System Construction
The Thermaltake Armor Revo Gene supports boards sized from micro-ATX through full ATX and even beyond. Even though the case supports the different form factors, some fit better than others.
With a standard ATX form factor motherboard, their is sufficient room all around for cable routing and fan placement. The top of the board has a few centimeters clearance with the fan so ATX-12V power cable routing should not be problematic unless you with careful planning. Getting to some of the upper mounting screws can be a lesson in patience though. The rear fan sits just over the rear panel, and does not inhibit the board in its standard configuration. With a larger fan or a water cooling apparatus, it may get a little tight. The right edge of the board has plenty of clearance for cables fed through the grommeted holes, and the case more than amply supports a full sized video card installed. The video card shown is an AMD Radeon 5870 HD. The board bottom rests against the separator for the power supply area, with no must room if using larger PSUs for cable routing.
The E-ATX form factor board fits the motherboard tray in a similar fashion to the ATX board with one exception, the board's right edge. Notice that the right edge of the board overlaps almost half-way over the cable routing holes. This won't cause issues unless you are routing a lot of cables through these ports. The board width matches the length of the video card, so you know it is plenty wide. Even with the cable routing holes partially covered though, the case still has plenty of room to work with.
With a mini-ITX form factor board, the amount of free space seems to overwhelm the board. The video card itself overwhelms the small board. However, the board fits into the case mounting holes without issue and sits very securely in place. The motherboard CPU hole actually works as an additional routing space for cables, working to this configurations advantage. However, the top of the board still remains snug up against the top fan even with the board's reduced size.
The uni-body drive cages support both 3.5" and 2.5" inch hard drives. The 3.5" models fill the entire cage, while the 2.5" models have some room to spare. For the 2.5" drives (normally laptop hard drives or SSDs), the drives are mounted to the cage through bottom mounted screws.
A 5.25" device fits nicely into the drive bays, as shown with the mounted DVD-RW drive. The drive simply clicks into place with the device face sitting flush with both sides of the case's front panel and the bay covers below it.
The case supports both upright and upside down mounting of the PSU. For standard mounting, the bottom mounted PSU fan sits on top of a well ventilated fan grill with integrated filter, allowing for maximum air pass-through. The PSU shown is a moderately sized PSU, but the case will easily support the larger length PSU's as well. With a larger PSU, you may run into issues if you want to use the 120mm fan mount between the PSU and the 3.5" drive cage though.
There is a small typo in
There is a small typo in paragraph under the photo where you have installed a mini-ITX board and it reads:”With a micro-ITX form factor board, the amount of free space seems to overwhelm the board.” I believe there is no such form factor that exists. Its either micro-ATX or mini-ITX. please correct it.
Thank you for pointing this
Thank you for pointing this out. This has been corrected…
sb 3.0 x 2
should be usb 3.0
sb 3.0 x 2
should be usb 3.0 x 2 ?
Fixed, thanks for the heads
Fixed, thanks for the heads up…
What kind of manufacturer
What kind of manufacturer puts out transparent hdds?
Western Digital released
Western Digital released several of their Raptor drives with clear windows on top of them…
hi man you made an excellent
hi man you made an excellent review, but i need your help. I bought this case in january and i want to put the side fan in the case, in the specs appear than the fan must be 200x200x30 so i got a 200mm thermaltake thunderblade led blue fan but it doesnt fit in the holes of the side of the case, when i read the box of the fan appear than it can be used in the front or the top of the cases, so i want to know if maybe the coolermaster 200mm megaflow can be used or wich reference fits well in the space of the side fan. Thanks. Juan C.
i want to knw why is my
i want to knw why is my breaathing light on my case not lighting up…? on my armor revo gene
I have this case and the
I have this case and the front panel audio is not working. Also 3 more people with this case have the same problem. Don’t really know why they came faulty from the manufacturer.