New Silverstone FT02

Neo Zuko said:
How do these compare to like Black Ice or the best brands out?
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AFAIK no reviews of Martin quality. You can make some guesses though based on FPI (13-14 in this case) and surface area. Per surface area it should perform about the same as the Swiftech MCR-X20-QP or XSPC RS radiators
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Taken to the extreme, any case is a great case for watercooling. The concept I'm having trouble with here is just exactly why you'd want to build a system that'd need a a 2x180mm radiator to cool, and then want to dump all of that exhaust heat back into the system, with only a 120mm fan to push it out?

Wouldn't you want to use a system where you could take in more airflow through filters (and yes, I am a firm believer in positive airflow with filters) than the radiator/180mm fan setup pushes out as an exhaust?

Given that a system generating enough heat to need such a setup would probably include at least three GPUs, it's quite hard for me to imagine wanting to run all of that heat back past them, unless of course you put other exhausts in the system, such as mounting fans on the plexiglass, or perhaps in a drive bay.

I guess another point would be to just use the radiator externally with just about any enclosure, especially since such a system isn't likely to be portable.
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I also really like the FT02 (except it would have to have 8 expansionslots for me to get it for my current situation).

As far as watercooling it - I would agree that using a radiator that covers the majority of the intake positions so that almost all of the airflow to the interior is preheated would be a sub-par solution. Using a 120mm radiator only on the exhaust would be as far as I would go.

There are extremely capable modern aircooling solutions that would be more desirable, IMHO.
 
I haven't seen another case that would make for a better air-cooled workstation; if it had eight slots, it could accommodate three GPUs while leaving a slot in between for air intake and radiative cooling. With an integrated water-cooler for the CPU, you get the same performance to noise ratio that a much larger water-cooling solution would get you, without the added complexity, cost, and points of failure.

Heck, I approximated an FT-02-like massive positive pressure setup with my Fractal Design Define R3; it has two 120mm intake fans on the front, four 140mm intake fans on the bottom, side, and top, and exhausts only with the H60 on the back 120mm mount and the GPU blower(s). It's quiet with all of the fans turned down, the GPUs never whine, and it fits quaintly under a desk, unlike the gargantuan FT-02. I will admit though, that the extra cost in fans and filters probably put me in the same price range as an FT-02 would have.
 
Raven 2 not E has 8 slots.

And yeah once you factor no need to change any fans FT2/RV2 don't look so expensive anymore.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Taken to the extreme, any case is a great case for watercooling. The concept I'm having trouble with here is just exactly why you'd want to build a system that'd need a a 2x180mm radiator to cool, and then want to dump all of that exhaust heat back into the system, with only a 120mm fan to push it out?

Wouldn't you want to use a system where you could take in more airflow through filters (and yes, I am a firm believer in positive airflow with filters) than the radiator/180mm fan setup pushes out as an exhaust?

Given that a system generating enough heat to need such a setup would probably include at least three GPUs, it's quite hard for me to imagine wanting to run all of that heat back past them, unless of course you put other exhausts in the system, such as mounting fans on the plexiglass, or perhaps in a drive bay.

I guess another point would be to just use the radiator externally with just about any enclosure, especially since such a system isn't likely to be portable.
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Yeah, I only run two 180mm fans in my ft02 through a rad(No 120 in the top and no 180 in the hdd bay).
I really need chipset blocks because I killed all airflow running the fans real slow for silence. It's silent but my NB runs at 80deg hehe >_<

Sticking with x58 (x58 still kooool!!!) and got a waterblock and in the mail a new Extreme version of the rampage 3 as you can't get blocks for the Formula anymore.

silent-circuit said:
If I were going to switch to WCing my FT02 (which I one day may, if I don't end up selling my machine completely... depends on finances) I'd do a 3x180 rad, shroud it so it breathes out the front, and reverse the airflow in the remainder of the case so it flows in from the top and out the front.

A 3x5.25" bay adapter with 120mm fan in the topmost front bays and two mesh covers on bottom -- the fans on the rad should be strong enough to take care of themselves, but I want proper intake and exhaust for the motherboard "compartment".

