SilverStone FT05 Review

The interior of the case is simply spectacular.  SilverStone has upped their game and provided you with a clean interior equal to that of the exterior.  There isn’t one sharp edge to be found and the thick steel body makes its way into every aspect of the interior.  Just about every surface is lined with sound dampening foam.

The motherboard tray has a minimalistic approach in its design, only the minimum required to secure your motherboard leaving plenty of room for wire routing.

Without having any 3.5″ in drive bays, SilverStone was forced to create a plastic drive caddy that rests in the rear of the case should you choose to outfit your rig with any 3.5″ hard drives.  The drive caddy employs a clamshell design and stacks the hard drives with their bottoms towards each other.  This layout makes cabling extremely difficult and I would have preferred that they be installed top to bottom.  If you have only one 3.5″ HDD, just remove one of the halves.

The slot loading optical drive requirement does limit your ability to populate your rig.  Do I mind it? No, many of my mini-ITX cases require a slot loading optical drive.  The slot loading drive is installed from the opposite side of the motherboard tray and is held in place with three screws.  The drive is installed in the removable cage with two very tiny screws.

 

Additionally, the back of the motherboard tray is home to the two 2.5″ hard drive mounting locations.  One side of the protruding mounting brackets has a nub for easier installation.

Mounting the PSU can be a bit tricky if you have never had a case with a top mounted PSU before.  For us old timers, this wasn’t a big deal… and the case provides plenty of clean airflow to keep your oversized PSU cool.  The top of the case sports plenty of additional expansion slots and plenty of space for clean wiring.