Silverstone’s sprawling LD03 gets a slight facelift in its revamped 2020 version

Last year, Silverstone released the Lucid LD03, a slender micro tower swathed in dark tempered glass. Like its inspiration—the company’s popular FT03, which came out in 2011—this mini-ITX case both rotates the motherboard by 90 degrees and vents air out the top.

Now Silverstone has followed up with the LD03-AF, a second-generation version that sports a key update in response to feedback on the first model. As you’ll see in our video above, one of the case’s three tempered-glass panels has a cutout to improve air flow around the graphics card and address concerns about GPU temperature. In theory, this addition should help lower temperatures by allowing a graphics card’s fans to draw in cool air from outside the case.

The other notable change is among the front I/O ports, where you’ll now find a USB-C port instead of a second USB-A. Outside of these two design tweaks, the LD03-AF is largely the same as before—so the debate over its layout and classification as a small-form-factor case will rage on. At a volume of 26 liters, it’s much bigger than a typical SFF case (usually 20L or less), and the fact that it only supports two 120mm fans, two storage drives, and small-form-factor power supplies (SFX and SFX-L) opens it up to criticism over a lack of space efficiency.

Officially, the Lucid LD03-AF launched in June 2020, but we’ve yet to see it in stock (or perhaps back in stock) at major U.S. retailers. At the time of this article, the only version we found was the 2019 LD03 on Amazon at an inflated price. When it does become available, expect the possibility that it may be priced higher than its MSRP of $130; between a higher demand for computer components and third-party resellers, prices may rise.