I realize this config is more than a little odd, but it suits my needs and should offer downright insane performance. I'd have to relocate the internal drives and wouldn't have an optical... but I haven't used an optical drive in about five years, and there's a ton of dead space under the PSU where you could easily put a drive rack.

Modifications would be fairly easy to undo, too. Just put the front drive rack back in, pop a few rivets back in. No problem.

The thought of how much the damn thing would weigh, as well as the cost of blocks and a 3x180 rad, is what's really stopping me. I bet it'd be close to 100 lbs.
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I'm curious how you would shroud the rad. It sounds cool but baffles me.
Draw something up in ms paint if you have the time. I might change my 360 rad to a 540 sometime.
 
JayJapanB said:
I'm curious how you would shroud the rad. It sounds cool but baffles me.
Draw something up in ms paint if you have the time. I might change my 360 rad to a 540 sometime.
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Very rough attempt to explain using a stolen picture, as I'm too lazy to take my own:

rework_for_wc.jpg


Blue parallel lines indicate fans.

Dark red arrows indicate airflow direction.

Yellow x is old drive cage, yellow box is new drive cage.

Lighter red lines are partition / shroud. It will be an airtight box separate from the main compartment when the side is on the case.

Green box is one of several places the pump could be mounted (in this case upside down bolted to the partition above it.

Purple boxes are waterblocks.

The fan in the PSU would need to be reversed so it would intake from above rather than exhaust, to avoid fighting the intake fan next to it and causing unnecessary turbulence / noise / sucking heat back in via the intake fan.

Removal of the supporting "walls" for the 5.25" bays is optional but would make building the partition and making it airtight much easier; I have not looked to see if this is easy or realistic, however, and would want to avoid cutting the case. Taking out rivets is fine, but damage that can't be reversed is not okay.

With 2 SSDs and 2 HDDs you could mount the HDDs to the partition side by side with connectors facing back toward the main cable routing "slot" and mount the SSDs to the back of the 5.25" bay supports or somewhere else. With more drives this design becomes unrealistic.

Mounting an additional fan to help flow diagonally toward the front of the bottom compartment might be an option as well.

This is just a wild-ass idea, not something I've put a lot of thought in to. A starting point, potentially.
 
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RV02B-EW owner here. Anyone else have an issue where the top 120mm fan makes the occasional whining or almost grinding noise? Is there a way to fix this without replacing the fan itself?
 
Terpfen said:
RV02B-EW owner here. Anyone else have an issue where the top 120mm fan makes the occasional whining or almost grinding noise? Is there a way to fix this without replacing the fan itself?
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Try oiling the bearing. You can access it by pelling the sticker back till the center bearing or its cover is exposed. Apply a bit of light weight oil to the bearing/shaft.
 
Or call them and get a new fan; not like it's hard to replace. 4 screws. The thing's clearly going out and it shouldn't be -- I'd make Silverstone stand behind their product.
 
silent-circuit said:
Or call them and get a new fan; not like it's hard to replace. 4 screws. The thing's clearly going out and it shouldn't be -- I'd make Silverstone stand behind their product.
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I had this issue in my FT02. My top fan started rattling about 2 weeks after I got it. I emailed them and had a new fan in about 4 days.


Also, on the point of dumping hot air into your case while watercooling. I don't think its an issue. I'm running 4 120mm scythe GT's at about 1100rpm along with the stock 120mm exhaust and my mobo software claims its only 35c inside the case while folding 24/7 with a 76f ambient. I've also opened the case and felt the cpu mosfet sinks, they are warm but not hot to the touch. H's own testing on z68 and z77 boards with the incubator have shown most boards stay stable with zero airflow and higher temps. It might not be ideal to run the heat thru the case but to my knowledge no one has built a perfect case for all usage types. If you don't like how the FT02 is setup for WC, then stick with air or go with another case. It's def not for everyone.
 
I was looking to get this case for my next build, but on newegg it says the windowed version has been deactivated and may or may not be back in stock.

anyone know if they just sold out or if silverstone is not making the windowed version anymore?
 
