody design the case supports triple 420mm radiators and up to nine storage drives mixed between 3.5” and 2.5” configurations.

I have seen this pre-release versiosn of this case several times at Computex and kept thinking to myself, "I have seen this case before".  It wasn’t until I started doing some searches though the Ninjalane archives that it hit me, the TJ07

In the early 2000’s SilverStone was releasing a new Temjin chassis design almost every year and one popular designs was the Temjin TJ07 which featured a revolutionary unibody design that wrapped a thick aluminum panel around four sides of the chassis.  Much like the TJ10, this case was fully aluminum with a removable motherboard tray, stacker style external drive bays and cross flow cooling.  A down-market edition of the TJ07 was also released called the Fortress FT01 featuring a similar unibody design but with several cost saving features added such as more steel and plastic parts and two 180mm air penetrator fans.

Model No: SST-ALT1B

Material: Aluminum unibody frame, steel

Motherboard: SSI-EEB/ SSI-CEB/ Extended ATX/ ATX/ Micro-ATX/ Mini-ITX

Drive bay: 3.5" x 2(without left-side radiator or fan installed) / 2x - 3.5" or 2.5" / 5x - 2.5"

Cooling system

• Front: Supports 120mm × 2 reservoir, or distro plate only
• Rear: 120mm × 1 (pre-installed 120mm x 1 black fan)
• Top: 140mm x 3 / 120mm x 3 / 160mm x 3
• Left Side: 140mm x 3 / 120mm x 3 (pre-installed 140mm x 3 black fan)
• Right side: 140mm x 3 /120mm x3

Radiator support

• Rear: 120mm
• Top: 120 /140 / 240 / 280 / 360/ 420mm
• Left Side: 120 /140 / 240 / 280 / 360/ 420mm(*(Second PSU installation NOT supported))
• Right side: 120 /140 / 240 / 280 / 360/ 420mm

Limitation of CPU cooler: w/ expansion card retainer: 165mm / w/o expansion card retainer: 188mm

Expansion slot: 8

Limitation of expansion card

• Length: w right side radiator: 404mm / w/o right side radiator: 549mm
• Width: w/ expansion card retainer: 162mm / w/o expansion card retainer: 193mm

Power supply

• Primary: ATX / Mini Redundant / 2U CRPS Redundant
• Secondary: ATX( *When a second ATX PSU is installed, the left-side radiator/fan mounts and the two drive bays behind the PSU cage cannot be installed.)

Limitation of PSU: Primary: 320mm / Secondary: Unlimited

Front I/O port: USB Type-C x 2, USB 3.0 x 2, Combo audio x 1

Dimension: 250 mm (W) × 669 mm (H) × 592 mm (D), 99 liters / 9.84" (W) × 26.34" (H) × 23.31" (D), 99 liters
Height includes 52 mm caster wheels.

Net weight: 19.4KG