At the front of FT04 is a one-piece aluminium panel which acts as a door to open up and reveal the drive bays and front mounted cooling fans.

Taking a look at the rear of the case it’s apparent the motherboard tray is both reversed and rotated. At the top there is allocation for mounting the PSU inside its own compartment. Below this there are a total of eight PCI expansion slot covers, each have ventilation and there is additional ventilation to the immediate left. At the bottom, there is space for the rear IO and a slot for mounting an optional 120mm cooling fan.



We’re pleased to see the front door sturdy and feels robust. It has magnets to help it close and even has a thin layer of foam attached to the inside to assist with keeping the noise levels down to a minimum. The door on FT04 pivots only from the left side.

Opening this door reveals two 5.25” drive bay covers which are removable from the outside of the case and just below these covers are two fan control knobs for tweaking the speed of the front mounted cooling fans. In the remainder of the space SilverStone have attached a large dust filter which is easy removed. On the underside of this filter sit 2 x AP182 180mm intake fans which can operate between 500~2000RPM. These fans are the primary source for airflow and will be responsible for driving air across the system.



The front panel controls are split into two different sections. Over on the right side there are dual USB 3.0 ports (via internal motherboard connector) and headphone/microphone jacks. On the left side SilverStone have placed the power/reset buttons.





Running along the top of FT04 there is yet more aluminium which we are again delighted to see. This top panel is split into two sections and has a slight concave; the underside of the area nearest to the optical drive bay has foam for damping operation noise and towards the back there is a detachable perforated cover. This cover resides over the PSU cooling fan and can be taken away and cleaned.



Finally, the underside of FT04 has no distinguishing features except to say there are four rubber feet to prevent the case from slipping on smooth surfaces. There are no filters or mesh on the underside since the PSU area is located at the top of the FT04 and the HDD storage cages are found at the bottom.