Imitation said:
Also, on the point of dumping hot air into your case while watercooling. I don't think its an issue. I'm running 4 120mm scythe GT's at about 1100rpm along with the stock 120mm exhaust and my mobo software claims its only 35c inside the case while folding 24/7 with a 76f ambient. I've also opened the case and felt the cpu mosfet sinks, they are warm but not hot to the touch. H's own testing on z68 and z77 boards with the incubator have shown most boards stay stable with zero airflow and higher temps. It might not be ideal to run the heat thru the case but to my knowledge no one has built a perfect case for all usage types. If you don't like how the FT02 is setup for WC, then stick with air or go with another case. It's def not for everyone.
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The main point is not that it's a problem in general, but that if you are using a setup that could benefit from water-cooling, such as a heavily overclocked six core CPU and three or four high-end overclocked GPUs, then dumping all of that heat back across those components stinks of poor system design.

And if you're only trying to cool an average system, then why the hell are you water-cooling in the first place? And why would you bastardize an FT-02 to do it?
 
xnikx said:
I was looking to get this case for my next build, but on newegg it says the windowed version has been deactivated and may or may not be back in stock.

anyone know if they just sold out or if silverstone is not making the windowed version anymore?
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You may be able to buy the windowed panel separately, something to look into if you really want the case.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
You may be able to buy the windowed panel separately, something to look into if you really want the case.
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Better live in the US though. I bought a windowless one from silverstone for $20.....+$60 shipping :/

I have a spare windowed panel but it's a little scratched and it's heavy and I live in Australia.

Edit:
silent-circuit said:
Very rough attempt to explain using a stolen picture, as I'm too lazy to take my own:
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Cool however, I think unless you use a reference 670 the shroud wouldn't have enough room for airflow.
It would be cutting it fine. A 680pcb leaves about 3cm of room between the rad and the card....Actually given the intake size at the bottom of the sides of the case, maybe.
I don't think you would be doing yourself many favours other than a badass looking case. Which is plenty of reason I suppose.
 
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Has anyone found an elegant solution for the surround cables? right now it doesn't reach and I have to keep it with the top off to make it barely reach. Would a mini jack extender cable work? is there a place to get a decent price cable? I looked around amazon, they have some extenders, but there's a few that have abysmal reviews.

Monoprice I look around but I can't seem to find the right cable either.
 
I see the new AP182 fan is out. Damn that's pricey though (AP181s sold for about $25-$27 when they first came out).

Looks to have the same frame and blades as the AP181, but the bearing is ball bearing and not SS' modified sleeve bearing. Specs are the same as the AP181 with added range above and below the AP181s rpm range. I'm interested if the ball bearing changes the noise characteristic at all. Time to shoot Tony an email!
 
I wish I knew how it felt to have even the 181s. I have the old ones (instead of the promised 181s), one of which was DOA and SS never got back to me. So I had to just throw in some random 180mm fan in there sitting on top of the filter.

JayJapan, nice setup.
 
Sorry for the poor photos, it is really hard to take good pics of a black case with a black tinted window under a desk at night with an old point and shoot digital camera from 2006 :D

M20ZK.jpg


tbREZ.jpg


qfSJT.jpg
 
Hmm. I'm thiinking of buying this case. Right now I've bought a asrock extreme4 and thinking of going sli with asus gtx670, will they fit in the case or it's going to be too big?
 
Zaraky said:
Hmm. I'm thiinking of buying this case. Right now I've bought a asrock extreme4 and thinking of going sli with asus gtx670, will they fit in the case or it's going to be too big?
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It'll easily work in an FT02. I'm running a Z77 board and CFX 7970s.
 
FaRKle0079 said:
It'll easily work in an FT02. I'm running a Z77 board and CFX 7970s.
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I know refenrence card can be sli, but will 2 asus gtx670 dciitop fit in there? I'm waiting on their 4gb version and then I'm buying them. Just don't know if the mobo ( Z77 asrock extreme4) design will fit them perfectly lol. I'm waiting for the silver one to fill up and going to trigger if everything fit perfectly.
 
