Silverstone Fortress FT01 - bit-tech.net Forums

Tim S · 20th Oct 2008, 07:35

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...-ft01-review/1

Behold and gaze upon the beauty of the Silverstone FT01! The affordable version of the iconic Silverstone TJ07 has arrived and we investigate to find out if the FT01 is just a pretty face or whether it's a knock out case at a bargain price. Read on to find out!

The boy 4rm oz · 20th Oct 2008, 07:49

Looks very nice, a very worthy blank canvas. Personally I would rather have 120mm fans all round than the 180mm fans, they are easier to replace if they die. Plus it makes mounting a radiator easier.

Jipa · 20th Oct 2008, 09:01

IMO you could have should have tried to turn the top fan around to make it an exhaust? Might make some interesting changes to the results...

karx11erx · 20th Oct 2008, 09:33

How about this: Reverse the top intake fan orientation to make it extract air from the case - will solve the problem of the single 120mm exhaust fan being too weak and allows to remove the top dust filter.

crompers · 20th Oct 2008, 10:29

is it just me who thinks the looks of these cases are distinctely meh?

maybe it looks better in black but the silver looks tacky to me

Chr!s · 20th Oct 2008, 10:38

£150 is a bargain case?

lol

Tim S · 20th Oct 2008, 10:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chr!s

£150 is a bargain case?

lol

For a Silverstone it is!

Chr!s · 20th Oct 2008, 10:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim S

For a Silverstone it is!

You can go to some eastern europe city for a weekend for that much dosh! Its crazy I tell Ye!

Tyrmot · 20th Oct 2008, 11:43

What a shame that they spoiled the ship for a ha'porth of tar... Although I too would have thought that exhausting out of the top fan might work better.. it would be interesting to know how that would affect that overall case performance.

Tile · 20th Oct 2008, 11:49

Deleted

Tim S · 20th Oct 2008, 13:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tile

And again the hard drive cages are an epic fail.

I've spoken to several case manufacturers this morning about your claims--that use all of the various hard drive orientations--and none have said that this orientation is inferior in terms of cooling performance.

Tile · 20th Oct 2008, 13:28

Deleted

naokaji · 20th Oct 2008, 13:42

A HDD orientation like in the FT01 does have the advantage though that you can remove / add HDD's even with long graphicscards installed that would get in the way if the HDD's would be the other way.
Also aslong as they cut big enough holes in the hdd "box" cooling shoudnt be a issue.

150£ for a midi tower that doesnt even have a removable mobo tray? no thanks, as much as I love the external design, I'd rather pay 20£ more and get the best case ever (lian li a77) or save a big sum and just get a cm 690 instead.

zr_ox · 20th Oct 2008, 14:07

I had very high hopes for this case.

Shame really since Silverstone do make great cases. Cooling is much worse than I expected however I really think as part of your testing that you should have reversed the top intake. Many other sites reversed the fan's whilst reviewing the TJ07/TJ09 and experienced vastly different results.

When are peoplegoing to stop harping on about the orientation of hard disks....STOP! Should a case manufacturer decide to invest $$$,$$$ on R&D and deem their design sufficient to pass Q&C then you should rest assured that all will be well. Lian-Li did it back with the V1000 series. How many Lian-Li cases do you see stuffed with HDD's??? I have a TJ09 with 5 HDD's and no failures. It really is not an issue so shut up about it!

Apart from my rant's, another nice review BT. This was going to be my new case but I guess I should wait a while, this is screaming at me for a Crysis/Far Cry 2 inspired mod......hmmmmm!

Do Coolermaster realize how much they would make with an updated Black Widow? Update should be front, rear and top 120mm mounts, 6 drive bay's instead of 4 to mount radiators if your so inclined and a top and bottom PSU mount....They would clean up with that design!

Redbeaver · 20th Oct 2008, 15:01

<- silverstone fanboi.

i love the looks of this case and a little downfall here n there that i can fix is not a deal-breaker.

and yes, looks like a great canvas. i prolly pick this one up for my girl....

kenco_uk · 20th Oct 2008, 16:11

The top fan needs to be in a plastic cradle, secured either by a push clip or two or maybe even a single screw that's easily reachable.

