Silverstone Fortress FT03-Mini mITX Computer Case Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
2,059 words · ~10 min read
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welcome to my unboxing of pretty much the coolest thing ever this is the
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Silverstone Fortress series F3 mini okay
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the new desktop computer Paradigm in smaller size so they have an F3 it's an
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matx case however this one is Mini ITX
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and if you guys know have watched a few of my videos you may already know that
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I'm pretty into the whole small things
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that are extremely high performance so the concept of the F3 is to have a very
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unique internal layout that allows for outstanding
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Cooling and very high performance
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components in a very small enclosure so
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you might compare this to something like you know a um well here let's have a
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let's have a look at it and then we'll see how it Stacks up to some of the
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other products and hopefully it's okay bear with me
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here guys oh that was clumsy it's a good
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thing that Silverstone packs their products pretty well because even when
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uh someone like me goes and Nubs out and
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breaks it it should still be okay cuz there's pretty good foam down there y
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not a scratch excellent
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okay right so there are other products that claim to do this whole extremely
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high performance PC in a very small enclosure thing however I would argue
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that the F3 mini is actually smaller than some of the other ones that uh that
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claim to be doing that so let's start with the outside of the unit and let's
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take uh take this off first oh I love
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Silverstone cases another thing that you guys will probably know if you've uh if
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you've watched more than a few of my videos is that Silverstone really does
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it for me with certain things that they do like um excuse you bless you and all
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that stuff like this beautifully curved
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thick aluminum pieces that make up the
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construction of this case that is just H
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amazing and then the anodizing finish that they use on their cases I know for
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a fact is phenomenally durable because I have one case my tj7 that I've had for
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years that has been subject to all kinds of abuse and the anodization still looks
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amazing this one's actually just a this one's
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perfect wow just absolutely beautiful can you can
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you see it can you see kind of the finish on it just beautiful aluminum
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case so there's only four pieces going around the outside curved piece here
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straight panel here curved panel here and straight panel here what you find on
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the bottom is also really cool this is a 140 mm air penetrator cooling fan it is
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a filtered fan and one of the things that Silverstone has really pioneered is
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the whole positive internal air pressure with like a rotated ATX l layout they
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first did that with their Raven case and now they're taking it to like a whole
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new level so if you filter an intake and
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you have nothing but intakes you achieve a couple of things one is it becomes
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very difficult for dust to get into your case because you've got a filter over
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the fan and if you have positive air air pressure inside the case it means that
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air can't be sucked into these little cracks whereas if you were using all
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exhaust then Dust could easily be sucked in in other places and that's more just
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one thing that you're achieving so let's just leave it at that because I forget
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where I was going with that uh the filter can be easily removed all you do
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is undo this go wash it in water let it dry and then pop it back into place just
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like that air penetrator fans by the way are awesome if you didn't already know
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that then you do now you can take my word for it they're outstanding they're
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some of the best fans on the market for a couple of reasons number one is they
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have extremely good static pressure properties so that means that if you
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have just one fan and and you have to push air through something big you want
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it to be an air penetrator um also they're very directional so you see
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these fins on the other side of the fan blades those direct the air to where you
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want it to go where you actually point the fan which is awesome so normal fans
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you can see if you have like smoke blowing into them they just kind of blow the air all over the place air
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penetrators blow like a cyclone of air
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in a column away from the fan itself so they will directly cool whatever you
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point them out which is awesome as well rubber feet on the bottom and I think
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that pretty much wraps it up for the bottom of the case I'm going to go ahead
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and fill the filter here's another thing that Silverstone just gets it for
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certain things that other manufacturers don't you see the big gap between the
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filter and the fan that reduces turbulence and improves the efficiency
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of the fan pulling air through the filter dramatically Silverstone A+ they
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know what they're doing all right let's flip this bad boy
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over and this case comes with very specific instructions for how to uh
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disassemble it and reassemble comes with a very thick book so I'm just
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going to I'm going to have to do that off camera but we'll show you the steps as we go I just want to finish up with
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the outside so slot loaded optical drive Silverstone logo in the middle very
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clean very nice looking um and then at the top you've got a very very open mesh