Zaraky said:
I know refenrence card can be sli, but will 2 asus gtx670 dciitop fit in there? I'm waiting on their 4gb version and then I'm buying them. Just don't know if the mobo ( Z77 asrock extreme4) design will fit them perfectly lol. I'm waiting for the silver one to fill up and going to trigger if everything fit perfectly.
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The Top is still a double slot card so yes, you can fit two in there. You can even fit two triple slot cards on the last six PCI brackets provided you don't have a super long optical drive.
 
I don't know how you guys get the cable management you do. I absolutely HATE this case for managing cables and am thinking of moving to a new case, but am worried about the noise increase. I might just man up and redo all the wiring again and try to make it work. As it stands now the back side of the case is slightly pushed out from a few molex's.
 
Boyiee said:
I don't know how you guys get the cable management you do. I absolutely HATE this case for managing cables and am thinking of moving to a new case, but am worried about the noise increase. I might just man up and redo all the wiring again and try to make it work. As it stands now the back side of the case is slightly pushed out from a few molex's.
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If you don't already, use screw on cable clips. They're about $5/pack at your local hardware store. I use 1/2" and 3/8" diameter ones.
 
capitalj said:
I wish I knew how it felt to have even the 181s. I have the old ones (instead of the promised 181s), one of which was DOA and SS never got back to me. So I had to just throw in some random 180mm fan in there sitting on top of the filter.

JayJapan, nice setup.
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Cheers! :D

Retaliation87 said:
Sorry for the poor photos, it is really hard to take good pics of a black case with a black tinted window under a desk at night with an old point and shoot digital camera from 2006 :D

*snip*
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Noice! Sleeved yourself? Also am I missing where your res is?

Boyiee said:
I don't know how you guys get the cable management you do. I absolutely HATE this case for managing cables and am thinking of moving to a new case, but am worried about the noise increase. I might just man up and redo all the wiring again and try to make it work. As it stands now the back side of the case is slightly pushed out from a few molex's.
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little effort and cable clamps

FaRKle0079 said:
If you don't already, use screw on cable clips. They're about $5/pack at your local hardware store. I use 1/2" and 3/8" diameter ones.
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^^^ Thissss
 
Silverstone gets it, instead of building monster sized cases which no one really cares for anymore, build more compact and practical ones.
 
Hi everyone, I have a question regarding FT02 and RV03 cases.

Can sata multiple-bay backplanes, like the icydock mb455, mb453 or even the Lian Li EX-H34S be installed into FT02 and RV03 successfully?
I can only confirmed that they can be successfully installed in TJ07, but TJ07 is a bit large and expensive for me. Besides, there is no slots on both sides of MB455, which I don't know if it can be installed into the FT02 or RV03, as it seems there are guide slots among the drive bays of these two cases. So can anyone share their stories of installing these backplanes into FT02 or RV03? Thx~
 
imhenrytran said:
Silverstone gets it, instead of building monster sized cases which no one really cares for anymore, build more compact and practical ones.
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I had to laugh at this one too. I skipped on the FT-02 and went with a Fractal Design Define R3; it's a totally unrelated case, except that when I filled it with 140mm intakes limiting the exhausts to only the H60 on the CPU and the blowers on the GPUs, it accomplishes the same 'filtered positive-pressure' design goal.

But it's much smaller with the same basic capabilities :).
 
silent-circuit said:
An FT02 is anything but compact and practical... As an owner I can attest to this.
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It's a bit unfair to say it isn't practical.
90deg rotation is great for heavy gpus.

...Though it isn't small by any means.
Less gaping than all those xl-ATX builds.
I like the build of the big lian li's and cases like the 800d but I couldn't justify buying them because they just have too much internal space.
FT-02 has a nice balance.
 
Thanks JayJapanB, it was not sleeved by me, but a guy from one of the forums I frequent over here in New Zealand. As for the reservoir I am using one of the koolance rp-452x2's with a alphacool d5 pump so it is hidden away in the 5.25 inch bays.
 
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