Silverstone Fortress FT01
by Christoph Katzer on November 10, 2008 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Interior
The side panels are attached with three screws; once these are removed, you need to lift up the lever to unlock the panels. To secure the chassis for LAN parties or similar gatherings, you can lock the lever with a small lock (not included with the chassis). Once you lift up the lever, the side panel releases and you can remove it easily.
The inside shows a very sleek design with the hard drives in the bottom of the front directly behind the 180mm fan. The optical drives sit in the top and are secured with a tool-less mounting system that we will describe later. Despite the size of the chassis, there is only space for a standard ATX form factor (or smaller) motherboard, since there isn't a lot of space on the right side of the case.
Each hard drive has its own drive bay together with a plastic frame. To get the frame out of the bay you will need to lift up the small lever on the right side and pull it towards yourself. There are two main frames for these drive bays; the lower one contains three mounting slots and the upper one four, allowing you to easily install up to seven hard drives. The side of the main frame contains large openings through which the air can flow. Since a large fan is right in front of the drives, it is necessary to leave enough space for the air to come through. The drives mount backwards, which means the jacks go in first. You will need to open the second side panel to attach cables and connectors to the hard drives. You can then guide the cables through the three long openings "behind" the drive cages.
Both intake fans have a filter installed right in front of them, which is one of the benefits of the positive pressure cooling design. Both filters appear to be easily accessible and therefore easy to clean. That's especially important given the large fans, since they will move lots of air and dust. The problem is, only the front air filter can actually be removed without some extra effort. The front filter simply slides out the side, but to get at the top filter you need to remove two screws, slide the fan towards the front, and then it will drop out -- at which point you can access the filter and clean it. Depending on what components you have installed in your system, however, getting at the two screws that need to be removed could prove difficult short of uninstalling some of the other components.
It's possible to route some cables behind the motherboard tray, but we couldn't fit all of the cables back there. We managed to put the fan cables there, but the cable for the 8-pin EPS12V connector was unfortunately too thick. There's a reason for the lack of space, however: acoustic dampening foam attached to both side panels. This should reduce noise emissions, and it should be particularly useful for those looking to build silent/near-silent systems. However, it doesn't help us much when you install a high-end (and loud) system like our test configuration.
The optical drives are secured with an easy screw-less mechanism; you just press the top of the button for each bay and it releases the drive. Of course, this may not work as well with nonstandard 5.25" options like fan controllers, so be warned that the mounting mechanism is primarily targeted at full size 5.25" devices. Screwless mounting of devices is possible, should you desire.
The power supply has another large opening right below it, which is good if you are running a power supply with a fan on the bottom. Silverstone also includes a filter here, which will help reduce dust buildup inside the power supply (at the cost of some airflow). It also means the power supply should run cooler, since it will have direct access to a fresh air supply. If you use such a power supply, it will not facilitate cooling of the main compartment, but the positive air pressure within the chassis means that shouldn't be a problem. That doesn't apply for users running a power supply with an 80mm fan, but we would generally recommend against that for this particular case.
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Zepper - Monday, November 24, 2008 - link
I notice that the author didn't bother to convert the measurements into English units - isn't this a mainly American site where only a minority is really fluent in Metric? It is basically a maxi-mid tower of about 19x8x20 (HWD) inches (assuming the values in the Specs. table are accurate) - SST has been known to be inaccurate in their specs tables and this one looks like it was "borrowed" directly from their Web site, so I do my own measurements and weighing.Otherwise and interesting, but not knockout case. Looks too much like Lian Li at first glance, but L-L would seldom round the edges like that.
.bh.
anartik - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
Even the best of cases have some design issues and tradeoffs depending on its intended use. I think if you are looking for an air cooling only case or plan to use external WC the Fortress rocks in its simple high tech aesthetics. People whine about $200 for a case but in the scheme of premium, all aluminum cases it’s a pretty good deal. If you want fuzzy dice, uh bling, you can still do it tastefully with a window and some internal lighting. I hope SS offers a windowed version, as they usually do, and it’s not that crappy looking window they put on the TJ07 and others. If not… buy a nice window kit and install it yourself.The one thing I would really question is putting that 180mm top intake right on top the single 120mm exhaust and the overall air flow. I would have to suspect it is going to interfere with the airflow of some vertical CPU coolers. The one thing I would add to that case is a 3 bay intake (i.e. Kama Bay) w/ a 120 or 140mm fan. That might be the solution for the Fortress to provide better air flow to one or more video cards while increasing positive air pressure. IMO positive is the way to go for dust control where the dust is limited to your filtered intakes. Every week or two I wipe off my front panel and maybe every few months the two 140mm intake filters get cleaned. Overall the inside of the case stays clean. Nice case but for a little more money I think Lian Li still has a leg up on Silverstone.
Van Squished - Saturday, November 15, 2008 - link
Well I have just finished building an FT01 installation with 850W PSU, Rampage Extreme M/b Q9550 CPU, two ATI cards in Crossfire mode and two hard disks.The case is brilliant to work with, extremely good finish, and in operation the system is almost silent and I struggle to get any part of it above 42 degrees C even with CounterStrike 2 or Photoshop.
So I would recommend it big time.
NicePants42 - Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - link
Anyone with even the most cursory interest in PC case modding could tell you that the The Silverstone FT01 is a basically a revised version of the Silverstone TJ09 internals with a TJ07-styled exterior.Implying that Silverstone's case designs are/were influenced by Apple implies that you are completely unaware of at least two products that have been highly praised (to put it mildly) by PC enthusiasts everywhere. The TJ07 has been on the market since the spring of 2005, and the TJ09 since the end of 2006.
Making demeaning comments based solely on your own ignorance makes you look...ignorant.
Griswold - Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - link
It has an ashtray! Good for smokers.strikeback03 - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
Would go well with this:http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SIL-CIGCUP...">http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SIL-CIGCUP...
JonnyDough - Monday, November 10, 2008 - link
It's pretty simple. Look at how a wood stove or car works. Air intake, air exhaust. The idea is to get a DRAFT going, using the rising warm air. Cool air should ALWAYS be sucked in through the bottom of the case, where the air is COOLEST. It should be expelled via the TOP of the case, where the warm air is naturally rising. An ideal case would "funnel" the air upward and have a chute blowing out the top like a chimney. As the warm air is condensed, it speeds up - sucking more air in through the bottom. Ideally, the hotter a PC is the LESS fans it would need because the increased temps would create more draft. There's a balance here between manufacturing technologies, voltages, and passive cooling. I believe we're nearing it with better case designs and new manufacturing technologies.JonnyDough - Monday, November 10, 2008 - link
If I do plop down my left arm for a new case, this one will be it. Good job Silverstone!CEO Ballmer - Monday, November 10, 2008 - link
I like this!http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com">http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
zShowtimez - Monday, November 10, 2008 - link
Ive had a TJ case for 4 years now, the whole upside down motherboard/kinda BTX style... best case Ive ever owned. Kinda makes me want one of these new ones