SilverStone Fortress Series FT03S Silver Aluminum / Steel MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case

Pros: Amazing case. Efficient compact design that works more with the laws of physics instead of against it; best thermal design for a micro-ATX out there. Ingenious design really, wastes little space while looking good! Good solid build. Silverstone went on a limb to put this out and invest in something different; if people only knew what went into case design from beginning to end.

Cons: Only con I can come up with is an aesthetic one. The plastic top cover that holds the side panels tight looks out of place. They should of made it out of metal instead of plastic or at least a dull brushed plastic look on it. Aside from that, case is perfect.

Oh, and now that I think about it, the bottom air filter could have been better. It's held by magnets. They should have done the same thing they did with the FT03-mini ITX version of this case instead of this solution. It's OK but it knocks off too easily.

Other Thoughts: Fans are OK. I replace the bottom 120mm with 2 Enermax TB Silence and mid 120mm with an Enermax TB Silence. Attached a closed looped watercooler Enermax ELC120-TB with dual 120mm TB Silence in push pull at the top; it's now a mini-fridge :) Doesn't look it, but this case will handle dual video cards just fine. Will work best with the EVGA shroud design. Helps to use a shorter power supply, try to stick to no greater than 170mm in depth; the Enermax Platimax 600W I installed is only 160mm deep and it helped a lot from a cabling perspective.

Pros: For the size it is truly amazing. Best air flow of any case. Fans are very quite. Easily fits a aftermarket cooler and 560ti card too. Plus 4 HD. Buy this case !! It is sick !

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Very good build construction amazing materials used & airflow everything about this case is perfect

Pros: - Attractive minimalist design

- Sturdy

- Easy to work with

- Included Fans keep system very cool, while still remaining quiet

Cons: - Expensive

- Requires a slot loading, slim optical drive, but I just used an external DVD drive which I purchased for $20 to install the OS. Almost anything made today has a digital, downloadable version; drivers, games, albums, etc. Because of this I do not find an optical media drive a requirement, and pulling out the old external USB DVD drive if I need to install something disc based is a cheap and effective solution.

Other Thoughts: Highly recommend a FULLY MODULAR PSU for this case, as it will greatly ease the building process, and then the cable management process. But if you are spending this much on a case, you are probably considering getting a high end PSU anyway. The included fans, combined with the stack cooling and top exhaust make this coolest running case I've ever owned. Using a stock cooler, my i7-3770k (non OC'd at the moment because I find I do not need to. Perhaps later as time goes on and the CPU begins to show its age.) only reaches the mid 40's Celsius when playing a game. Maybe I have not played a game to create a full load for this processor, but it seems to run usually cool, which is a good thing.

Bottom exhaust filter kind of flimsy, held with magnets. It's still functional, though. I wouldn't consider this a con as people have mentioned, only that I feel that it should be higher quality because of the price.


Bottom line: if you are tired of Plain Jain towers, or flashy LED adorned behemoths, this case is great. It almost matches Apple aesthetics, and is deliciously minimalist. I can see myself using this case until they phase out the form factor it uses, which won't be anytime soon.

My PC:
i7 3770k
Corsair 8 GB DDR3 @ 1600mhz, 7-8-8-24 timings
2 x 240 GB Corsair Force Series GS SSD
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro Sound Card
HD 7770 1 GB ( Replacing Soon )

Pros: Mostly elegant, minimalist look. Deals with cables in a unique way in order to clean up the typical tangled look. Airflow is well designed. Heavy aluminum panels. Convenient top access to USB 3.0 ports. The plastic lattice top is nice for placing accessories. The SATA hot plug is nice to have. The front and side panels are easy to remove without tools.

Cons: As previously stated, the side panels tend to detach a bit too easily and the gaps between the panels are noticeable. The white plastic top piece and side ventilation panel look out of place against the silver main panels. The top piece is difficult to remove properly (which is required to remove the side panels), and feels subject to breakage if not lifted straight off. Also, when you lift the case via the bottom sides, you realize the only thing keeping the side panels from sliding off is the top plastic piece. The top removal issue also affects the removable drive, as you have to remove the top panel to access it, which, depending on how often you utilize the removable drive, could be a real pain. (Perhaps the top panel will loosen up over many removals, but then the side panels will become more loose). The painted silver look (as opposed to the typical Lian Li anodized look) tends to look a bit smudged, but I still like the overall appearance.

Other Thoughts: I bought and set this up for a reception area to look a bit more elegant than the typical tower case mounted on the floor. i3 with an SSD, so functionally the case is overkill. I removed all but the very top case fans.

This should perhaps be a con, but I don't know if this is a design flaw or lack of execution or some other oddity, but after it was built and running, it would freeze up if the front panel was touched slightly. I know that sounds weird, but I confirmed it several times. I suspected some kind of static electricity problem on the front panel. I put the multimeter on it, and sure enough, the front panel isn't grounded. I connected a ground wire between the front panel and the power supply ground, and it hasn't frozen up since.

If I was using this for my own, I would like to use the removable drive bay, but the previously stated issues would make it a challenge.

Pros: If you love the look of corporate building trash bins, then look no further. This case exudes class like the old cigarette ashtrays in posh hotel lobbies of the Mad Men era. Of course, we don't see those that often anymore because smoking has been almost completely banned everywhere. Women. Thank heavens they vote to make everything illegal except Twilight movies.

