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Fortress FT02 & non-reference GPUs

Havana_UK

Havana_UK

Havana_UK

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I've recently upgraded my rig and in doing so swapped my case from an Antec P180 to a Silverstone Fortress FT02, which can only be described as an "epic" case.

Internal case temps (GPU & CPU loaded) have gone from 38 degrees C to 25 degrees C (and that includes a swap from 4GHz i5 750 to 4.5GHz i7 4770K)!

My GPU is a reference GTX680, and I have to say that nVidia's reference cooler (which, to be fair, has always been decent) performs brilliantly with the Fortress's layout. Load GPU temps are 10+ degrees cooler than in my previous case.

Silverstone recommend cards with rear-exhaust coolers, but I'm itching for a GPU upgrade now and I wondered if anyone thought that a non-reference cooler would work just as well in this case. I'm asking because the ref coolers exhaust the hot air directly out of the case, but non ref coolers, tend to exhaust at least some of the hot air into the case, and Silverstone recommend not using a GPU with a cooler of this design.
 
If they have long heatpipes going along the length of the card it can cause overheating issues due to the way the heatpipes work.
 
I had the same case for years and always had non reference coolers on my gpus and never had a problem, if anything they were cooler than others with the same card but different cases, best air cooled case around imo :)
 
Thanks for the additional feedback everyone, and glad to see some have experience of non-ref cooled GPUs working well in the FT02.

I shall consider my options!
 
Most non-ref coolers blow "Toward" the board of the card, meaning the air gets deflected sideways.. and since the FT02 has a bottom to top cooling, the air will go the same way as a ref cooler in the end, especially since hot air rises.

So as others have said, and even logically, it should work just fine. Might increase CPU temps by a few C, but not much.
 
Make said:
Most non-ref coolers blow "Toward" the board of the card, meaning the air gets deflected sideways.. and since the FT02 has a bottom to top cooling, the air will go the same way as a ref cooler in the end, especially since hot air rises.

So as others have said, and even logically, it should work just fine. Might increase CPU temps by a few C, but not much.
Click to expand...

Thanks Make.

I suspect that the important thing is to get a cooler where the heat-sink fins run longitudinally and the heat-pipes run laterally in order for the airflow from the case fans to pass unimpeded through the heat-sink.
 
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