Introduction

It seems like it was right around this time last year that I got my first look at the SST-FT03 from SilverStone. In that chassis the motherboard was rotated like only SilverStone delivers, allowing for stack effect cooling. This is where you take fans and put them at the bottom to almost make a chimney out of the chassis. That combined with the orientation of the motherboard allows air to be pushed through the chassis, which is a great change of cooling for both the CPU and the VGA, while dumping all of the heat out of the top of the chassis. I really like the FT03, but times are changing and new ideas move things forward to what we are about to see today.

In this new chassis design, SilverStone took most of the basic concepts of the original idea and put them in the dryer until they shrunk down quite a bit. Of course I am joking, they didn't actually use a dryer, but the concept was to reduce the overall size to 50 percent of what the original FT03 took up. Even though we are getting a smaller version now, this doesn't mean this is some cheaply assembled tiny little box - quite the opposite in reality - as SilverStone stayed with what makes them successful and continues to make cases that anyone with the right hardware would love to own.

In the latest concept we were delivered the SST-FT03B Mini to take a look at. While the exterior is taking a shrinking pill, which means that the hardware that will ride in this chassis will also need to be picked with space savings in mind from the word go.

If you plan to run a DTX or Mini ITX build and you don't have a 13 inch powerhouse of a video card, the newest of the Fortress line is going to be right up your alley. Even if you don't have those components on hand at the moment, I do believe that this chassis will inspire people to think of ways in which to add this chassis somewhere in their houses, just because the chassis is that cool to look at, let alone what the SST-FT03B is actually capable of storing or cooling.