SilverStone Fortress FT05 90 Degree ATX Full Tower Review @ [H]

Introducing a GPU that blows hot air inside the case will affect a little bit but overall airflow direction will not change because most air will still vent out eventually opposite the intake fans due to positive pressure. Either way, the FT05 should be able to provide better cooling performance than most cases even if you are using non-reference GPU cooling designs.

I have been reading on various other forums about speculation of non-reference GPU cooling designs should have specific heat pipes and heat sink direction orientation to help GPU cooling. For an aftermarket cooler, some people argued with heat sinks going parallel to the air flow of the bottom AP fans, will help cooling better?? Is this just pure speculation? Or so marginal that it's silly?

I'm hoping to order a FT05 soon and go completely air again with SLI 970s. I'm conflicted between aftermarket coolers (MSI vs Gigabyte) because the reference 970 by Nvidia is expensive ($380 USD each!!) or aftermarket reference coolers are plastic and loud. Some clarification would really be appreciated before I place my orders.
 
The reference would be ideal, as the case should have very good airflow, that said my FT05 is couple weeks away, i just recieved my two ASUS GTX970 STRIX but atm running them on Fractal Design Define R4 which doesnt have enough airflow to keep them quiet under heavy load, under games like LOL and WOW remains quiet but on more demanding games the top card rpms goes over 2k where its very noticeable, im hopping the FT05 will help some with its better airflow, but i wont spin the AP182 higher than 800rpms to keep the system quiet, still i have my doubts into how it will end up.... i will write here my experience once i finish it and test it.

The Gigabyte might have issues, in the past there were issues with he FT02 and the Accelero coolers, specially because the pipe design is like perpendicular to the heatsink, even some representatives of silvertone have posted related to this subject, now coolers like MSI or Asus have their pipes going up and then down (or down and then up), but not perpendicular, and according to what i read, its better this way for a 90 degree rotation, weather its true or not, i have no way to test this, this is just a warning, in case you go with the gigabyte.
 
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I will post impressions as well. My Solo II is obviously not up to the SLI task, which I figured it would be, but I've got an FT05 coming tomorrow and I should have everything transferred in this week.
 
Thanks guys. I'm looking forward to your impressions.

I'm also thinking of building this case with the newer and slightly smaller EVGA Super Nova G2 850w PSU (220-GS-0850-V1) but its 170mm. The Silverstone manual lists the limitation of a PSU is 160mm with the HDD cage. But knowing that there might be a few mm to spare, has anyone tried pushing it another 10mm? Whats the biggest PSU physical size PSU someone had tried to put in the FT05 with the HDD cage?
 
The reviews and impressions I read said 160mm was it if you were using a modular PSU. There might be some room if you are only using one HDD though.
 
My WD Caviar Black vibrates the door panels... *sigh*. You can definitely hear the seek acoustics more compared to the Solo II, probably because it is so close to the fan / outside of the case.

I might have to get some AcoustiPack and rip off the stuff they threw on the panels. I am slightly annoyed to have a piece of plastic for a hard drive mount and such thin gauge doors on a $180 case. I'll see what I can do to get the vibrations down. Either that or just sell the black and get something quieter.

Temperatures are fantastic though for SLI w/ these 970s. I can keep the bottom fan speeds low, and the main card went up to around 76 °C w/ a slower fan speed setting in Unigine Heaven (~1400 RPM vs ~2000 RPM in the Solo II). Bottom card is in the 60s at an even lower fan speed. Definitely a great case for temps, and at idle the bottom fans spin so slow you can't hear a peep out of them.

The case is a winner for temps and noise, excluding the HDD issue which should hopefully be addressed by putting some more mass on the side panels.
 
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You should just get a cheap 1TB SSD and get rid of the vibration entirely ;)
 
*cheap* ;).

I've got a 512GB SSD already, hard to justify a 1TB atm. These 50GB install games are killer :(.
 
I just upgraded from a 160GB Intel to a 500GB 850 EVO for that precise reason, stupid new games are huge installs :/
 
I have been reading on various other forums about speculation of non-reference GPU cooling designs should have specific heat pipes and heat sink direction orientation to help GPU cooling.

yes, it's in the manual i think.

one of the reasons why i went for the MSI Lightning 7970 over the Asus DC2 7970 was the heatpipe orientation.
 
Thanks guys! I was at Best Buy last night and found a pair of GTX 970 reference coolers from Nvidia. I ended up buying a pair with coupons each. So it's not too bad. Just kind of sad because it's only a few dollars cheaper than an OC aftermarket cooler, which might perform better and quieter. But the Titan coolers are so pretty.

I got everything else but the PSU and Cooler ordered. Getting excited! I'm really looking into 750/850w 160mm PSU with semi-fanless feature becasue I do want to keep at least one HDD cage. Is that PSU that Steve reviewed a TPG-1050D-G, which is 180mm? It looks like he was able to fit a cage too. But someone did mention they couldn't fit an EVGA G2 750/850 (which is also 180mm). I'm confused. Is it because the way the modular cables plug in?
 
