Silverstone FT02 - Ref GPU or 3rd party cooler GPU?

Hello guys, looking at the Silverstone FT02 and been doing some research on the net and i have read numerous reviews to say its and excellent case and its cooling performance is really good however im in a bit of a dilemma.

I am looking to finalize my upgrade this coming week with a GTX670, now i come across a problem with the FT02 case, apparently its best to use Reference cards in this case because of the layout and people have stated their cards with custom coolers (MSI Twin Frozr - Gigabyte windforce - Asus Direct CUII Top) do not work because their cooling system is not designed to exit the hot air out of the exhaust ports of the card. is this true? i wish for someone with this case and any of the above GPU's to come forth and give me some info. I currently have a Corsair 600T and tbh i think its gash, its loud-ish, not very good at cooling (my HD5850 idle temps have increased since i put it in this case the old case it was in and cooled better was a Xigmatek Asguard mid tower). i have the corsair 200mm fan at the front and a NZXT 200m at the top. the fan controller is also horrendous - i can turn the dial and i dont hear an increase in fan speed unless i turn it all the way up it does not seem gradual at all.

Anyways what GPU can i get that is compatible with the case? i hope its not reference only because i heard they are meant to be quite loud under load. i am also thinking about SLI'ing in the future too so that is a factor. i am looking to get the case within this week also.

Non-reference cards only become an issue if you plan to use more than one. The FT02 and RV02 have no problems with a single card using custom cooling, so long as it has GOOD cooling. The complaints you may have read usually refer to a small budget card with a single fan.

I'm using the Raven RV02 with a Gigabyte Windforce GTX670. Idle temps ~30c, load temps overclocked ~60c. No impact on temps of other components since upgrading from a reference card. There are many RV02/FT02 owners using custom cooler cards without issue.

Anyway, the Gigabyte does this:


so air just gets slammed against the side of case and then straight up via airflow from bottom case fans.

thanks for the info, it seams the hot air expelled from the card the bottom 180mm fans should have no problem guiding it in the right direction. another thing that worries me is i am using an Antec H2o 620 cooler and with the radiator grill restricting airflow than normal will it just be right to forget about the hole thing? or will it be ok?

have you heard of any temps with SLI in the Silverstone cases with a 90 degree tilt? i understands the raven is more or less the same thing as the FT02. I like the case and i want to buy it as the reviews ive read are all great. it seems one Windforce 670 will be ok (Windforce is the 670 i want to buy) i just now need to know if its ok for SLI because im going to get a 120Hz monitor and a 3D vision kit later on and want the 3d performance. thanks again for your information and the video.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18425851

Posting thread from graphic card section above.

Exactly same subject and same case. (I love my Ft02..its understated but really quite a tempermental **** when you look deeper)

In relation to video clip, all SLI/crossfire setups I have seen have blower exhaust cards.
Considering the amount of heat 2 cards would generate I would be worried about it all being blown into the case.

The exhaust system on a FT02 seems to be the vented pci slots and the fan located above the CPU cooler.

The more I have considered it the more im concluding that having that kind of heat washing around the case cannot be z good thing in long run.

Will be talk about 'optimal' and that it 'should' be ok. I'll suggest trusting the engineers of Silverstone.

Until someone comes along and verifies that 2x non-reference cards (windforce etc..) work and not be detrimental in this case, I would consider reference designs tbh.

Should help future questions regarding the ft02ers.


Cheers

Ok I have two non reference 7950s in my case FT02 (Windforce and a sapphire OC)

What I can tell you is that temps are not an issue. unless you have the cards back to back without a gap to suck air in...which is a standard problem anyway.

Now the FT02 and the RV02 (actually all of the 90 degree cases) are best suited to non-reference designs. Reference sucks in cool air and exhausts out the back, excellent for cases with poor cooling or venting, neither or which are problems for the FT02 making them still good but hardly making the best use of the cases selling point. Now a non reference design normally has the a lot of the heatsink exposed and vents hot air into the case. But as hot air rises and in the ft02 has 180mm fans to help it along....not really an issue, if anything, chances are the card will be even cooler as the 180mm is blowing cool air to the graphics card intakes as well as directly onto the heatsink.
So yes I would fully recommend non-reference designs for this case - chances are you will see cooler gpu's than people using the same cards in standard cases.

As to the your second question about the h2o 620. I have the 920 and have it mounted to the top 120mm output fan. I have my fans setup to output and my oc 2500k (4.5ghz) has never seen 60c with a nice non-aggressive fan profile (I like the system to be very quiet). So again not a problem, at least its no more of a problem than it is in any other case.

thank you so much for you reply about the rad on the top. Can i ask what fans you use for quietness? im currently looking at the Corsair SP120's but everywhere i look the Noctuas seem to be the way forward. i bought an Akasa Venom and my CPU was hotter with that on than my old Arctic cooling F12 120mm fan. cheers.

