As reported by SilverStone, during a past interview, which follows below, it is not necessary to make openings in the side panel in order to increase thermal performances. On the contrary the overall design is decisive.

Taken from " Ventilation, solutions and concepts" article "SilverStone, seeking the  excellence"

We prefer to use fans that can still be used to fit the width of the case, so you don’t use fans to go larger than 20 cm in diameter. Even if you put an even bigger fan on the side panel, to help cooling the graphics card, it won’t always be an improvement, in general terms. A well-designed case should not rely on ventilation, right on the large side panel, with the aim of good cooling performance. We have shown that this is true especially with the TJ10, which is officially certified for use with NVIDIA 3-way SLI.

As we will see, the system used by SilverStone has allowed to excel in one of the most important areas of modern cabinets, the heat dissipation of the CPU, GPU and even the Hard Disks !

We list now the main features of the TJ11, which are selected and picked from the entire SilverStone lineup, in order to build the cabinet "par excellence":

• Layout with compartments inspired by the TJ07
• See-through air vents from the TJ09 model
• 90° rotated motherboard, from the RAVEN RV01 model
• Two Air Penetrator fans included
• Dedicated room for liquid cooling components
• Opening in the motherboard tray to facilitate the assembly / disassembly of the heat sink
• Supports motherboards with a width up to 27.94 cm (11 ")
• Support for dual power supplies
• Big room for the ventilation of the tenth PCI expansion card
• Dissipation system based on the "stack effect", which exploits the natural convection of heat
• Support for motherboards with up to nine expansion slots, (XL-ATX)
• Modern and elegant design for the aluminum front, Unibody aluminum structure
• Advanced design for dust filters removal, although they are not magnetic (NOTE: SilverStone has put magnetic filters in the new revisions, including in the sample analyzed today)
• Advanced system for cable management
• Supports up to 6 3.5" hard drives and there is also a proprietary system to install SSD.
• Power is shared via a Hot-swap system
• Includes six proprietary connectors CP05, hot-swappable for instant removal of the hard disks
• Anodized aluminum structure with sandblasted finish, very durable, very strong and incredibly elegant. The process is proprietary and follows precise standards of production, quality control and assembly, with sophisticated procedures that allow to ensure the highest quality for the frame and for painting. This is one of the main features of the SilverStone brand. The TJ11 is completely assembled without rivets.
• Provides a good cooling system for hard disks, characterized by the presence of two 120mm rear fans and by the use of a horizontally rotated mounting system, which allows immediate removal of units and best heat dissipation. This system has already been implemented in the SilverStone FT01 and FT02.
• The weight is high but not excessive. The TJ11 grants compatibility with ATX, E-ATX, XL-ATX, SSI, Micro-ATX and mini-ITX motherboard standards. The internal layout is advanced, although now there are some points that need some modernization.
• Almost tool-less layout for easier assembly of 5.25" peripherals; however, it still needs large amount of dedicated screws, a feature that nevertheless provides great stability to the components.
• Perfect ventilation and internal dissipation. Standing ovation for the engineers!
• Dust filters easily removable for cleaning, at the base and rear, for the PSU and the two 180mm fans (which however must also be removed). SilverStone magnetic filters have been included in this last version.