Silverstone Fortress FT03 Mini Case Review

1. Introduction2. Silverstone FT03 Mini: Packaging and Bundle3. Silverstone FT03 Mini: Exterior4. Silverstone FT03 Mini: Interior and Installation5. Testing Methodology and Performance6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

It would be fair to say that over the past couple of years we've seen some very interesting chassis design innovations from Silverstone.  They haven't been afraid to think outside the box and have come up with some very impressive cases in the process.  For example, the Silverstone Fortress FT02 and Raven RV02 which both feature vertical airflow designs rather than the more conventional horizontal design.

Today we are gong to take a look at the Silverstone Fortress FT03 Mini which is a smaller version of the popular Fortress FT03 which was released about a year ago.

This reduction in size means that the FT03 Mini only has room for the smallest components so you will have to combine it with a Mini ITX motherboard and a SFX power supply.  This means it is best suited for building a HTPC or small form factor PC rather than a powerful compact gaming systems.

Silverstone Fortress FT03 Features

• Super mini footprint design with no cables and vents on four sides
• Ample space for CPU cooling (78mm in height)
• Elevated standoff for motherboard back side components
• Includes 140mm Air Penetrator fan and support entry level liquid cooling
• Support for two 2.5” SSD/hard drives and one 3.5” hard drive
• Mini-DTX / Mini-ITX motherboard & SFX PSU compatible
• Standard-length expansion cards support (10 inches)

Silverstone supply the FT03 Mini in a relatively compact box which reflects the size of the case within.  The box is constructed from thick cardboard and the case is sandwiched between two slabs of polystyrene inside so it will be well protected during transit.

The box features a black and white livery and there are two large images of the case on the front of the box, one in black and one in silver.

Inside the box, the included bundle is very sparse.  The only  items inside the box aside from the installation screws are the installation guide, a USB3.0 to USB2.0 internal header adapter and a couple of black cable ties.

It's fair to say that the Silverstone Fortress FT03 Mini is like no other case on the market, with the obvious exception of the full size version.  Its form factor is totally unique as it's about as wide as a normal mid-tower PC case but shorter and much less deep.  Silverstone claim that it's 50% smaller than the original FT03.

The outer shell of the FT03 mini is constructed exclusively from thick anodised aluminium which gives the case an exclusive look and feel.  Three of the four sides of the case are removable and simply clip into the steel frame underneath.

This makes it very easy to access the internals of the case but can be quite annoying as they cannot be secured into place with screws and they can come off very easily by accident when moving the case.

Like the FT02, the FT03 Mini features a vertical airflow design where cool air is sucked into the bottom of the case and then flows out of the top.  There is only one fan included in the case which is a Silverstone Air Penetrator 140mm fan in the bottom of the case which spins at 1,500 rpm.

The top panel of the case is a giant plastic vent which also covers all of the rear I/O connections and PSU due to the unusual internal layout of the case.  The power and reset buttons are located in the centre of the top panel alongside the front panel connections. These consist of two USB3.0 ports and headphone and microphone jacks.

In the front of the case there is a slot for a slimline slot-load optical drive which can be installed in the chassis.  There isn't an eject button built into the chassis, though, so you'll have to eject discs through Windows or a multimedia remote.  Silverstone has attached two flexible strips on either side of the rear of the slot which are probably to prevent dust getting in.

Unfortunately they restrict the movement of the CD in and out of the slot so much that our slimline optical drive couldn't muster enough power to eject the CD through them.  So we were forced to remove this altogether to get our CDs to eject properly.

Accessing the interior of the FT03 Mini is very simple indeed.  Three of the four panels which make up the outer shell of the case simply pull off to reveal the steel frame inside the case.  The fourth side remains permanently attached to the case.

Before installing anything into the case we have to remove the drive cages which are screwed to one side of the chassis.  The case features three hard drive bays in total, two 2.5″ and a single 3.5″.  The 3.5″ bay can be removed separately from the case, as can one of the 2.5″ drives which is located below the motherboard but the other 2.5″ drive bay is attached to the slimline optical drive bay.

Firstly we installed our ASRock A75M-ITX motherboard into the system.  The four stand-offs are preinstalled into the case which saves some hassle as the motherboard can be simply screwed down in each corner.  The CPU cooler needs to be attached before screwing down the motherboard, though, as there is no cut out in the motherboard tray for doing so.

The case only supports CPU coolers up to 78 mm in height so we were forced to use remove one of the fans from our Noctua NH-L12 and use it in low profile mode.

Next we installed our Be Quiet! BN134 350W SFX power supply into the system using four screws.  The PSU mounting holes are also located under the top cover of the system so the power supply sits right next to the motherboard when installed. It's a little disappointing that the case doesn't support a full size ATX PSU as it limits our choice of components.

