Thermaltake Armor

[Ironcat]

First in my upcoming review series...

I first saw this case listed in one of Sharkeyextreme.com's gaming setups and I thought it looked amazing.
I did a little research online but all of what I found was either from Thermaltake themselves or else from retailers... needless to say they all had nothing but glowing recommendations for it.

I finally got mine for Christmas :santa: and got everything set up last night... I was not nearly as impressed. :mad:

:up: PROS:
1. The case is built solidly! It weighs almost 40 pounds :eek: and feels like I could hide inside this thing in case of an earthquake.
2. Looks. It came with a beautiful black gloss finish and lots and lots of beautiful blue LED fans.
3. Space. Huge open areas inside, 2 removeable hard drive cages, bays out the ying yang... 10 or 11 I think.
4. Quiet... pretty damn quiet.
5. Cool... Granted I am not overclocked or anything but I am running at 32c
6. Uuuum... that's it...

:down: CONS:
1. The flanges up front. I guess they are supposed to look like a knight's visor or something but they just rattle around and get in the way. They don't have enough tension to stay open or shut, so they do both... whenever they want...
2. Power Supply. The case didn't come with one which was no big deal but the space they leave you to put one is really cramped if you use a decent sized psu. It has a diagonal bar across one side so you literally have to put your psu in from the bottom, scrape it across the top and diagonally wedge it into this space and then straighten it out. If you had painted, modded, or acrylic'd your psu you would scratch it all to hell.
3. Motherboard Tray. Not removeable! Hello? You have to lay down and stand up the 40 pound case anytime you want to work on anything inside.
4. The very cool USB hub and audio jacks on top. The door is cheesy plastic, the kind you click to open and then click again to close. It feels so lightweight I think it's gonna break whenever I press it to open.
5. Removeable HD cage. The one in the front of the cage is lined up exactly where the video card is, so adding a hard drive down the line means disconnecting the video card, removing it, unplugging all your HDs, and then popping out the cage.

Last but not least, the big ole 250mm fan on the side panel? NO LEDs. :? I would think they'd want to make that big fan a focal point but I guess not. It's still cool having that big monster fan though...:)

All in all, it isn't a bad case, but if I had it to do over, I'd buy a mid tower for 50 bucks and spend the rest of the money on a new dremel...

[slytherock]

Nice review :up:
Not that I want to correct you, but I want to help, and my nature alway tell me the good sided of the bad things...


:down: CONS:
1. The flanges up front. I guess they are supposed to look like a knight's visor or something but they just rattle around and get in the way. They don't have enough tension to stay open or shut, so they do both... whenever they want...
Never had this problem myself, maybe you can had better magnet
2. Power Supply. The case didn't come with one which was no big deal but the space they leave you to put one is really cramped if you use a decent sized psu. It has a diagonal bar across one side so you literally have to put your psu in from the bottom, scrape it across the top and diagonally wedge it into this space and then straighten it out. If you had painted, modded, or acrylic'd your psu you would scratch it all to hell.
I know this is crap for those. But with a standard PSU, everything is nice. I think they should have add different brackets to mount PSU
3. Motherboard Tray. Not removeable! Hello? You have to lay down and stand up the 40 pound case anytime you want to work on anything inside.
This can really be a problem. What I did is I installed it on my desk, so it's easy to "play" inside
4. The very cool USB hub and audio jacks on top. The door is cheesy plastic, the kind you click to open and then click again to close. It feels so lightweight I think it's gonna break whenever I press it to open.
Dont worry about it, never had a problem....
5. Removeable HD cage. The one in the front of the cage is lined up exactly where the video card is, so adding a hard drive down the line means disconnecting the video card, removing it, unplugging all your HDs, and then popping out the cage.
What I did is put it bacward, Put the fan inside the case, all your HDD connections facing the front. Work well. Still have to unglug them. But no need to unplug the vid

All in all, it isn't a bad case, but if I had it to do over, I'd buy a mid tower for 50 bucks and spend the rest of the money on a new dremel...
A new dremel is always fun :)

[armadilloben]

5. Removeable HD cage. The one in the front of the cage is lined up exactly where the video card is, so adding a hard drive down the line means disconnecting the video card, removing it, unplugging all your HDs, and then popping out the cage. uh dude i said it yourself its removable just move it to one of the spots away from the vid card or just take out the three front cover bezels and the npull it out that way either way doesnt require your taking out the vid card so just move it down below the vid card problem solved i dont think you can call that a con but w/e

otherwise nice review

[SXRguyinMA]

I bought this case recently, but the one without the side panel fan. I too had the issue when I installed my ultra x3 800 watt psu. I ended up removing the top USB/audio jack completely and getting one that goes in the from bay instead. My front doors are fine, magnets hold them closed nicely and they require a good tug to open them. I LOVE the 11 5.25" drive bays, it fits all my goodies in

heres a link (http://www.modshop.net/users/sxrguyin-ma/rig/armored-beast) to my rig

[DonT-FeaR]

ok very nice review i have a friend who wants to get one so... il pass this on

the usb things at the top my soprano had em and never had a problem..

nice review