Well for the time being I have the original fans on mine but as they are dialed down low they are quite quiet. To my knowledge the best fans for rads are scythe gentle typhoons. That said I have never used them and I hear that whislt quiet they make a different sort of noise to other fans so to some they are in fact more noticable...but pretty much 90% of reviews from people about them are positive.

If I was you I would have 2 fans in a push pull config on the rad, your temps will be far lower.

About the venom? That is a very good fan so I'm surprised to hear your complaint....how did you have it connected as it is 4pin? was it direct to cpu fan header? if so it might not of been at proper speed.

hi, i had it connected to the CPU opt fan header on my sabertooth board. i got told somewhere not to put my pump wire in anything else than the CPU header so i didnt dare put the fan in that. every fan header on my board is 4 pin and i had the fan set at turbo. it hasnt worked for me and i really dont know why.

How is the h2o with the stock fan? Your right its good to put the pump in the cpu header but I assume in the bios you ensured it was set to manuel control, full power as you want the pump going full pelt all the time.

I don't understand what the concern about custom coolers in this case is tbh.

I'll test the temps when my raven arrives.

I run a reference design 5770 in my FT02 as I prefer the heat chucked out the top of the case. It totally works in this way and the top of the case above the card gets noticeably warm. I don't want that warm air inside the case so... makes sense to me to run reference, but then I prefer reference in any case let alone FT02. I'm not suggesting non reference do not work. They totally do as well, sometimes better as have bigger fans and heatsinks anyway. Either will be fine.

OptimaLnrg said:

I don't understand what the concern about custom coolers in this case is tbh.

I'll test the temps when my raven arrives.

Click to expand...

because some custom coolers have failed. and Silverstone have a Q&A section on their site that tells you some certain types of heatsink layouts on the GPU suffer and causes overheating because of the Mobo 90 degree layout in their cases. thats why there is concern my man.

http://www.silverstonetek.com/faq.php?area=usa

this?

Looks pretty old.. I'll see how valid it is for me on monday.

I had 2 non reference 570s in SLI in my FT02 and i had no issues at all with cooling or heat issues with them. The design of the case would favour venting hot air thru the back of the card and out the top of the case but i think the 3x 200mm fans pushing all that cool air thru the case will keep most cards cool if they have decent cooling anyways.

I would think the 600 series cards should be fine.

wodgah can i ask why you went from the FT02 to the 600T? i have the 600T and i dont think its great at all tbh.

I actually went from the FT02 to a NZXT switch and did a full watercooling setup but had money issues and only recently got back to a high end system , and honestly the 600T was purely for looks. Easily the nicest looking case ive had , but im disapointed with the noise levels on it tho its better now im running a h100 and not using both the 200mm fans which i think are disappointing myself.

i think reference would be better but not by much i also agree the 600t is not that good

its noisey
build qaulity is meh
cracking noise with SLI
to get decent cooling you need to lose the window & change the fans

i now run with 1x230mm on the side and 1x200mm on the front 200CCFM her bitfenix spectre pro

i removed the top exhaust fans as it actually made the case hotter!

too true guys, i went for looks too and i thought the 200mm fans would work great and it doesn't. as you say its noisy too and the built in fan controller is pure gash. i think it would benefit if the side panels had some sort of rubber around the edges as its not sealed properly. my side panel finger locking thingy majigs have snapped. my front mesh snapped (the little tiny things what the clips hold to keep it in place). the build quality is appalling.

I really only want the FT02 for its cooling the reviews i have read say its excellent and my mate has one and he says its the best case he has owned. and the fact that its sound proofed. i am thinking of getting the none windowed version though as the whole side panel will then be sound proof. and windows dont appeal to me because no one who comes to my house is interested haha.

I am in two minds to get a HAF 932 case or something though because i may eventually SLI my 670 and i dont know if a FT02 could cool SLI aswell as the HAF can with its side panel fan etc.

I have now finished my build on my 600T and I dont have any issues with heat and ive managed to get the noise levels right down , and it does look great (but thats personal taste) However this did involve me using a H100 and 2x Corsairs new SP 120 fans. So thats about another 100+ ontop of the case.

I'll just add my input, I had the same dilemma when I was building my computer back in September last year (build in sig).

I decided to keep my EVGA 480 from my old build and buy another and put it in SLI. They are both reference cards and the heat output (cosidering there two 480's) is pretty good, They have been abit warmer in the past month or so with the heat, Card 1 gets around 82 and the 2nd card gets around 78 but last year in the winter they rarely went over 77 degrees which for a 480 is pretty good.

I have been considering upgrading but theres a few factors:

-Nothing really pushes them so hard that I get bad FPS
-New Nvidia cards are around the corner Q4 2012 (rumoured)
-Not sure weather to get a non reference as the cooling difference is pretty big when you look at them but again not sure how they will be in a FT02. Haven't seen many threads with evidence or graphs to show the differnce between reference and non reference.

However I would like to upgrade to maybe get something that's not so hot as my room gets pretty toasty when playing some games, and maybe try get the electric bill down (who am I kidding)