The SilverStone Fortress FT03-MINI is a very small case targeted to Mini-ITX and Mini-DTX motherboards, yet it supports video cards up to 10” (254 mm) long (making it compatible with some high-end video cards such as the GeForce GTX 680, but high-end video cards from AMD are longer than that), and CPU coolers up to 3.1” (78mm) tall. It has a very unique tower design, based on the original FT03’s (aptly nicknamed “trashcan” by some users), which allows one 140 mm fan to cool down the whole system. Let’s take a look at this exquisite product.

The Fortress FT03-MINI is available in black or silver. We reviewed the silver model.

All four side panels of the reviewed case are made of aluminum. The internal chassis (i.e., frame) is made of steel. The top and bottom panels are made of plastic. The side panels are fastened to the chassis using plastic latches, so they come off simply by pulling them out of the case. The panel located behind the motherboard tray, however, is attached to the chassis through screws located on the motherboard tray. As you can see by the small slit available, this case supports only a slim optical drive.

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Figure 1: SilverStone Fortress FT03-MINI case