One of the smallest that still big on W is the Seasonic Platinum SS860XP2, its 160mm, fully modular and semi fanless, it should allow you to still use the hdd cage.
 
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^^ Yeah, I am using the 760-watt variant of that power supply in this case. Just needs some shorter cables for the graphics cards but everything fit.
 
Thanks guys! Everything is ordered today now. I found an Seasonic X-Series 850w that was pretty promising in size and "silent fans," but the Platinum 860w was cheaper by $10.00, so I went ahead and got that. I have Silverstone's SFX spare short cables, I wonder if it will connect properly, but if not, I'll look into other options for short GPU cables.

I also went ahead and bought the Noctua D15. I loved the D14 I had in one of my earlier build and excited to see how well the D15 has improved. The Noctua site did list the height of the cooler to be 160mm and 165mm for both without and with fans, respectively. The suggested safety height by Silverstone was 162mm, but I do remember my D14 having some leverage by lowering and raising the fan's position. Pairing with a low profile RAM I picked, maybe my D15 will fit perfectly. I'll let you guys know for anyone else who is considering this cooler.

Everything is coming in this weekend after my work trip. It feels like Christmas all over again :D
 
Just wanted to update anyone interested in a D15 and FT05 combination. It's a tight fit. It bulges on me with short ram, but I removed the outside heatsink fan and kept the fan between the heatsink towers. It works perfectly fine because the silverstone AP fan is blowing air directly to the heatsink. It now fits perfectly. The 3cm difference was because of the outside heatsink fan.

I'm amaze at how quiet this PC is. I love it. The cables are definitely hard to deal with. I definitely need to try again this weekend. I just quickly made sure none of the cables were in the AP fans' way.

I share a long table battle station with my GF and she's now using my NCase M1 on top of the desk while my FT05 sits below the desk. I now notice how loud the NCase is with air coolers (CPU and GPU). Especially the 780 Ti it houses (with the same reference nvidia coolers as my SLI 970s) is dramatically loud under load. Might be a card characteristic thing in general.
 
Just wanted to update anyone interested in a D15 and FT05 combination. It's a tight fit. It bulges on me with short ram, but I removed the outside heatsink fan and kept the fan between the heatsink towers. It works perfectly fine because the silverstone AP fan is blowing air directly to the heatsink. It now fits perfectly. The 3cm difference was because of the outside heatsink fan.
Glad all work out for you.

I just finished mine also =)

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I feel like the hard drive locations were a great idea in discussion but not practical once it hit paper... then production. I think the elimination of the hard drive rack would be great and just leave the hard drives in a hidden bottom tray.
 
Just finished building mine. Really like it. So compact for an ATX case.

Some thoughts (in case Tony is still following this thread. Maybe they can make changes in revision 2)

Like everyone said, wouldn't have minded a few extra mm on the back panel from motherboard tray. Looks like an extra 1cm would have been plenty. Right now the side panel on the back is bulging out a tiny bit like some of the others have mentioned, due mainly to the 24pin corsair power cable sticking out a little.
I'm not using an optical drive or HDD, so i removed the caddies for both which made cable routing much easier. Especially considering my last build was an ITX build, I didn't have too much trouble. Just took a couple dry runs to make sure all the cables were long enough to route under the mobo and behind the mobo tray.

That said, i wish the Sata power cable from the white Silverstone logo in front was longer. Not sure why it is so short, it barely reaches about half way down the back of the case.

The orange HDD activity LED is not very bright (maybe on purpose?). The white silverstone logo led overpowers it quite a bit. At first i thought my hdd led was busted, but i can see it when looking from the inside of the case, so I guess it's just not very bright.

There was protective film on the front silver reflective strip where the silverstone logo is, but none on the sides. Like ... why? Right out of the box, i noticed a couple of ugly marks on the silver strip along the side of the case. Not a big deal, but why save 2 cents not covering the side strips with film when you are already doing it for the window and the front strip. Seems odd from a QA standpoint especially for a case that costs $185. Also, one of my fans has the polarity switched. So setting it to High on the switch up top makes it spin at the low rpm, and vice versa. Not a bit deal, but at first I thought the fan controller was busted.

Small annoyances aside, overall it was a fairly straightforward build, and I love the compact size for a full ATX motherboard, very cool and stealth looking. The pseudo handles on top make moving it around much easier. Love the 2 180mm fans, they move quite a good bit of air even on low.
 
Just finished porting over my system from the FT02 to the FT05. Absolutely love the FT05. I too took out the optical drive and 3.5 HDD cage. Made cable routing a breeze. I can't even hear my new system it's so quiet.

Love the FT05 great job Silverstone!
 
Question for anyone who has a FT05, I'm using a single GPU and I noticed it sits directly between the two big fans on the bottom of the case because I'm using the first PCI-E slot on the mobo, should I move my GPU to the 2nd PCI-E slot so that it's directly above one of the big fans?
 
Just ordered one off Tiger Direct.

I haven't purchased the components for it yet, but I am hoping to run a fully passive rig with a passive CPU (i7 4770), GPU (GTX 750) and PSU, and only SSD. BIG heatsinks :)

I bought the windowed model and am hoping I can remove it and replace it with a custom screen.

