Thermaltake Armor Revo Gene Mid-Tower Case Review

Exterior Case Overview

The Thermaltake Armor Revo Gene supports four 5.25″ devices and one 3.5″ device through its externally accessible front device bays. The slots themselves are covered with metal and plastic mesh bay covers, allowing for air pass-through. Additionally, Thermaltake included metal shutters on both sides of case front that can open and close. These wing-shaped shutters are more for looks than for actual function. The shutters may actually impede functioning of an optical drive or fan controller mounted in one of the 5.25″ drive bays. At the bottom of the front panel is a 200mm blue LED fan, housed behind the plastic grill plate.

The left side panel contains window showing the upper half of the case’s motherboard tray with space for up to a 200mm fan just below the window. No fan is included by default, but the built-in mount supports 120mm, 140mm, or 200mm fans. Notice that Thermaltake included four rubber grommets in the 200mm fan holes for fan vibration dissipation. These grommets can be removed and used in the other case fan mounting holes if desired. The right side panel also includes a fold-down headset holder to the right of the window. The mechanism is made from plastic, but should be sturdy enough for even the larger headsets. If you put your case under your desk, this holder could become a nuisance if you choose to use it for holding your headset though.

The back of the Armor Revo Gene sports the normal rear panel assembly hole for the motherboard’s rear panel port, as well as a 140mm fan, tubing pass-through for external water cooling apparatus, seven expansion card slots, and a slot for the power supply at the bottom. The expansion card slots all have metal covers with holes for air passage and thumbscrews to hold the cards in place.

The three pass-through holes at the top of the case rear contain rubber grommets to better seal the openings should you chose to use the ports for water cooling tubes. Additionally, Thermaltake included rubber grommets on the four corners of the fan port to reduce fan vibration noise.

The case’s right side panel is a solid metal panel covering the back of the motherboard tray. Even though the case side does not balloon out to better accommodate cable runs behind the motherboard tray, we found that there was sufficient room provided for most cable runs behind the tray.

The Armor Revo Gene case’s top panel contains a holed fan grill that can accommodate a single 200mm, 140mm, or dual 120mm fans. At the front of the top panel are several device ports, case lights and buttons, and an integrated hot-swap drive bay.

The top panel contains 2 USB 3.0 device ports (blue colored USB ports), 2 USB 2.0 device ports (black colored USB ports), audio output port, and microphone input port. The case’s power button is in the lower left corner of the assembly, with the hard drive activity light and case reset button above it. Notice how the buttons are flush with the case surface. The case power light is just under the front of the top panel contained under a stylized device logo. The LED illuminates a blue color when the system is actively powered with a breathing light effect.

The hot-swap drive bay built into the case’s top panel offers support for both 2.5″ and 3.5″ hard drives. The bay hinge mechanism is built to support both sizes with the hole auto-expanding to accommodate the drive type used.

The case bottom features extra large case feet that can swivel a full 360 degrees with four locked positions. Additionally, there is a removable fan filter that covers the intake regions for the power supply fan as well an additional 120mm fan that can be added in front of the power supply unit.

When powered, the logo at the top front of the case glows the same color blue as the 200mm fan at the front bottom. Notice how some of the fan’s light is redirected to the bottom of the case, giving it a ground-fx style look. The illuminated logo pulses in a breathing-style pattern as well.