Case Deconstructed

The case's front panel is held in place by large push-pins that mate to holes in the front of the case. The external 5.25" and 3.5" bays have removable plastic face plates covered with metal mesh. On the backside of the lower portion of the panel is a fan filter assembly that can be removed for cleaning.

Underneath the plastic front faceplate are the 5.25" and 3.5" device bays as well as the front 200mm fan. There are two 3.5" drive bays with one tucked away behind the upper portion of the fan. The fan itself has clear blades to better enhance and reflect the blue LED illumination.

The aluminum front guards are held in place with plastic hinges at the top and bottom of each guard. The hinges slide up and down to seat or unseat the holding pin from its mating hole in the front faceplate.

To connect the case's upper panel assembly, cables and header plugs are provided. The 4-pin molex connector powers the upper panel assembly and LEDs with the two 3-pin fan cables attaching to the top and front case fans. The header plugs for the front panel assembly include a USB 2.0 plug, a USB 3.0 plug, a front panel audio plug, a front panel plug (for connecting the power LED, HD LED, and power and reset buttons), and a SATA plug for the hot-swap drive bay.

The case expansion card slot area in the rear of the case is comprised of three major parts – the hold-down plate, the expansion slot covers, and the thumbscrews. The hold-down plate acts as added support that sits on top of the expansion card uprights. This system allows for removable of expansion card plates without having to go into the case at all. Notice the latch on the bottom of the expansion card slot covers that hold the covers in place at the bottom of the slot. I am not a big fan of this implementation because of case security concerns. It would be very easy for someone during a LAN party to get into your case and muck around without having to even remove a side panel.

The 3.5" drive cages are a single plastic unit with a front accessible removal mechanism. You simply squeeze together the two front levers and pull out the cage. Unfortunately, the cages are not tool-less, so the drives must be set in place with the provided drive screws. However, Thermaltake does include four rubber grommets in the sides of each cage to held with drive noise and vibration. Notice that there are holes provided in the bottom supports of the drive cage for mounting 2.5" drives like SSDs.

One of the nicer additions to the case side panels are the thumbscrews. Thermaltake designed the thumbscrews to be held in place after panel removal, so that you do not have to worry about losing track of them. They did this by making the threading on the thumbscrew wider than the hole with the thumbscrew portion in contact with the panel being unthreaded.

The included fan in the top panel is a 200mm fan with a unique fin design. Not only did they manage to cram 11 fins onto the fan motor, but the fins have feathered notches cut into the leading edge of each one. This notched design allows for better and more directed airflow during low speed fan operation.

The mesh fan filter and window on the case's left side panel are held in place with removable black plastic rivets. Use of these type of rivets give the panel assembly a uniform look to blend with the metal rivets used in other areas of the case. Additionally, they make for easy removal if you want to modify the panel without affecting the window. To remove the rivets, you simply push the shaft out of the holder from the back of the panel using a small flat-head screwdriver and pull the head unit free. The hold-down piece will come free easily at that point.

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