Baz · 20th Oct 2008, 16:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tile

The design of the hard drive cages, especially ones placed transversally has to be revised: there should be at least 20 mm distance between the hard drives and the system of rails should be slimmed down. These changes really help in cooling the hard drives a lot better especially with a king sized front fan.

The orientation doesn't make a blind bit of difference, but I agree that the distance between drives certainly does.

Tile · 20th Oct 2008, 17:18

Deleted

Jipa · 20th Oct 2008, 18:08

Who REALLY needs 7 HDD bays in a normal desktop computer anyway? After all 3 HDDs can be installed so that there's an extra bay between each of them... HDD-bay designs are always compromises between number of drives and amount of wasted space. If you had a couple of nicelyt spaced drive bays in a case like this then people would come ranting about not having enough bays

fathazza · 20th Oct 2008, 18:53

bah, this case was on my shortlist

now it isnt... Gonna have to wait to see how much the coolermaster atcs 840 is when it hits the shops

20th Oct 2008, 07:35	#1
Tim S Pewlius Caesar bit-tech Staff Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ascot, Berks Posts: 18,021	Silverstone Fortress FT01 http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...-ft01-review/1 Behold and gaze upon the beauty of the Silverstone FT01! The affordable version of the iconic Silverstone TJ07 has arrived and we investigate to find out if the FT01 is just a pretty face or whether it's a knock out case at a bargain price. Read on to find out! __________________ Tim on Twitter \| Tim's Blog \| Tim's Flickr The bit-tech Blog \| bit-tech on Twitter \| Join the bit-tech & Custom PC folding team (#35947)

20th Oct 2008, 09:01	#3
Jipa Licenced idiot. Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Tampere, Finland Posts: 3,057	IMO you could have should have tried to turn the top fan around to make it an exhaust? Might make some interesting changes to the results... __________________ Abit IP35 - E6750 - 8800GT 1024 MB - 2 GB 800 MHz - enough HDDs - 750 W Silverstone - CM Storm Sniper Asus P5Q-VM - Q9450 - 4 GB - 400 W Silverstone - Fortress FT01 AllTheMods - MetkuMods - LedCalc

20th Oct 2008, 09:33	#4
karx11erx Multimodder Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Germany Posts: 83	How about this: Reverse the top intake fan orientation to make it extract air from the case - will solve the problem of the single 120mm exhaust fan being too weak and allows to remove the top dust filter. __________________ Descent Site, Fine Arts.

20th Oct 2008, 10:29	#5
crompers Dremedial Join Date: May 2008 Location: Leeds, UK Posts: 1,215	is it just me who thinks the looks of these cases are distinctely meh? maybe it looks better in black but the silver looks tacky to me __________________ \| Q6600 G0 @ 3.21ghz \| ACF7P \| GA-P31-DS3L \| 4GB HyperX 857mhz \| XFX GTX280 655/1210 \| WD 160GB \| Maxtor 250GB \| Black Gigabyte Aurora \| OCZ GameXStream 700W \| HP LP2475w \| AE Aego M 2.1 \| Roccat Kone \| Saitek Eclipse \| Steam: psycrompton PSN: crompers85

20th Oct 2008, 10:38	#6
Chr!s Supermodder Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Essex Posts: 391	£150 is a bargain case? lol __________________ Brmmmmmmm Brmmm.

20th Oct 2008, 11:43	#9
Tyrmot Multimodder Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: London Posts: 204	What a shame that they spoiled the ship for a ha'porth of tar... Although I too would have thought that exhausting out of the top fan might work better.. it would be interesting to know how that would affect that overall case performance.

20th Oct 2008, 11:49	#10
Tile Banned Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 376	Deleted Last edited by Tile; 1st Nov 2008 at 17:39.

20th Oct 2008, 13:28	#12
Tile Banned Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 376	Deleted Last edited by Tile; 1st Nov 2008 at 17:40.

