Silverstone FT01 - Comments Please

Blackstone

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 8, 2007
Messages
3,574
I am considering using the Silverstone FT01 for some machines I am making for myself and some friends. It will feature a Core i7, GTX295, GTX275, or dual GTX275s. I will use PC Power and Cooling or a Corsair modular power supply. The system will include a single 300GB Velociraptor and possibly a 750GB mass storage drive.

Any comments on this case? I want to provide my friends with something clean, professional, and reliable. I am hoping the modular power supply will keep cable routing issues to a minimum.

The one question I have is whether this case is appropriate for water cooling. I am thinking about using a water cooler which is a very durable system that has a radiator that could occupy the space where the rear exhaust is. I would like to preserve the positive air pressure feature of this case but I am wondering what impact replacing the rear exhaust with the radiator will have.

Any general comments?
 
Last edited:
I think it's too small for water cooling. I've also heard that cable management is a nightmare because there is little room behind the motherboard tray to route cables.
 
i am currently using this case. trying to hide cables behind the mobo tray is a lost cause. i removed the sound dampening material so i could put a few cables back there. hiding cables behind the hdd cages is a pain, also. i'm replacing my pc pc&c silencer 750 with a corsair hx850 just for the modular cables.

i also wish silverstone had a method of using the drive bay covers for optical drives. i miss not having them since my lian-li 1200 did.

regarding water cooling, i wouldn't' know. i've never used that method of cooling. all i can say is there are pre-drilled holes in the rear of the case to accommodate hoses. there definitely isn't enough room inside the case for much in the way of rads and pumps.

i like the hdd cages. silverstone did a fine job on those. the exterior of the case is clean. i like the way it looks. i think the side panels need to be made of a heavier gauge material. they seem pretty flimsy compared to my lian-li case.

i've recommended this case to a few friends. none of them have complained about it. they all seem to be pretty happy with it. it should be priced 50 dollars less, though.
 
Water cooling is not really an option with this case unless you get real creative. I personally think it looks good, but hiding cables just isn't easy with this case. I sort of took the murdermod approach to it, and at least make the cables that are there look good.

Cooling on the video cards is a little iffy. Take the upper hard drive cage out and it will help significantly. My two GTX260s were getting really hot before, but now that I took em out it's working much better.

Looking back, I would probably have been better going with another case, but this one sure does look nice. I especially like the black interior.
 
V1010 possibly?

That's what I was looking at if I wasn't going with an X500b

I was pretty set on an Ft01 for a long time until I heard about the thin side-panels and inability to hide cables anywhere... that strayed me back to LianLi
 
I think Blazestorm is correct. The V1010 is a pretty good case. I may pick one up myself, to be honest. Either that or go back to my V1200B. I'm going to give the FT01 a chance for a few weeks, tho. It is a nice case. I love the Positive Pressure aspect of it. Since I rarely remove the rear side panel, I may talk myself into keeping the Silverstone and selling the V1200B. One never knows!
 
I have it, I love it, but it's small. If it was 15% bigger it would be perfect, but I knew what I was getting when I bought it. Two GFX cards fit no problem, cable routing isn't so bad, it's tucking extra length of cable that's a nightmare. I should also note the side panels are a little finnicky. I would say water cooling is very unlikely.
 
Once it's watercooled it won't matter... the layout, and black interior is why I want it... It's as close to "perfect" for a layout as I've found.

Traditional layouts suck... atleast imo... :eek:

heh still, something to consider is that there is significantly less room in there than the typical LL full tower mansion room, especially considering you're doing WCing and potentially having dual vid cards. Personally, I'm all about getting the smallest case that fits my needs, rather than getting a full tower that is easy to work with and say saves you 2 hours of build time, but 24/7 takes up the room of a full tower.
 
Do you really think using FT01 will add 2 hours of build time over say a TJ09? I might be making several dozen of these.
 
heh still, something to consider is that there is significantly less room in there than the typical LL full tower mansion room, especially considering you're doing WCing and potentially having dual vid cards. Personally, I'm all about getting the smallest case that fits my needs, rather than getting a full tower that is easy to work with and say saves you 2 hours of build time, but 24/7 takes up the room of a full tower.

Quite true... I'm actually kinda eh on the X500 the more that I look at it, I was really set on it for a long time, but after looking at this, I'm liking it more... red anodized is nice too ;)

I'm almost thinking a PC-P50... the Crossfire edition with a new side-panel / window (get rid of the AMD/Dragon) would look pretty nice... Red anodized interior... and I think you can stick a 2 x 140mm radiator up top... 120mm on the back... :eek:

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=280&products_id=24950

+

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=18290
 
Last edited:
it is a horrible case for watercooling, and if you have a full setup of inside it's cramped as it is, personally i prefer a full tower with room for the hardware to breathe, like the ATCS 840, and the bigger Lian-Li / Silverstone cases.

and @ blazestorm, if that window fits the case then i think i might get one too, i love that case apart from all the dragon bollox on the window lol.
 
Do you really think using FT01 will add 2 hours of build time over say a TJ09? I might be making several dozen of these.

heh I was just guessing..but depending your skill level as a builder it probably wouldn't make as big of a difference. Just slightly more annoying I guess if you're used to removable mobo tray and full tower e-atx room to work. Fixing the cables (with non modular PSU) was about 15minutes. I actually spent half of the time figuring out the heat sink mount, since I hadn't built in a really long time. I really doubt if there's a such a large difference for most of the experienced builders out there.
 
it is a horrible case for watercooling, and if you have a full setup of inside it's cramped as it is, personally i prefer a full tower with room for the hardware to breathe, like the ATCS 840, and the bigger Lian-Li / Silverstone cases.

and @ blazestorm, if that window fits the case then i think i might get one too, i love that case apart from all the dragon bollox on the window lol.

Well the water cooler I would use has a self contained coldplate and pump in one unit and then a radiator that would replace the rear fan. It is not big.
 
It does get somewhat tight in there, however I have a large heatsink (coolermaster v8) and 2 GTX260s, so that's sorta understandable.

Wasn't ever really a problem though. Hiding the aux power cable required an extension though since the PSU is at the bottom.
 
you know you can route that around the back right? You don't need an extension (at least in the case of my tx750).
 
guys, with respect to the top fan filter, if you remove your optical drive, can you twist it out?

otherwise, what "easy" way is there to remove it?
 
guys, with respect to the top fan filter, if you remove your optical drive, can you twist it out?

otherwise, what "easy" way is there to remove it?

No, it's the top USB/Firewire/Audio ports that get in the way, not the optical drive.

I just kept it out, and I'll clean it out myself occasionally instead.
 
you know you can route that around the back right? You don't need an extension (at least in the case of my tx750).

I needed an extension if I wanted to hide it. Otherwise I had to route it over the motherboard which was a little ugly IMO.
 
Back
Top