Silverstone Fortress FT02B-W Owners, Your thought's please!!!

jaybee · 1 Dec 2010 at 08:08

Hi guys, I just got this case, will post when I do my build. I got it a month or so ago for an absolute bargain of £80 second hand because it had a couple of scratches on it. I'm going to restore those and doa full build in it.

Anyway, my questions are this:

1: What is the difference between the revised fans to the old style fans and how do I tell which ones I got? Model number on my fans says RL42 S1803212M-3M DC12V.

2: Can I get a replacement drive bay blanking plate or can I buy one off of any of you guys in black?

Lustral · 1 Dec 2010 at 11:28

cogrady84 said:
is there a real need for a controller? or does the one built on the top fan good enough?

It is alright , but i wanted the option to completely turn off the fans of my choice.

The Low settings on the case is about enough to make it quiet enough, however the high setting is a tad noisy for my liking

jaybee · 1 Dec 2010 at 16:40

Wow just saw this video showing the benefit of the air penetrator fans. Pretty impressive. Not sure I can be bothered with upgrading mine though if the costs are true as someone above said they are like £50 for the set?

http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_contents.php?pno=AP181&area=

Lustral · 1 Dec 2010 at 16:54

jaybee said:
Wow just saw this video showing the benefit of the air penetrator fans. Pretty impressive. Not sure I can be bothered with upgrading mine though if the costs are true as someone above said they are like £50 for the set?

http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_contents.php?pno=AP181&area=

The AP181 are about £15 each , and you would need 3 to replace them all.

jaybee · 1 Dec 2010 at 17:11

Yeah I just read a review basically saying that they are worth it for the cooling but, are ever so slightly more noisy than the original ft02 ones, plus use more power on high setting. I think because I am obsessed, I may end up getting them, but the recommendation for people upgrading is to just upgrade the middle and rear fan, since the one sat underneath the hard disk drive isn't really necessary to improve HDD cooling and won't affect overall system temps. I just read a good review of the old vs new style penetrators it and seemed thorough. The temp difference is quite significant. Hmm...decisions.

Lustral · 1 Dec 2010 at 17:27

jaybee said:
Yeah I just read a review basically saying that they are worth it for the cooling but, are ever so slightly more noisy than the original ft02 ones, plus use more power on high setting. I think because I am obsessed, I may end up getting them, but the recommendation for people upgrading is to just upgrade the middle and rear fan, since the one sat underneath the hard disk drive isn't really necessary to improve HDD cooling and won't affect overall system temps. I just read a good review of the old vs new style penetrators it and seemed thorough. The temp difference is quite significant. Hmm...decisions.

Yeah on full 1200 RPM , they are noticable to the ears , but tune them down to run at about 750 RPM they are hardly noticeable , i have mine toned down to 600RPM and it cools my FT02 without a problem , i say about 4-5C above ambient and thats Folding on CPU and GPU

Lustral · 1 Dec 2010 at 19:16

2 x AP121 Fans with a H50-1 in a push pull config

Dashik · 1 Dec 2010 at 20:41

Any one got a pair of GTX 580 in one of these cases? Fancy a new case and this looks nice but need to fit gtx580 in sli.

Thanks

Semtax · 1 Dec 2010 at 22:19

Dashik said:
Any one got a pair of GTX 580 in one of these cases? Fancy a new case and this looks nice but need to fit gtx580 in sli.

Thanks

I had the FT02-WRI for a week and it housed 2 gtx 480s in sli just fine (size-wise) if thats any help.

Went to order a FT02B-W on another site last night and just as I added it to my basket to pay it went up in price by £25 ...

not a happy bunny

Somnambulist · 3 Dec 2010 at 12:53

Yeah the AP fans are louder when switched on high, push more air on both settings... but the difference in temps between the high and low settings aren't great so you can leave them on low unless you want hook them up to a fan controller and set the speed yourself.

Price bump might be good since it could mean they are the newer versions. I know a competitor had the AP181 versions on pre-order for a fair bit more than the previous revision, so at least you'd still be saving money on buying the older case + AP fans.

ahenners · 3 Dec 2010 at 12:58

@Lustral - Just a heads up before a mod sees it, sigs are supposed to be 4 lines max

JK1 · 3 Dec 2010 at 14:06

@Lustral - What are your temps with that case and H50? That could be a nice XMAS pressie to myself

Is it worth upgrading to a H50 from a Noctua CPU cooler or should I stick with it?

cogrady84 · 4 Dec 2010 at 00:07

Just a quick update, still waiting on my red interior FT-02 cause of the snow

QQ

SpriteAlpha · 4 Dec 2010 at 03:05

I'm still waiting for mine thanks to the weather! It was supposed to arrive Thursday. I won't get it until at least Monday now...

LateX'Dog · 6 Dec 2010 at 23:47

I have this case but without the window (Not really into the flashing lights/Christmas tree effect) and this case is fantastic.

davidansell · 7 Dec 2010 at 00:27

how much did the case cost and the system to build?

Nico_Joey · 7 Dec 2010 at 13:06

If anyone was intrested in the watercooling capabilities of the RVO2/FTO2 then check my sig, did a watercooling build with a pa.480 rad with room to spare. The build is with a Raven 2, but the same orientation of the parts would work the same in the FTO2 line.

BlairH · 7 Dec 2010 at 13:13

cogrady84 said:
Just a quick update, still waiting on my red interior FT-02 cause of the snow QQ

I ordered mine today from a competitor. They claim that it will be here tomorrow. I doubt that very much!

R5GTT · 10 Dec 2010 at 14:39

I love my fortress

You can see my little review of it on the product page of OcUK.

The case is really strong but the worst thing about it for me is the weight when its full of componenets. It really weighs a ton and because it's long it makes carrying downstairs and outside to clean/drain etc a bit of a pain. I still wouldn't swap it for anything else though and it's well worth the money.

I've had a thermalright TRUE in there with a couple of enermax twisters and it ran well.
Then the Corsair H50 which fits perfectly with the rad mounted where the top 120mm fan is. I had 2 fans attached in push/pull and it ran so much cooler than when I had it fitted in my Antec P180.

I've now got an XSPC res top fitted to a mcp350 pump just below the cd drive and a dual rad in the bottom with a couple of akasa vipers that help to pull the air through the rad. It's maybe not the most effecient way of doing it but I can still run with good temps at 4.2ghz and my gtx 580 still gets some cool fresh air pushed through it. The pump sits on a gel base so I can't hear it running and as it's loose I can move it out the way without removing any pipes if I need to get my gfx card out.

My wires behind the mobo tray are a bit of a mess but I had no problems with fitting them in and as they say "out of sight out of mind"

Once the window panel is on you can't see the cathode tubes or pci-e power cables going along the bottom. The fact the window is on the right is unusual too but perfect for me since I have my PC on the left!

Lustral · 10 Dec 2010 at 15:13

JK1 said:
@Lustral - What are your temps with that case and H50? That could be a nice XMAS pressie to myself

Is it worth upgrading to a H50 from a Noctua CPU cooler or should I stick with it?

Sorry for a long time replying.

Case Temp is about 22-24 C , ambient is like 18-20C where the case.

With the H50 with my i7 930 on stock , it is getting about 60-62C CoreTemp when Prime95 or Folding using SMP with 8 Cores.

Personally i would stick with your Noctua , the H50 isnt that good for this case imho.

I had a Zalman 9900 Max in there and it did a better job temps wise , but the reason why i went back to a H50 was coz of the noise and less weight on the CPU block.