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Looking at the Silverstone FT01, we see a real missed opportunity to deliver what could have been an extremely good case. To Silverstone’s credit, the FT01 is absolutely beautiful to look at – the understated elegance and style here is unquestionable, and if we were judging it by looks alone, it’d be getting a ten without question. The CPU thermal performance is also extremely good, beating the previous top spot holder by a full 2°C in the CPU load stress test.

Sadly though, there’s a lot that’s not so impressive with the FT01, and unfortunately most of it’s on the inside. The dust filters in particular are a real low point, with the cooling fans audible rubbing against them and in the case of the PSU fan very loudly thanks to the unnecessarily tight PSU mounting.

The top fan’s dust filter is another low point, requiring you to literally dismantle your whole set up to remove and clean it, and we’ve seen from our results that the hard disk drive cages, while offering plenty of storage, are overly cramped and have a very clear effect on the FT01’s performance, blocking airflow into the case and leading to some very disappointing GPU stress test temperatures.

While obviously not as expensive as its bigger sibling, the TJ07 which costs well over £200, the FT01 still weighs in at just over £150, and stock is hard to come by in the UK right now. However, you’re missing out on a lot of the increased functionality and better features of the TJ07, and the cost saving measures between the two doesn’t make the cut price FT01 that enticing – we’d rather have a case done right and pay a bit more than pay less and get an inferior product.

In this price range there’s literally a whole army of competition too, with fine examples like the Lian Li V1110 for just £20 more or the Akasa Omega for £25 less much more worthy considerations.

It’s sad, but the Silverstone FT01 is another example where a very fine case has been brought down by a number of small, but really noticeable problems. And while it might look gorgeous and tempt you in with those very impressive CPU results, the internal design flaws are more than enough to make you think twice before investing in this beauty.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...-ft01-review/1

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