Silverstone, and its TJ07 premium aluminum chassis especially, has achieved something of a cult status within our community over the last few years thanks to the TJ07’s elegant design and excellent build quality. It used a unique unit-body construction where the majority of the case’s chassis is made from a single piece of curved aluminum. In this review we will be looking at another awesome case from Silverstone called the FT01, the case is a major modification of the classic TJ07 and is designed to be smaller, stronger and provide better overall cooling.
The FT01 is Uni-body type case that is folded from single piece of heavy aluminum. This not only gives the front panel its very unique rounded look but also makes the case extremely strong. This case has three fans, one of them (180-mm with 170-mm blades, 700 rpm) located on the front panel, cooling down the hard disk drives bays. This fan has a washable dust filter, accessible from inside the case (we will talk more about this component later). Fortress FT01 doesn’t come with a speed controller for its fans, but all fans use three-pin power plugs, allowing you to install them on your motherboard and thus monitor their speed.
The Fortress FT01 is definitely not your average mid-tower. The engineers at Silverstone have put quite a bit of thought into the design of this case. The first significant departure from the norm is Silverstone’s decision to use a “positive air pressure†design. This is achieved through the use of use of greater intake flow than exhaust flow. Even a case having an equal number of identical intake and exhaust fans will still have an overall negative pressure due to the PSU fan, and sometimes the video card exhausting air from the case. Silverstone employed two massive 180mm intake fans in the FT01 to outweigh the single 120mm exhaust fan and create an overall positive pressure within. Not only does this reduce the amount of dust entering the case but Silverstone also claims that it can benefit high-end video cards as well. Hot air from the cards is not allowed to escape at or around the PCI brackets in a negative pressure environment. In the FT01’s positive pressure environment, a continuous stream of exhaust will be exiting the vented PCI-brackets as well as the other crevices in the case.
From a usability perspective, the FT01 introduces some very innovative features that make working with it a very pleasant experience. Our absolute favorite is the locking 5.25†drive bays which make installing an optical drive an absolute breeze. There are numerous cable management features found in the FT01 that make dealing with case header leads and a non-modular PSUs less of a daunting chore. SilverStone has clearly done their homework, as bottom mounted PSU cases can be a real nightmare to work with if not designed properly. We’re pleased to report that the FT01 is a big step up from the TJ09 and TJ10 in this regard.
Although being tuned for quiet operation, the airflow within the FT01 is good. The large 180mm top intake fan provides quite a bit of airflow to the top half of the motherboard including the regulation components and memory. Our biggest concern with regards to cooling is the front intake fan. The hard drive cages are far too restrictive and block much of the airflow. Although it does succeed in creating a significant positive air pressure within the case, direct airflow to the graphics card could have been improved.