Will update on the build in the future, if it doesn't melt. :)
 
I haven't purchased the components for it yet, but I am hoping to run a fully passive rig with a passive CPU (i7 4770), GPU (GTX 750) and PSU, and only SSD. BIG heatsinks :)
Fully passive? you not using the AP181? Unless you undervolt/downclock the 4770 it you wont be able to run it passive under load, even with NoFan95.
 
Fully passive? you not using the AP181? Unless you undervolt/downclock the 4770 it you wont be able to run it passive under load, even with NoFan95.

Not true. The i7-4770 has a TDP of 84W, well inside the Nofan CR-95's limit of 95W. Of course, no overclocking will be possible but jamesgalb hasn't purchased the K version anyway.

I have a FT05 awaiting my semi-silent rig (see sig) but I want to get my Titan X up and working first.
 
I'm considering the i7 5775 If they release it soon, as its TDP is 65w and would help keep the overall case a bit cooler (including PSU). I was considering the 4770s @ 65w at one point for the same reasons of keeping the case cooler, but was told the 4770 would be within range and run equally cool for similar tasks unless maxing out.

Since I haven't ordered anything yet, I may make that my last piece... Although I'm still hoping for a passive GTX 950 :\
 
Not true. The i7-4770 has a TDP of 84W, well inside the Nofan CR-95's limit of 95W. Of course, no overclocking will be possible but jamesgalb hasn't purchased the K version anyway.
TDP is worthless for this, my 2500K never reaches above 70C even overclocked, while my 4770K can easily reach 80C not overclocked.

I own a setup with NoFan95 and 4770K, and i can tell you on a open bench prime it, in less than 20min it will pass 95C, i didnt want to continue as it was still raising, and it was not overcloked. Now these are scenarios that are not likely to happen, but if there is rending or encoding it can have peaks were it can reach those loads. But on usual day to day basis, or gaming, the Nofan95 should be good enough.
 
Despite not having my Titan X, I transplanted my system and am not impressed with the case from a cable management perspective.

Also, my Nofan comes VERY close to the padding on the inside of the front of the case.
 
Would you say it's worse than the FT02? I remember employing the use of mdpc-x cable clips screwed into spare threads to tidy stuff up in the back of that case. I personally prefer that if it means more usable space in the front of the case and an overall smaller size.
 
Would you say it's worse than the FT02?

From a cable management POV it's vastly worse.I'm probably going to have to lay the main motherboard power cable on the front. Fortunately it's sleeved in black so it won't be too visible.

Hmm... that's an idea. I might get some of that black spiral tubing and some black clamps and route the lot at the front. At least it will look neat.
 
No pics yet, but I've routed all the cables. The main motherboard cable and the GPU cables had to go at the front. The tubing didn't work so I put in some cable tie mounts in the area just below the motherboard and tied the power cables to them. Whichever idiot decided to change the position of the PSU should be shot. The back is severely lacking in mount points too. Thankfully I have a stock of sticky-backed cable tie mounts. I found a channel above the top SSD to route some of the smaller cables.

And speaking of cable ties, someone please shoot the cost-cutting idiot who decided that a grand total of three cable ties were sufficient. Three small ones at that. Are costs so tight that it would hurt to put in a dozen or two?
 
Probably. The stated reason for the move from the Prototype FT05 with AP182 to AP181 was to hit the lower price point. Unfortunately in Canada with the dollar tanking once more the FT05 has ended up at the same price point as the FT02 anyway.

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Edit - No longer valid, as newer AP181s have a solid channel preventing zip-ties from being threaded through without modification.
 
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I need to get myself a black SATA cable. I've suffered two failures and the replacement is red.
 
I had two 970s in SLI and it cooled them without issue, though the TDP on the 980s are a little bit higher. My cards did partial exhaust through the back due to the heatsink fin orientation.

With that in mind, the two 180mm fans move A LOT of air and with such a small chassis you get a lot of air exchanges through the case. It should be fine, especially since the H80i isolates the CPU from the video cards. .

SPCR did an SLI 970 build in an FT05 and they were happy with noise/temps:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Quiet_SLI_Gaming_PC_Build_Guide

For something to give data on.
 
By the way, how are temps with the H80i in your current case with the overclocked 5930k?
 
By the way, how are temps with the H80i in your current case with the overclocked 5930k?

I have not even started monitoring CPU temps but it idles at like 30 degrees. I don't even know what it hits at load but I am betting it is pretty frosty.
 
if its of any interest, my non-overclocked 5820k with a corsair H75 idles at between 24-29 degrees C across the six cores.
 
I'm more curious about what load temps are like on a slightly-overclocked six-core. My Dark Rock 3 cooler looks like it is handling my overclock fine, and I'll probably keep it, but I was curious on how a small 120mm AIO fared. Thanks for the input though.
 
after forty minutes of p95 + Valley Benchmark i couldn't get any of the six to register more than 65c.

my ft05 always runs with the fans on medium.
 
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