Cons: As of this review, this case costs $170. You have to admit: that's a high price to pay for a trash can. But there are costs that we pay that can't be quantified in dollars. Think of the eyesore that you have to endure when you come home and see your computer that looks like, well, a computer.

In 2011, it does not make sense to put up with this. The 21st century problems have 21st century solutions. Don't put up with computers that look like computers. Make your computer look like a trashbin today!

Other Thoughts: If you don't want to limit yourself to the general trash bin look, you can replace the Silverstone logo with a RECYCLE logo (triangle and arrows).

Pros: Great materials -- in a pinch, you could probably use the side panels and some duct tape to armor up your car. Seriously... the aluminum panels are HEAVY duty.

Looks great. Very clean and smooth. Even the brand sticker is a chunk of aluminum instead of some cheap silver plastic.

The heat-goes-up cooling is great... granted I chose components on the low wattage side (i5-2500, gfx460), but even after gaming there is a cool breeze coming out of the top of the case.

Included fans are very quiet. I'm sure I could get quieter with some proper rubber mounts and separate fans, but i always wait on those to see if its really needed; and i doubt i will upgrade.

I'm not sure how often the hot-plug SATA port will be useful, but its pretty cool and works well.

Cons: Bigger than expected. About the same height and a little wider than a standard ATX tower, though only about half as deep. That said, you still get half depth with plenty of room inside for CPU cooling and a full size video card.

The power and reset buttons are on top, and are a little too easy to tap by accident. They should be recessed.

A big hunk of aluminum is glued to a side panel to cool the hot-plug disk drive... it had fallen off (no surpise, its HEAVY). Fortunately it was still tacky and stayed fast with a bit of pressure.

The side panels slide or snap on, which is nice if you take it apart a lot, but it would be nice to have some screws fastening them in place. A bit of the material quality seems lost with the soft mounting, as the panels don't quite line up perfectly.

Finding a slim/slot load optical drive is a pain, but I suppose is the price you pay for the perfectly smooth aluminum front.

Other Thoughts: Like it a lot... would love it if it were a bit smaller, but, that might just not be physically possible without sacrifices that just wouldn't be worth it.

Pros: Looks classy. Silverstone's 90-degree rotated motherboard mounting system is cooling genius. This case has a smaller footprint and lower cost than the Silverstone FT02 without forcing you to compromise on components. I was able to fit a standard micro-ATX motherboard, full-size video card (hd 6870), a tower-style cpu cooler (artic cooling freezer 7 pro), full-size PSU and three 3.5" hard drives.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: The quality, engineering and attention to detail is far beyond that of even the most expensive Antec cases. I will never drop another dime on Antec.

Pros: Well engineered(!!), high quality materials down to the print quality/stock of the instruction manual, beautiful..., compact, well priced(@ one six nine), truly innovative.

Silverstone thought a LOT about this case before/while building it. "Heat rises" is the basic principle driving the design of this case and every decision made during this case's creation was made along that line.

All intakes are filtered, all connections are hidden, all cables are routed "manditorily"(lol bless you!), hdds are cooled as the entirely aluminum case itself is one huge heatsink.

There is one "hot swappable" hdd bay behind a quick-release door connected to a spring loaded ejection assy easily accessible from the top. That drive sits in a harness built into that assy which probably pulls it further into the case than the other 3.5" drives? So there's an aluminum BLOCK the length of the assy molded into the interior of that aluminum access panel that joins the hdd to the rest of the heatsink.

Cons: The latch on the door to the "hot swappable" hdd bay doesn't quite open as easily as I think it was designed to.

The latch is plastic and there's a small ridge of plastic along the edge of the latch that contacts the case and keeps it from just popping straight out at a slide of the latch.

I thought about trying to file it down a bit but I'm not the DIY type and the case is so amazing I just sat there for a good minute opening and closing the latch so I could find a way to mitigate it without trying to improve upon perfection.

I only mentioned it for the benefit of the case's designers because they're clearly working so hard to perfect their craft!! I can't stop smiling as I type all this!

LOL GO, Silverstone!!

Other Thoughts: The 2 optional 80mm fan mounting points (bottom) cannot be occupied WITH the 120mm at the bottom of the case. There isn't enough clearance so it's one (2x 80mm) or the other (1x 120mm). I bought 2x 80mms I can't put in there so be aware.

I'm a low-income American so I know that "you get what you pay for" is not entirely true.

One eight six after shipping is entirely too much for a computer case. That said and having bought this one, I'm sitting here (still smiling) and tickled brown to have put out the money to support people clearly working so hard to get it right.

Silverstone have raised the bar.

Client build: i7-2600K, [ASUS P8P67-M PRO], Kingston HyperX T1 Series, 2x WD Caviar Black WD5002AALX 500GB, Sony Optiarc AD-7690H-01

Pros: Good air flow for cooling.

Cons: No active cooling for HDD, slim Slot load optical only. Cheap plastic side vent. Kind of large for a mATX case.

Other Thoughts: This could have been the killer mATX but fell short on a few key areas. Hard drives need to be kept cool and their passive approach just doesnt cut it. Slim Slot load optical drive? This really limits build choices, not to mention I personally hate slot load.