SilverStone Fortress FT05 casing review: A streamlined mid-tower fortress

Looking cool and aloof, the new SilverStone Fortress FT05 mid-tower chassis has an unornamented facade, save for a well-ventilated top panel. The chassis comes in two color variants; black or silver. We take a closer look at the silver variant chassis from the Silverstone Fortress series.

By Wong Chung Wee - 19 Jul 2016

Meet the mid-tower Fortress

Looking cool and aloof, the new SilverStone Fortress FT05 mid-tower chassis has an unornamented facade, save for a well-ventilated plastic top panel. The chassis comes in two color variants; black or silver.

The SilverStone chassis manufacturer is known for its design concepts that don’t really fit the norm. From the Raven RV04, which required the motherboard to the mounted upside down, to the Sugo SG09, which is one of the most well-ventilated SFF PC chassis, the company’s offerings have product categories, which are extremely porous. This allows distinct features, which were initially introduced in some product lines, to be adapted on its other chassis.

With such design concepts in mind, the SilverStone Fortress FT05 has adopted the vertical motherboard mounting feature from the Raven RV02 and RV01, while keeping the clean, minimalist facade of the Fortress series chassis. Another unique design note is its absence of 5.25-inch drive mounting options, so you can kiss your regular optical drives goodbye! In our opinion, the designers of the new SilverStone Fortress FT05 have taken an almost clinical approach, especially when engineering the outward appearance of the mid-tower chassis. There are two variants for the new FT05 series; the FT05 that features unadorned aluminum side panels, and the FT05-W, which features a windowed side panel. Both variants are available in two colors; black and silver. We had the chance to review the silver Fortress FT05 version (SST-FT05S).

Exterior Design

The entire Fortress FT05 chassis looks like a solid block of metal.

First and foremost, the Fortress FT05 is a mid-tower casing. While the photos might seem to convey that it looks more like a full tower casing, the reason is because of the the extraordinary internal design that brings about a slim and taller looking system. In fact, SilverStone says that it's actually closer to to a larger micro-ATX casing. For example, the removal of 5.25-inch drive bays has allowed the casing to be a lot shorter in depth than expected. That also means the casing is designed to contain only the essentials and eliminates a lot of legacy requirements. The previous Fortress casing, the FT02 is 616mm in depth, but the new FT05 is just 427mm in depth. So keep these facts in mind while looking through the rest of the review.

The casing also looks like a solid block of metal, but where materials are concerned, you'll want to note that it uses a steel frame with aluminum panels all around. The gap towards the bottom of the chassis makes up the stand of the unit, and the stand’s inside has been padded with a thin layer of foam, which appears to be for sound dampening.

On the underside, the stands of the Fortress FT05 have four rubber pads to cushion its sharp edges from scratching any surface tops.

Tilting the chassis on its side, we saw four rubber pads, at each corner of the stand, to prevent the stand from scratching softer surfaces, like your polished wooden desktop.

The aluminum silver facade of the Fortress FT05.

The aluminum side panels have a smooth metal finish, and they look exactly alike. The uniformness of the side panels are transplanted to the front as well, but its facade is broken by the SilverStone logo that is located near the bottom. There’s also a vertical thin rubber cover that seals the slot for an optional slim, slot-loading optical disc drive.

From the rear, we see the top recess that allows you to access the ports of installed expansions cards. It also allows hot air to be expelled from the chassis.

From the rear, we can see outlet vents for a cooling fan, as well as a recess at the top that actually allows hot air to be expelled. Remember that we mentioned earlier that this chassis has adopted the vertical motherboard mounting feature of the Raven RV04 chassis? This recess will also allow you to access the ports of your expansion cards.

The I/O ports consist of two USB 3.0 ports, an audio jack, and a microphone input jack. There’s also a pair of fan control switches.

The top panel of the chassis is well-ventilated and it has a trapdoor-like cover that hides the I/O ports. They consist of two USB 3.0 ports, an audio jack, and a microphone input jack. There’s also a pair of fan control switches; each switch has only two settings, “High” or “Low”. The power and reset buttons are on either side of the trapdoor. Since both buttons look identical, the uninitiated may press the wrong button even if they are labelled. Also, another complaint is the fragile top panel as it’s fabricated from moulded plastic. It’s quite susceptible to wear and tear and we already witnessed some silver paint flaking off the panel at some areas where the panels latches onto the steel body of the chassis.

Interior design

In order to have a clearer look at the chassis, we first removed the top plastic panel that slides off from the rear. The exposed recess provides access to the ports of expansion cards, as well as the PSU.

This is the side panel latch that must be depressed before either side panel can be yanked out.

Following which, we had to yank off both side panels by squeezing a latch located on the inside of each panel, and pulling hard upwards to remove the panels. Removing side panels is usually a tool-free affair for high-end casings, but these side panels require a fair bit of strength for removal.

Each side panel has a thin layer of foam for sound dampening.

With the top panel and sides removed, we now have a full interior view of the casing and a further reminder of the unorthodox casing layout:-

At the bottom lefthand corner, there’s a 3.5-inch drive enclosure that will accommodate up to a pair of such drives. We also see the pair of bottom 180mm intake cooling fans that draw air from the bottom of the chassis.

