Silverstone Fortress 2 and the TJ07

[Peppered]

I am stillwaiting on the check from the insurance company they said they didnt recive my email lol.
But I have been looking at some Cases after all the good suggestions i recived and then I noticed the Fortress 2 and the old but what use t be popular TJ07.
My concerns with the Fortres 2 are will the moderen GPU's fit in it. The way they fliped the MB and instaled the big fans on the bottom wouls seem to make for very good cooling, but then again looks are deciving somtimes.

The TJ07 looks very good but the cooling it has seems poor by today standards unless you water cool. But again I may be wrong about that too.

So basicly I wanted to no the bad and good points of both Cases.

Many thanks,

 

[jackstar7]

My FT02 works great for me and I've put a lot into it... but I don't know what you want to shove into yours.

Maybe if you share the rest of the build you're planning?

 

[Peppered]

I should have a I5 2500k or 2600k havn't decided yet.

Cosair Modular 750 watt Power supply in case I decide I go SLI or Crossfire.

Evga 570 GPU

A Crucial M4 or Intel SSD

A Asrock Z68 MB

The samsung 1TB hard drive that every one seems recommend.

16 gig of ram

I am at work so I cant instal the stuff to link soory.

 

[SZLiao214]

The 570 will fit inside.

 

[frostedflakes]

FT02 can fit pretty long cards, I have a 6950 DirectCU II in mine that's like 11.7" long. Maximum video card length is 12" I think according to Silverstone. If you're worried about anything fitting check the manual online, lists maximum optical drive length, PSU length, CPU cooler height, etc.

The bigger issue with the rotated motherboard design is that some video card coolers have terrible performance in the vertical orientation. So be aware of that when choosing a video card if you end up getting the FT02.

http://en.expreview.com/2010/11/15/90%C2%B0-rotationhow-to-install-heatpipe-cooler/11843.html

 

[jackstar7]

Basically try and get coolers that expel the heat out the back of the card (top in this orientation), but even if it dumps into the case a bit, the 180s at the bottom move enough air to handle quite a bit of heat.

 

[frostedflakes]

I actually think FT02 is perfect for cards that don't exhaust out the back since it has such good airflow. As you mentioned the 3x180mm fans can push heat out pretty quickly. And unlike most cases, with the FT02 the CPU isn't in the airflow path after the video card, both get room temp air from the intake fans and then after it's heated up from the CPU or GPU heatsink, it gets exhausted out the back without going over any other components. So you don't really have to worry about heat dumped from the GPU heating up the CPU or PSU or other components like you would in a conventional ATX case. Cards like the MSI Twin Frozr and ASUS DirectCU tend to run a lot cooler than reference designs that exhaust out the back, especially in a case like the FT02 that has really good airflow, so that would be my preference (as mentioned earlier, just be careful about heatpipe orientation with these video card coolers). Just my $0.02, though.

 

[Brakner]

FT02 can fit pretty long cards, I have a 6950 DirectCU II in mine that's like 11.7" long. Maximum video card length is 12" I think according to Silverstone. If you're worried about anything fitting check the manual online, lists maximum optical drive length, PSU length, CPU cooler height, etc.

The bigger issue with the rotated motherboard design is that some video card coolers have terrible performance in the vertical orientation. So be aware of that when choosing a video card if you end up getting the FT02.

http://en.expreview.com/2010/11/15/90%C2%B0-rotationhow-to-install-heatpipe-cooler/11843.html

I didn't see a list of coolers that might have this issue, I run a Zotac 580 in an FT02 and have never seen if go above 80c even after 6 hours of gaming in mid summer. the 580's use the Vapor Chamber technology with heat pipes and yet I am seeing much lower temps than when the card was in my 180 (7c to 10c )

Edit:

N/m Page 4 says the 275 and 460 showed little change , I will assume the 580 is the same.

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah it only seems to be certain types of coolers that have that problem, such as ones with U shaped heatpipes where the bend is at the top of the card in the vertical orientation.

Also I think it depends on heatpipe construction, some have better wicks and don't rely on gravity as much, so they'll still perform well even in orientations where the fluid has to flow against gravity.

Just something I wanted to point out, because the FT02 gets recommended a lot but I don't often see people bring up the potential issues with heatpipe orientation. I wasn't aware of the issue before I got my FT02, but fortunately I wasn't using one of the video cards heatsinks that perform poorly when mounted vertically.

 

[Sunburn74]

Own a ft02. Pretty much the perfect case. Never gets dirty externally, and accumulates only minor minor dust on the internals. Cooling is phenomenal. And once you get used to having all your back ports on top of your PC easily accessible, you'll never go back. There are things I have setup right now that literally would not work if my back ports where buried away behind my desk.

The only flaw wtih the case is you need to buy a small, pci bracket fan controller to control the single 120mm exhaust fan. This is roughly a 7 dollar expense. The case fan controller only controls the 3 180mm fans. Its not that 120mm fan is noisy, but rather that for people who demand silence its one more things that can further be quieted.

 

[mv2devnull]

Also I think it depends on heatpipe construction, some have better wicks and don't rely on gravity as much, so they'll still perform well even in orientations where the fluid has to flow against gravity.

Just something I wanted to point out, because the FT02 gets recommended a lot but I don't often see people bring up the potential issues with heatpipe orientation. I wasn't aware of the issue before I got my FT02, but fortunately I wasn't using one of the video cards heatsinks that perform poorly when mounted vertically.

It is not limited to video cards. Thermalright HR-02 (and its Macho variant) CPU coolers have been claimed to perform clearly worse when vertical, and in FT-02 vertical is about the only logical/practical orientation.

 

[zlejedi]

The only flaw wtih the case is you need to buy a small, pci bracket fan controller to control the single 120mm exhaust fan. This is roughly a 7 dollar expense. The case fan controller only controls the 3 180mm fans. Its not that 120mm fan is noisy, but rather that for people who demand silence its one more things that can further be quieted.

Some mobos can control case fans.
In my Raven 2 I have that 12cm fan running at 500 rpm through A4M89GTD fan control.

 

[Peppered]

I guess will see for myself, ordered today with a load of other items once I am get it built I and can install the app for links I will show what else i got. I miss the old way of link stuff in the forum.