SilverStone FT03: Nothing Else Like It
by Dustin Sklavos on April 28, 2011 12:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- SilverStone
Assembling the FT03
While most enclosures based on traditional design principles are pretty easy to figure out just by eyeballing them, SilverStone includes an instruction manual with the FT03 for a reason. Much like the GD04 we reviewed before it, there's a specific order you'll want to put the FT03 together in, but thankfully the order at least makes sense and the assembly is as painless as possible.
With this review we're experimenting a little and I've added something different. Below is a time-lapsed video of my scrawny, hairy Greek arms assembling our testbed inside the FT03 set to Chu Ishikawa's music for Tetsuo: The Bullet Man. We know video isn't for everybody (I personally like listening to music while I read reviews so something like this isn't necessarily my cup of tea), but it should be illuminating for those of you who want to get a good feel for how the FT03 gets put together.
The basic assembly of the FT03 involves removing the two intake fans and the extra fan mount at the top first, and the computer gets built essentially from the ground up. Mounting the motherboard is easy enough given the surprisingly copious space inside the case, with standoffs for at least a Mini-ITX board already built into the backplane. What's interesting is that while SilverStone recommends removing the case fans first and indeed that's what I did, it doesn't seem to be strictly necessary (at least removing the bottom one isn't). This isn't a toolless design by any stretch of the imagination, and the tiny screws used for securing the optical drive are pretty easy to lose, but it's as simple as it could be.
Installing the power supply is incredibly simple, too, although the plug used to route to the power supply (thus depriving you of access of the master switch) can have a tendency to bunch and get in the way of sliding the side panel back on.
Where I was really impressed was with the way hard drives are installed; the drive mounting standoffs actually glide into place on the case instead of making you hunt and carefully line up screws. I was admittedly a little puzzled initially with how to install the 2.5" drive tray (though that may have been 1am talking to me), but eventually it locked in exactly where it ought to go. You'll want to install the 2.5" drive with the connectors facing down towards the bottom of the case; the 3.5" drives can't be installed in any orientation other than with their connectors facing inward and down, thus helping with cable routing.
Routing cables is also handled about as well as it can be, but woe betide anyone who tries to install a non-modular power supply in this case. While it can probably be done, routing space for cables is at a premium in the FT03. There are pretty specific places the cables are supposed to route through and I found they worked as well as they could. While you can use a PSU from any vendor, if you're planning on building in this case it might be wise to cough up for a SilverStone Strider power supply specifically so you can buy short modular cables specifically designed to fit inside this case.
Honestly I'm left with few complaints in terms of the assembly of the FT03. SilverStone includes all the necessary screws along with cable ties, and their shorter modular cables fit perfectly. My only major issue is an old hand: there are three 120mm case fans included, but Micro-ATX boards with three fan headers are rarefied at best.
From there I have a series of minor gripes. First, as I mentioned before you pretty much have no choice but to use a modular power supply with the FT03, and SilverStone's shorter cables make a big, big difference. Second, you're stuck using a slot-loading slim-line optical drive. I can't complain too much; putting any other type in here would definitely ruin the aesthetic, but it does incur additional expense and I have to wonder if there wasn't another way. Maybe finding a way to mount a standard slim-line drive at the top of the case? Finally, the side panels are keyed and slot in easily enough (with some pressure, but nothing you haven't experienced assembling a hundred other cases), but they don't snap in and tend to feel a bit loose. When you move the FT03, you'll want to lift it from the front and back; the sides will slide right off.
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Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, April 28, 2011 - link
Good micro-ATX boards will have the same kinds of overclocking goodies as their full ATX kin.Slimline optical drives are fairly standardized, so in this instance you just have to find one that slot-loads. SilverStone sells one on their site.
dalenchm0b - Thursday, April 28, 2011 - link
***WARNING, THIS IS A LONG POST***I can answer some of your questions, since I am actually burning in one of these cases right now. The optical drive this case uses is the same type of drive found in those more expensive laptops where the drive sucks in the disc as opposed to a tray popping out. It's the same mechanism for the Wii and PS3 optical drives. There aren't too many models available, but you can readily find them on eBay. Just search for "slot load dvd" and "slot load blu-ray". Personally, I don't think I will buy one anyway because USB flash drives are cheap and I can just use that since we are moving towards digital distribution anyway.