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with a handle right here to pull it off power reset two USB 3 and front audio
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ports as well as your indicator LEDs so you can pull this off and that gives you
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access whoa I was not expecting that to happen okay okay so you know what I
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guess we'll just take it off because we're going to disassemble it anyway so that gives you access to your power
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supply so that's an sfx power supply as
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well as your two expansion slots that you get on well one expansion slot and
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then one empty slot for like a high performance dual slot video card as well
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as your rear IO and you can actually see
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right through to the very bottom of the case now where that cooling fan is going
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to be blowing air right up over the CPU socket as well as directing some air
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towards kind of the back of the video card where it will be able to get the
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cooling that it needs and blow that out the back of the case or the top of the
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case as well so let us disassemble this a little bit and we'll be back so slick
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and I are so impressed with this case we're going to have to do a high
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performance build in here just to show you guys how it all fits together so
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three of the four panels just snap off using the
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little uh there we go just using these
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little guys right here and there's sound dampening here like Silverstone really
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does think of everything to make sure the panels don't vibrate all that good
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stuff in terms of Hardware installation it's pretty simple actually all you got
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to do is take off this cage then you lay it down like this you have full access
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to everything you need including mounting your motherboard here installing your power supply up here
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this is a really cool thing Silverstone like they oh man they just thought of
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everything on this one check this out so it's a 140 mm fan in the bottom here but
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they put 120 mm fan mounts here here
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here and here why did they do that because they left
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room for you to install and they even recommend they're like look if you're going to put a high performance CPU in
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here throw in a liquid cooling radiator so if you use a slim radiator such as a
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Corsair h60 you can Orient the tubes
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here and run them straight down along the back of the video card over to your
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CPU socket which means that the cooling
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in here doesn't have to be Mini ITX level cooling it's off the floor by
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enough that you're going to have ample air flute air flu air flow going through
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that radiator and uh yeah it's just like
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awesome they really did just think of everything right expansion so you do
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have to use a slim slot loading Optical
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I mean I think it makes it makes the front look really nice they're not that
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expensive you can find them so it's not that big of a deal so you mount that in
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here you've also got room for a 2 and 1/2 in storage drive here and a 3 and
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1/2 in storage drive here so you can fit
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everything you'd need for a high performance system in this thing without any issues high performance graphics
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card high performance CPU SSD or even up
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to three ssds if you use 3 and 1/2 in to dual SSD Mount and a high performance
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graphics card however there are some caveats if you put in a high performance
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graphics card you want a rear blower card so one with the fan oriented here
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and blowing the air out the back because that will cooperate with the natural air
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flow in this case something like a GTX 590 which blows air out the back as well
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is going to fight the air flow of this case so even though the case can
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probably fit it oh it can't anyway well
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there you go um so even though the case could potentially fit cards that have
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fans here blowing out the back or here blowing out both sides you want to make
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sure that you're optimizing your configuration for the case that you're
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planning to use so that means fan here blowing out the back and then you won't
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have any issues I think that pretty much wraps it up other than that yeah we're
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just really going to have to do a build in here because this thing is amazing
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much smaller than something like a bit Phoenix prodig however you can still fit an
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unreasonable amount of Hardware in this
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little mini ITX enclosure from Silver Stone so thank you for checking out our
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unboxing and first look at the F3 mini and don't forget to subscribe to Linus
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Tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos oh yeah and I have
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to give Silverstone huge Kudos their manual isn't in uh is isn't in color or
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anything however this is the most complete and instructive manual that
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I've seen other than the last Silverstone one that I looked at that
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they even give you a full installation guide with like lots of little tips and
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tricks and how to how to actually do it
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not just how to you know give you an instruction that's sort of vague and
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then walk away they even give you like limitations here's your PSU limitation
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CPU Cooler height diagram and limitations CPU Cooler so here's a
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recommended liquid CPU Cooler here's how to install it here's how to orient the
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barbs correctly here's your GPU coolers what's optimal like they just spell
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everything out for you and make everything really really easy upgrade
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and maintenance fan filter removal guide fan filter removal guide fan removal
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guide just awesome
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stuff heart okay that's not a heart but you get the point heart silver Stone