Thermaltake Assault

We preview products from Thermaltake, Silverstone, Cooler Master, Thermalright and Corsair that will be cooling and enclosing your system into 2007.

Introduction

Computex is one of the few shows in the world where you can find flashing cell phone antennae, high end motherboards, $5 cases and $500 cases all under the same roof.  As we were walking around the show floor this year we saw plenty of all of those; but some of the case, cooling and power supply demonstrations stood out.  We stopped by the booths of Thermaltake, Silverstone, Cooler Master, Thermalright and Corsair to get the low down on what the major trends in cooling products will be through the end of 2006 and into 2007.

Some of these gadgets are going to blow you away.

Thermaltake – More than a bit of everything

Thermaltake has been around in cases and cooling for many years, but just in the last few has it begun to garner the respect and acclaim in the industry that it has now.  Their products have been innovative and reach varying price segments to address nearly every consumer.

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This beast of a case is called the Mozart TX, and is about the size of a mini-fridge.  But, no kegs are stored inside of it, instead you get not one, but two complete systems contained within.

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Looking in the left hand side of the case you see the primary computer components at work, being water cooled of course.  You can see there is just tons of room to work inside of this case as the system in it now is barely making a dent in the square footage inside!

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With the door closed, you can see the two windows that seperate the top and bottom section of the case.

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On the front of the case, there are quite a few accessories worth mentioning.  Here is the I/O panel that includes USB, FireWire, audio and heaphones jacks as well as an eSATA data and power connection.  The small LED screen is reporting weather and stock ticker information as well.

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An option from Thermaltake in all upcoming 7″ front panel cases, this unit has a very nice touch-screen LCD monitor that can be used on the secondary system or even on the the primary if you wish.  Expected to sell for about $250, the touch screen worked very well and was of strong build — I could easily see this as something I would want to add into a future system of mine.

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The monitor folds up and moves back inside the unit for clean and easy storage.

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The right side of the case looks much like the left side with two windows and two handles for side panel removal.  You can also clearly see the secondary system at work on the bottom there; though it is necessary to be limited to a micro-ATX motherboard, the possibilities for having two systems in a case like this might be interesting.  Running a file server on the mATX system attached to the touch screen while keeping your primary system open for personal use and gaming is the first that comes to mind. 

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Sequel to a previous product, the Thermaltake Symphony Mini is a water cooling reservoir and radiator in a stand alone unit, about 36″ high or so.  It has two large fans that can push a lot of air at low speeds (and thus quietly) to dissipate a lot of heat.  The Mini also has a very aesthetic appearance and you might easily mistake it for a speaker at first glance. 

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