For example, it would be very difficult to build a high performance compact gaming system in this chassis without running into power issues.  Silverstone sell their own Strider SST-ST45SF SFX PSU which is compatible with the case which offers 450W of power.  It's available to buy from Scan.

Installation of expansion devices is relatively simple.  A small bracket above the two expansion slots must be removed before we can disconnect the vented covers and insert our graphics card.  Silverstone's inclusion of two expansion slots, rather than one, means you can install double height graphics cards into the system.

We installed an SSD into the the removable 2.5″ tray which is located just below the motherboard. Then we screwed the tray back into the case using the two thumbscrews provided.

Finally we installed a slimline slot load optical drive into the case.  Installing an optical drive is quite fiddly as the screws are very small and the holes aren't directly accessible.

Cable routing in the case can be an issue due to the close proximity of all the internal components.  We weren't able to find a modular SFX power supply for our test system which complicates this slightly but we managed to bundle up most of the cables above the graphics card where airflow isn't as essential.

In this review we are using an AMD Vision A8-3850 based system to test the thermal and acoustic performance of the Silverstone Fortress FT03 Mini.  We didn't overclock our test system as we wouldn't want to run the system much hotter than it is at stock settings for an extended period of time.

Test System

• Processor: AMD Vision A8-3850 APU
• Motherboard: ASRock A75M-ITX
• Cooler: Noctua NH-L12
• Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-3
• Memory: 4 GB (2x 2 GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600 MHz
• Graphics Card: HIS Radeon HD 5550 Silence
• Power Supply: Be Quiet BN134 350W SFX
• System Drive: Patriot Torqx 2
• Monitor: Viewsonic VX2260WM
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Software

• CPUID Hardware Monitor
• Prime 95 64-bit
• Furmark V1.9.2

To test the thermal performance of the Silverstone FT03 Mini we loaded our test system for 10 minutes using Prime 95 and Furmark and recorded the maximum temperatures reached using CPUID Hardware Monitor.  We then restarted the system and left it for 10minutes before recording idle temperatures.  Room temperatures were maintained at 20 degrees C for the duration of our tests.

The temperatures we recorded are a little warmer than we'd expect in a regular case but considering the extremely small form factor this isn't surprising.  The APU temperature we recorded in the FT03 Mini is seven degrees higher than that we recorded in the Xigmatek Gigas but we also have to consider that there wasn't room for the main 120mm fan on the cooler in this case.

To test the noise performance of the case we placed our digital dBA meter 1m from the front of the case. We also momentarily detached our CPU cooler’s fan so we were only taking the noise into account from the case fan.

We are quite impressed with the noise level of the FT03 mini.  While it is audible the noise created by the single fan isn't intrusive and only just breaks the 30 dBA mark. For an HTPC system it is acceptable.

Our overall impressions of the Silverstone Fortress FT03 Mini are very positive indeed. It is very clear that Silverstone utilise an extremely talented design team as both Fortress FT03 and FT03 Mini are very innovative. While Silverstone are not short of competition in this sector, they do tend to stand out due to the engineering quality of the finished product.

The build quality of the FT03 Mini is stellar.  The anodised aluminium panels that make up the outer shell of the case look (and feel) fantastic and should also prove very durable.  Our only slight niggle with them is that they can't be secured into position with screws, meaning they can come off by accident when you're moving the case.

The CD slot in the front has two flexible strips on the back side presumably to prevent the CD being scratched and to stop dust from entering the case. These provide far to much resistance to the CD, though, and our slot load optical drive couldn't even muster enough power to eject a CD through them.

In the end we peeled them off as they're only secured with adhesive but we would like to see Silverstone looking at an alternative for this in future revisions of the case.

Despite the design similarities between the FT03 and FT03 Mini, we imagine that the market for the Mini version will be significantly smaller because of the limitation on the components that you can install within the case.

The FT03 Mini demands a SFX power supply rather than a more conventional ATX design which means you're limited to a maximum of about 450W of output.  While you could build a medium powered gaming system within this power envelope, you could build a much higher performance machine in the full size FT03 with ATX power supply.

Even though you could build a mid-range gaming system in the FT03 Mini, we feel it's best suited to design conscious users who want to build an extremely stylish HTPC or Small Form Factor PC.  Cooling isn't a strong point of the chassis due to the size limitations but it should be adequate unless you're looking to build a heavily overclocked system.

The Silverstone Fortress FT03 Mini can be yours for a shade over £100 from OCUK so isn't going to be an option for those on a tight budget.  That said, if you want the finest looking compact system money can buy, we wouldn't hesitate to recommend the FT03 Mini.

Pros:

• Amazing build quality.
• Sublime aesthetics.
• Reasonable cooling performance.
• Innovative design.
• Quiet fans.

Cons:

• Limited choice of compatible components.
• Slot prevents CDs from ejecting properly.

KitGuru says: It is a beautiful work of art.

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