In the Fortress FT03-MINI, the motherboard is installed with its rear panel facing up, so expansion cards such as the video card will have their rear part also facing up. This helps ventilation, as hot air tends to rise; several video cards have an exhaust system at their rear panel.

The case has a plastic panel with a huge mesh at its top, which is easily removed by simply pulling it out. There are two USB 3.0 ports, using an internal connector, and the traditional audio jacks.

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Figure 2: The top panel

Removing the top panel, you have access to the motherboard rear panel. As you can see in Figure 3, this case has two expansion slots, with vented covers, and expansion cards must be screwed to the chassis from outside.

Because of its reduced size, this case only supports SFX12V power supplies.

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Figure 3: Top panel

At its bottom panel, the SilverStone Fortress FT03-MINI has a 140 mm “Air Perpetrator” fan (SilverStone HA1425L12SF-Z, which is actually made by Honghua), with an air filter. This fan pulls air from the bottom and pushes it through the motherboard compartment. It spins at 1,500 rpm and uses a three-pin fan power connector.

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Figure 4: Bottom panel