At the bottom lefthand corner, there’s a 3.5-inch drive enclosure that will accommodate up to a pair of such drives. We wished SilverStone had bundled mounting brackets so that we had the option of mounting 2.5-inch drives out of the box (nothing that a visit to the hardware store won't fix, but we expected some design flexibility and convenience). We also see the pair of bottom 180mm intake cooling fans that draw air from the bottom of the chassis. Beyond the HDD enclosure, there’s the motherboard mount area that will allow the board to be installed vertically.

On the other side of the chassis, there's the tray for mounting an optional slim optical disc drive.

Turning our attention to the other side of the casing, there’s a tray that will accommodate the optical front slot-loading optical drive. Just beyond the drive tray, there are two 2.5-inch drive mounts.

We turned our attention to the stand of the chassis, and we had to remove its mounting screws before it can be detached from the chassis’ steel body. We have a clearer view of the pair of 180mm intake fans, and their removable dust filter.

We had to break out the toolbox to remove the bottom stand. After remove the entire stand, we see a pair of 180mm intake fans, and there’s a dust filter that helps to minimize the amount of gunk that will get sucked into the FT05 chassis. As a result this design feature, we strongly recommend the chassis to be placed away from the floor, and on the desktop, where it’s less dusty. This recommendation also allows you to better showcase this metal beauty than tuck it away at some corner under the desk.

Installation

We proceeded to install our test components, and even though it was a relatively straightforward exercise, we did encounter some minor hiccups. While installing the PSU, we had to hold it in place while trying to secure its mounting screw. This is after all a vertically hanging design style on the insides and thus we had to put up with some of these quirks you don't normally deal with in other casing designs.

Our PSU was actually held in place vertically by only four mounting screws without any rest plate that you normally encounter. Our motherboard was also installed vertically. Also take note that you could route the cables to the back to give it a cleaner look.

Here's our installed PSU viewed from the top of the case without its top plastic enclosure.

As mentioned earlier, the entire weight of the PSU is supported by just four mounting screws as the unit is dangled from the top panel of the chassis. We wished there were additional options to secure the PSU. The motherboard installation wasn’t the usual affair either as it had to be mounted vertically, requiring us to move out of our usual comfort zone where orientation is concerned.

Our 3.5-inch HDD slid into its slot and it's held in place with a pair of thumbscrews.

The 2.5-inch drives were installed in a staggered manner; each drive was secured with a pair of mounting screws.

The installation of 2.5- and 3.5-inch drives were hassle-free as they slid into place at their respective housing area, and their mounting screws felt redundant; however, we did make use of them to secure all drives.

We attached a power cable and a DVI cable to see how the wires will snake out from the top recess.

Since all the cables are supposed to snake out from the top of the casing, we decided to attach a power cable and a DVI cable to our PSU and graphics cards respectively to see how it's like. While it doesn't change the fact that the wires are still at the back of the chassis, this design posses 3 key issues.

First, since the wires start from the top of the system, you've less slack to play with and that directly means for shorter cables, you'll need the connecting device or power point to be in closer proximity to the system.
Secondly, you can't just turn around the back to plug connectivity cables as and when you like. Now you'll have to remove the top panel and then connect/un-connect the respective cables and run them down the back neatly before mounting back the top panel. A little more troublesome than usual.
Lastly, if you do need to use cable adaptors and converters, the clearance to the top panel may not suffice, leaving you in a fix or not using the top panel in the worst case scenario.

Conclusion

Once all the components had been installed, and the panels put back in place, the SilverStone Fortress FT05 exuded an elegant and minimalistic air.

The SilverStone Fortress FT05 mid-tower chassis is a well built chassis with a minimalist exterior. The idea of having a vertically mounted motherboard, with a pair of 180mm, bottom-mounted intake cooling fans, appeal to our scientific reasoning as hot air rises and the resulting convection air currents will result in hot air being expelled from the top of the chassis. This effect will also be boosted by active cooling, courtesy of the pair of 180mm cooling fans.

The SilverStonr Fortress FT05 is a symmetrical beauty.

With that said, the SilverStone Fortress FT05 has very specific user group in mind - one that worships minimalism. The design of this casing is simple, subtle, yet it evokes a sense of power, exactly what this Fortress calls out. Because of this, the casing does not support any 5.25-inch drive bays for optical drives or other external bay options. You will literally have to live with what the casing offers and nothing more.

The interior design ethos adopted, while interesting and scientific at the same time, does bring out some limitations such as the somewhat precarious PSU mounting, along with the completely vertically oriented motherboard that necessitates all cabling to the system to come out from the top of the chassis. The concerns for the latter have been listed above and necessitate that you adapt to the casing's limitations, or adopt a different casing altogether. Playing up its very moniker, a fortress is meant to keep out marauding invaders and keep its occupant safe. Did the SilverStone Fortress FT05 just inadvertently shield itself from the general market by digging such a deep moat around itself?

Perhaps, but the limitations aren't bad to begin with when you understand the design philosophy of this casing and you personally support the idea. If you're not told about the design ethos of this casing and you end up buying it just because you like its exterior, you'll be in for a rude shock. However, once you come to terms with it, you will be part of an exclusive community to own such a unique casing.

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