SilverStone Fortress FT04 Case Review
by Dustin Sklavos on August 29, 2013 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- SilverStone
- ATX
The Fortress FT04 and Raven RV04 both inherit the concepts of their thermal design from SilverStone's incredibly popular and successful Temjin TJ08-E. That enclosure is a micro-ATX affair, but the principles that drive that case (and its excellent thermal performance) are present here. It's something that other vendors still seem to be struggling with: direct airflow over the hot components. Not this bottom-front to top-rear airflow, just a straight line. And thus, SilverStone does with two incredibly powerful 180mm fans what takes other vendors a lot more effort.
There's a tremendous amount of adjustability with both integrated fans; they can run whisper quiet at a low speed or as loudly and powerfully as a pair of Deltas, so much so that they were rattling the blinds in my room from five feet away after going through the case. Ordinarily I'd test at the lowest and highest settings, but I tried to modulate a middle setting as well. The reality is that you can easily adjust and get as little or as much performance as you want from these fans, so take the test results as a sort of starting point.
Ambient temperatures during testing hovered between 23C and 25C.
CPU performance is great, but one place where that diagonal airflow situation does seem to perform slightly better is with open-air graphics card coolers. The results on our GTX 560 Ti aren't awful, but they're merely competitive. Compare that to the CPU performance, which is basically bulletproof.
Noise levels are less than ideal, but remember, the minimum fan setting is really the worst case scenario. Look at how massive the gulf is between each fan setting.
Overclocking is very kind to the FT04 on the CPU side, less so on the GPU. SilverStone even recommends blower style coolers for the FT04 and RV04 in the manual, and I wholeheartedly agree.
Noise levels are again tricky, with the FT04's highest fan setting basically cancelling out any internal noise. It would've taken some time and tuning to find an ideal fan setting for our testbed and again, it's going to depend on your build.
Finally, where the FT04 really shines is with the full fat testbed.
The blower-style coolers are exactly in the FT04's wheelhouse. This is the best possible scenario for this case and it, like the old FT02, is a borderline ideal enclosure for air-cooled multi-GPU systems.
Once again, noise levels aren't excellent, but there's obviously wiggle room here. The FT04 is as powerful or as quiet as you need.
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koshling - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
Glad I gave up waiting about 6 weeks ago and bought an FT02 (which rocks)GokieKS - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
I've been a huge fan of SilverStone's cases for about as long as the company has existed, as I was a big fan of Cooler Master's ATCS cases prior too. But this really doesn't do much for me, in either aesthetics (which I believe SS to do better than just about anyone else in the industry) or features - it's the first case from the Fortress line that I haven't loved from the moment I laid eyes on it.What I really wish SilverStone would make is an updated version of the FT-01. The single-piece extruded aluminum design of the TJ-07/FT-01 still looks great today, cooling performance is quite good, and I dearly love mine and continue to use it despite it missing some features that are commonplace nowadays (CPU cutout, proper cable routing holes, USB 3.0 front ports, etc.) If they just released a new version with the features that you expect all decent cases to have in 2013, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
Theremings759 - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
my bf's sister just got a nine month old Lexus GX 460 SUV only from working part time off a macbook air... go to this web-site http://jobs63.combobbozzo - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
Hi, it is difficult to tell from the pictures if the front intakes are filtered; please state whether they are or not in all case reviews.Thanks!
bobbozzo - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
ISTM that a case this expensive should either come with PWM fans, or have another model available with them. Spending another $25 - $50 to buy a couple PWM Nexus or Noctua fans makes this even more expensive.bobbozzo - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
I should point out that many of the Noctuas come as a kit with multiple connection options in case you don't have any available PWM motherboard connectors, so SS could actually sell a single model for PWM / non-PWM.Touche - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
Ugh, this looks like such a mess. FT02 wasn't perfect but it had a lot positive points, but the new series is bad to mediocre in most of things.Any plans on reviewing Fractal Define R4 and/or XL R2?
Touche - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
Sorry, R4 was reviewed.Touche - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
Doh, both are reviewed. Why isn't the R2 in the graphs?genghisquan - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
YES! I wish Silverstone would've improved the FT02/RV02 while keeping the essential layout and design...instead of making this 4th series.