SilverStone Outed An SFF Case For ‘Power Users’ At Computex
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In addition to the SilverStone RVZ04 Micro-STX chassis we spotted at Computex, we also noticed that the company had what it billed as an “SFF for power users” on display in Taipei.
The FTZ02 is a PIO form factor compliant SFF chassis that supports both PIO and Micro-ATX motherboards. For the uninitiated, PIO stands for "parts-in-one," and those boards feature a 90° PCI-Express Gen 3.0 x16 slot that allows you to install a graphics card parallel to the plane of the motherboard. Although they aren’t as well known in the U.S. as they are in Asia, you may be surprised to know that companies such as ASRock, MSI, Gigabyte, Asus, and ECS all manufacture PIO form factor motherboards.
Although this prototype chassis measures just 395 x 86 x 380mm (W x H x D), it can accommodate full-size, triple-slot graphics cards; a pair of 120mm fans; and two 2.5” HDDs. This case is specifically designed with small form factor power supplies in mind, making it a perfect candidate for one of the company’s own 800W passive SFX-L power supplies. Information regarding CPU cooler height was not available, but, given the fact that the ASRock Z170M-PIO2 motherboard was fitted with a SilverStone Nitrogon NT08-115XP CPU air cooler, we can surmise that coolers up to 35mm in height are compatible with the FTZ02.
The chassis features a steel frame with an aluminum front fascia and a clear acrylic top panel that gives you a great view of your system components. There is a large bracket for 120mm fans over the GPU area, but a high-capacity 3.5” spinning disk could be added to one of the fan mounting locations with very little effort.
Overall, this is a very interesting prototype chassis that could easily live up to the company’s claims of being an “SFF for power users”...if and when it comes to market. Given its prototype status, no information on pricing or availability is available at this time.
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Steven Lynch is a contributor for Tom’s Hardware, primarily covering case reviews and news.
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jtd871 PIO boards are as rare as hen's teeth stateside, so I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for this case or boards to put in it. Not a consumer product.Reply -
Rookie_MIB That's hilarious. I built my own little SFF case out of parts (aluminium u-channel, plastic sides, etc which is laid out almost exactly like that to a T. Only difference is that I have the motherboard and GPU swapped. 450w SFX power supply, GTX 1060, Xeon E3-1230 v1 and 16GB DDR3. Two 2.5" drives.Reply
Running the F@H on it gets it a little warm until I dropped in an additional fan to move more fresh air in and out the top. -
nikolajj A Silverstone FTZ case with GPU and CPU intake on the same side? FINALLY! Now it can go into the horizontal position without choking the GPU.Reply
If it ends up good, I might even buy one... -
atavax i would expect being able to fit a 240mm AIO in a SFF for power users. And idk, acrylic makes the case look cheap.Reply -
Brian_R170 I've only seen PIO boards mentioned once before, so I'm not very familiar with them. Judging by the relatively bare IO panel, the board in the photos doesn't have a lot of features. If that's indicative of the PIO boards available, it may be hard to position this case for "power users".Reply -
bloodroses I wonder, can you use a mini-itx board and a riser ribbon cable on the pcie slot in this case instead of a PIO board? The fact that the CPU and GPU fans are oriented the same way is a definite plus over my RVZ-01b.Reply -
gc9 Getting smaller. Someday small-form-factor cases will fit (airline) carry-on bags/packs.Reply
(This is 395mm × 380mm × 86mm. 380mm is 40-60mm too large, airline dependent.)