Hi guys,
 
Should I even consider any of the ACX based cards for my silverstone ft02? I'm incredibly happy with the case and not ready to dump it and go to water cooling quite yet on this machine.
 
Single card, 1440 gaming (Division, MMOs and RPGs) and likely only mild OC are my interests. This box is is going from an old 680SC to a 1080 for the new monitor (1440). GPU is the last piece to upgrade for this machine.
 
EDIT: Mostly know the answer to this one, just hoping to feel more confident about it since I have never used any of the ACX designs.

Yep, you got it exactly. The case works great for blowers obviously but the card restrictions seem tightened to the point of rethinking the case this gen. Those huge fans on the bottom pulling in all that cool floor air and blasting the hot out the top just works fantastically.

LucidWaker
I've been wondering about the exact same thing as OP.
 
What I've gathered from reading a few topics about the same question about non-blower coolers in FT02-style setup, is that the effectiveness of coolers like ACX3.0 may depend on heat pipe orientation, orientation of fins and the wick inside the heat pipes.
 
Heat pipe orientation determines how gravity could influence the evaporation/condensation process in the pipes (where the liquid phase is most likely to end up). The fins can be either oriented along the airflow or perpendicular to it, obviously influencing the airflow in some areas. The wick is a fine structure inside the heat pipes which aides the liquid phase getting back to the heat source, this help the liquid overcome gravity by the capillary action. The presence and type of wick differs between vendors.
 
A lot of different reports on this topic, some say it makes no difference, others say it can or will ruin cooling performance. My GTX 570's are tired so I just ordered an EVGA GTX 1080 FTW and will have to wait and see what the ACX3.0 can do in 90 degree rotated orientation. I can always rotate my case... 

I'd love to hear about your experience once it's in Lucid and you've had some time to test it. Like you, I've found nothing but disagreements so far. I think I'm going with a hybrid this gen (so I probably have some time to wait) and will work something out for the rad.

Sorry to necro an old thread. I got tired of waiting and took the plunge. I ordered a 1070 FTW with the goal of getting me to a gen of cards/monitors with a high end single card solution for 4k+60 gaming.
 
tldr; A single ACX cooler card seems to run fine in a fortress without any OC and seems to have plenty of thermal room. I'll update if I have any overheating issues and maybe after a long game session.
 
At 1920x1200 and no OC anywhere at the moment. Performance is about what I expected for doing nothing other than plugging in and booting up.
Idles in Win10 37-45, no fans. Capped out so far both gaming (division/doom) and benchmarks at 72 with 45% fan speed. This is all set with my 3 floorplate fans pulling cool air from the bottom of the case/floor and 1 top exhaust out the top in my FT02. I have a D15 with all three fans blowing right out the top as well due to the case orientation. I also have a small/cheap desk fan that blows the hot air exhausting from the top of the case out my office door. Ambient room temp is about 74.
Bench's below:

Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0

FPS:85.8
Score:2160
Min FPS:9.1
Max FPS:176.3

System

Platform:Windows NT 6.2 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz (4007MHz) x4
GPU model:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 10.18.13.6881 (4095MB) x1

Settings

Render:Direct3D11
Mode:1920x1200 8xAA fullscreen
PresetCustom
QualityUltra
Tessellation:Extreme
 
 
3dMark does not recognize the card yet so it's at a generic VGA.
Time Spy was 5901, 5946 Graphics and 5572 CPU.
Firestrike was 15613, graphics 18663 and CPU 14207.