Well worth the price for high-end processing

Author's Rating:

Pros: Plenty of cooling capacity, well designed insides

Cons: Rather pricey for the average user - very large full-size case.

The Bottom Line: 
For the serious computer user, this case is a must to keep high end components cool and quiet.

Author's Review
I recently built the following PC:
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe MOBO
AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core 2.5Ghz
4GB DDR2 RAM (800 Mhz)
Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM Drives x2 RAID 0
Thermaltake 600W Power supply
NVidia Geoforce 7600GT Video
LG 18X DL DVD R/RW w/Lightscribe

My original case was (at someone's recommendation) at Rosewill mid-tower for 20.00. I was a little reluctant believing that you get what you pay for. But, I bought it nonetheless. What a mistake! The computer had serious overheating issues despite the fact that it was NOT overclocked.

After trying various additions to the case including additional fans, I decided that it was best to buy a decent case... thus the purchase of the Thermaltake case (Asus recommended this particular brand for their MOBOs).

I opted for a full-size case because the components that I chose generate LOTS of heat and, in my thinking, a larger case will keep the various components better separated and therefore reducing the amount of heat generated in a small space.

Needless to say, I was quite impressed as soon as I took it out of the box! The first thing that I noticed was the HD cage at the rear of the case. It will house up to 3 Hard Drives and has a 90mm fan that pulls air past the hard drives and out of the back of the case. This cage can be removed with unscrewing one bolt by hand. THis makes hard drive installation a breeze.

There are ample bays at the front (10), however, the lowest 3 are more suited to additional hard drives because there is a 120mm fan which has to be removed if you want to add external drives.

Each drive bay has a slotted cover at the front with a dust-reducing mesh, so you have plenty of air being pulled from the front if you leave bays empty.

The rear boasts 7 expansion slots with tool-less installation. There are green plastic clips which hold any additional cards securely in place.

Additional fans include a 120mm fan at the lower back and a 90mm fan which intakes cool air at the top of the case. The top boasts 2 USB 2.0 and 1 IEEE firewire ports as well as headphone jack.

One side has clear panels to view the insides of the PC (which I really don't care about, but it IS rather cool) and the 120mm fans have blue LED lights which illuminate when running.

Transferring the guts from the old case to this one was a snap. I completed the installation in a little over an hour.

When the moment of truth arrived, I was duly impressed at how quiet this case was! The 120mm fans are extremely quiet yet still move almost 38cfm of air each. The big difference was in the processor and MOBO temps. When the same components were in the Rosewill case, these were the stats:
MOBO - Idle 42C - full load 50C
Processor - Idle 50C - full load 67C

After installing into the Thermaltake case:

MOBO - Idle 32c - full load 39c
Processor - Idle 40-41c and full load 50-52c

This made the $179.00 that I paid at Tigerdirect well worth the money. I think that the other case is fine for an average PC with a user who browses the Internet, checks email and maybe works with some photos and music.

However, if you are in need of a high-end computer (I do a lot of video processing and music arrangement), this is the case of choice. High-end components generate tons of heat and it takes a well-designed case to keep those components cool thereby extending their lives.

UPDATE 5/24/07 This case continues to impress me. The motherboard and CPU continue to run at cool temps and I attribute this directly to the excellent design in the case where cool air is drawn from the front and top and taken out of the back.