20th Oct 2008, 14:07	#14
zr_ox Whooolapoook Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Stalking Orco Posts: 1,117	I had very high hopes for this case. Shame really since Silverstone do make great cases. Cooling is much worse than I expected however I really think as part of your testing that you should have reversed the top intake. Many other sites reversed the fan's whilst reviewing the TJ07/TJ09 and experienced vastly different results. When are peoplegoing to stop harping on about the orientation of hard disks....STOP! Should a case manufacturer decide to invest $$$,$$$ on R&D and deem their design sufficient to pass Q&C then you should rest assured that all will be well. Lian-Li did it back with the V1000 series. How many Lian-Li cases do you see stuffed with HDD's??? I have a TJ09 with 5 HDD's and no failures. It really is not an issue so shut up about it! Apart from my rant's, another nice review BT. This was going to be my new case but I guess I should wait a while, this is screaming at me for a Crysis/Far Cry 2 inspired mod......hmmmmm! Do Coolermaster realize how much they would make with an updated Black Widow? Update should be front, rear and top 120mm mounts, 6 drive bay's instead of 4 to mount radiators if your so inclined and a top and bottom PSU mount....They would clean up with that design! __________________ 0ptimizm :PC under review

20th Oct 2008, 15:01	#15
Redbeaver Hypermodder Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Ontario, CANADA Posts: 718	<- silverstone fanboi. i love the looks of this case and a little downfall here n there that i can fix is not a deal-breaker. and yes, looks like a great canvas. i prolly pick this one up for my girl.... __________________ Monita DFI NF4 Expert - X2 3800+ 2.925Ghz - 2x1Gb OCZ Gold XTC DDR500 - 2x eVGA 7900GT SLI - 2x80Gb Seagate 7200.9 [RAID-0 4k] - Enermax Liberty 500 - Vista Ultimate x86 - Silverstone Kublai [Modded] Keisha DFI BloodIron P35 - Q6600 3.6Ghz - 4x1Gb OCZ Gold XTC2 DDR2-800 - eVGA 8800GTS 640MB - 2x80Gb Seagate 7200.9 [RAID-0 4k] - OCZ GameXstream 700 - Vista Ultimate x86 - Silverstone TJ-06 [Modded] www.pecelayam.com

20th Oct 2008, 16:11	#16
kenco_uk glourious bacon? Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Bourne, Lincolnshire, UK Posts: 6,292	The top fan needs to be in a plastic cradle, secured either by a push clip or two or maybe even a single screw that's easily reachable. __________________ MSI X58M - i7 920 4Ghz - 6GB Corsair - GTX260 648/2520 ::: Vote for bit-tech T - theevilelephant - "it sounded like bouncing around on a pogo stick, screaming in chinese while occasionally throwing a cat at a door."

20th Oct 2008, 17:18	#18
Tile Banned Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 376	Deleted Last edited by Tile; 1st Nov 2008 at 17:40.

20th Oct 2008, 18:08	#19
Jipa Licenced idiot. Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Tampere, Finland Posts: 3,057	Who REALLY needs 7 HDD bays in a normal desktop computer anyway? After all 3 HDDs can be installed so that there's an extra bay between each of them... HDD-bay designs are always compromises between number of drives and amount of wasted space. If you had a couple of nicelyt spaced drive bays in a case like this then people would come ranting about not having enough bays __________________ Abit IP35 - E6750 - 8800GT 1024 MB - 2 GB 800 MHz - enough HDDs - 750 W Silverstone - CM Storm Sniper Asus P5Q-VM - Q9450 - 4 GB - 400 W Silverstone - Fortress FT01 AllTheMods - MetkuMods - LedCalc

20th Oct 2008, 18:53	#20
fathazza Freed on Probation Join Date: May 2002 Location: Gloucestershire Posts: 3,109	bah, this case was on my shortlist now it isnt... Gonna have to wait to see how much the coolermaster atcs 840 is when it hits the shops __________________ I may be fat but at least I am not Ginger "The President is no longer a cross-eyed Texan warmonger, unelected, inarticulate, who epitomises the arrogance of American foreign policy" - Boris Johnson