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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maximumGPU - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
Great review.It doesn't seem to perform a lot better than the AIR 540, not at the same noise levels at least.
So taking into account all the quirks and the high price wouldn't that make the 540 immediately the better choice?
meacupla - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
AIR 540 is not without its own set of faults.One gripe I would have, if I were to buy it, is that it has no mounting holes for caster wheels, which is kind of essential for a cube case that you can load a ton of hardware into.
And another is why are the 5.25 bays vertical?
I wonder why silverstone didn't go for an updated FT02 design? That case was extremely well thought out and only needed minor tweaks for E-ATX, 8x PCI slots and more HDD racks.
1Angelreloaded - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
The 540 Air isn't large enough for casters, this isn't a 2x2x2 foot cube like a UFO from MM, and you are right about the 5.25 bays but if you are wiling to do a little leg work and Mod the case you will find it is simply amazing. Start by turning it on it's side, window up, if you need casters attach them to the bottom or what used to be the side panel, well you have a start at least.meacupla - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
You must be thinking of large casters...I've fitted 2" plate casters on my fractal define define mini and it doesn't tip over, despite its small footprint.
Samus - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
It still seems like the FT01 is still their best "regular" case, which I believe was their first positive-pressure case which really made them stand out as a manufacturer. It was basic, and had some flaws (like no back-plate access on the motherboard tray, and no good implementation for SSD/2.5" drives) but it wasn't overengineered like the newer cases...I mean the story with this FT04's door is ridiculous.But if you ask me, the FT03-mini is the best computer case ever made. You could pack the most powerful consumer-class CPU, a 550-watt SFX PSU, a GTX 770, optical drive, water cooling and an SSD + 2GB 2.5" + 4GB 3.5" hard drive inside a case less than 2 sq.ft. big.
kwrzesien - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
It's funny, I have a FT01 (Silver - and I love it) and have recently considered the FT03 and FT03-mini for a small aesthetic build to go in the home study / office sitting on a full-wall built-in cabinet and shelving system. It's not too deep but there is plenty of height which fails most cases. And you're right, you can put everything you need in that little case and it even hides the back (top) cable connections, problem solved!althaz - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
No, the FT02 (with USB 3) is their best case. In fact, it's THE best case. Ever.I may be biased because I'm somewhat in love with it (it's the case my current PC resides in), but it's silent, performs superbly, looks good and makes life incredibly easy (the back of the motherboard points to the top of the case, so it's super-convenient to plug/unplug things).
GokieKS - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
If the FT-02 didn't have the issue with non-blower GPU HSFs and optical drives in top 5.25" bay blocking PCI/e slots, I might agree with you. I also wish it was all aluminum and thus lighter, but that's a more minor quibble.althaz - Friday, August 30, 2013 - link
I haven't used a non-blower GPU for years. I'd forgotten there was an issue with the top 5 1/4" bay.That said, I didn't say it was perfect (it's still my favourite), it needs:
More space behind the motherboard, more than one hot-swap bay (all the 3.5" bays should be hot-swapable), should be easier to assemble and...actually, that's about all I'd change.
maximumGPU - Saturday, August 31, 2013 - link
it doesn't exactly have an issue with non-blower GPU, it's just that it performs best with blower style.My current GPU in an FT02 has a non- blower heatsink, yet temps are great.