As for the motherboard, I am currently running stability tests on an overclocked i7-920 @ 3.8 GHz using the Asus Rampage III Gene. The RIIIG is a 1366 mATX mobo that supports SLI and CF, so I am definitely going to take advantage of that one day when I upgrade my old GTX 260 to some HD 6000 or GTX 500 series goodness. I am using a Corsair H60 with medium speed Yate Loons in push-pull. In fact, I replaced all the fans with Yate Loons since I have had good results with them and they are nice and cheap. I replaced the GPU fan at the bottom of the case with 2 80mm Yates, because the 120mm fan uses a bracket that directs air at an angle instead of directly upwards. I didn't bother going with an SSD, instead I am using two WD 640 GB black drives in RAID 0 for the OS and apps, while a 2 TB Samsung F4 provides storage. The reviewer isn't kidding about the side panels passively cooling the drives, because I can touch the side of the case and feel exactly where the drives are from the heat these bad boys are giving off. Powering this little bastard is a fully modular Seasonic X750. It should provide enough power for dual gpu goodness as long as I stick with mainstream level cards.
Anyway, I'm currently benching at 3.8 GHz and its been stable for a few hours now but the 4 cores with hyperthreading enabled and all 8 threads active is making the CPU just a tad too warm for my taste at 72 C. I'll probably give the silverstone fans a test run and see if they can cool it down some more, but otherwise its doing pretty damn good I think.
I am satisfied with the case and would recommend it to someone looking to maximize desk space while looking simple yet elegant. Thanks for reading!
coldcase - Friday, April 29, 2011 - link
Sorry but I'm not finding that design appealing at all. Looks like a mini fridge.7Enigma - Friday, April 29, 2011 - link
Hi guys,Read your article yesterday and then this morning saw this deal on a slimline DVD/CD burner ($23). Hope this helps some of you reading this and wanting to get the FT03 (not me):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
7Enigma - Friday, April 29, 2011 - link
Scratch my last comment, too early in the morning. This was for a slimline but not slot-loading it appears.james007 - Friday, April 29, 2011 - link
I appreciate the in-depth article. However - what about that optical-drive, which has to be "slot-loading"??? Exactly which models are going to fit this thing? The "setup" table doesn't say what he put into this. I would think, since our whole purpose in reading this article is to gleen the benefit of the author's experience in order to ascertain whether to use this in our own build - and to help as a guide in building it -- that this is one of the primary items he'd cover.I see precious few slot-loading optical drives available from online retailers, and zero information on which to get. Any helpful thoughts on this?
araczynski - Friday, April 29, 2011 - link
i guess to each their own, but to me, it looks like a silver paper shredder trashcan.EnzoFX - Friday, April 29, 2011 - link
I just don't think these reviews do any cases justice. SPCR does it best, a case is about cooling, how well it can run at given tdp/overall power usage/and how quiet. Saying it has decent noise levels isn't very helpful. I remember an old review saying that noise was below the ambient 30+ dB's which then prompted me to ignore the entire thing.cordis - Saturday, April 30, 2011 - link
"To be fair, though, I don't think I could armchair engineer a better solution than what SilverStone has done."Really? I came up with a couple variations:
smaller wooden box - http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php...
larger brass box - http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php...
The easiest way they could have done this would be to just put one big fan at the bottom of the box, put the optical slot in vertically, maybe put the psu near the top of the case, and just keep the air paths open all the way up. If the fan at the bottom overlaps both chambers, you can easily get enough cooling that way. In my homemade cases, I put separate fans on each side, but I'm thinking about another one with a single fan at the bottom. I'm not thrilled with this case, it's not nearly as elegant as the other rotated motherboard cases they have. I appreciate that they're still being creative, though.
shyrix - Saturday, April 30, 2011 - link
I love this case. i put in dual 6870's, asus p8p67-m pro, i2500k,h70, corsair vengeance sticks, ocz vertex ssd raid0fit it all, documented my build via facebook. lots of photos...just click through to facebook album.
http://shylock.net/sandybridge
has strider psu, with short cable kit.
i can answer any questions about this case/build