Thermaltake Armor Full Tower ATX / BTX Case

Reviews: Cases

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Bryan
Kurtis
Thermaltake
May. 7, 2005

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Inside The Case

Overview

Inside the Armor, a total of thirteen drive bays provide for a virtually unlimited amount of options when configuring your setup. There are also additional removable HDD bays next to the PSU chamber, something that most definitely surprised me. Who could ever need more than two HDDs? The space inside this thing is incredible, providing the user with too much space for his/her own good. Water cooling, anything you can imagine, will fit inside these dimensions, not to mention fans galore. There are too many places and options for fans, making this case a playground for the cooling maniac. This case has been designed to be as tool-less as possible and you can see that from all the pictures. Everything inside the case is user-friendly. Your hands alone without any additional tools can use the knobs and brackets during system and drive installation.

Drive Bays

The drive bays up front are all designed to be able to accommodate 5.25" drives or to have a 3.5" HDD cage fitted into them. Thermaltake has designed the drive racks for tool free installation of your 5.25" drives using yet another unique feature that they incorporated into the case.

Tool free drive bays aren't new and everyone has their own design but I'd have to say that Thermaltake has come up with the best implementation I've seen. Along the sides of each bay are plastic latches that can be released by squeezing the handles and pulling the latch up. Then slide your drive in from the front until it's flush and lock the latch into place on the drive. It's simple, effective and easy to do with one hand. These latches also hold the front HDD cage in place in the three lower drive bays, but you can remove the drive cage and put it anywhere you want.

Wires

The sheer size of the case makes wire management a breeze. There are the usual motherboard headers for the power buttons and LEDs coming from the front bezel, as well as the wires for the USB, Firewire and audio ports from additional unit on top of the case; all of which plug into the motherboard instead of exiting the back of the case and plugging into existing ports.

PCI Slots and I/O Shield

This is usually the part of a case that reflects its quality the most. Poor quality cases really tend to shirk the job of creating sturdy, eye catching PCI slots, while top quality cases create great looking and rock solid setups. I'm a bit confused with the factors that create this divide in quality, but I can tell you that the Armor has the making of a top quality case. Everything is chiseled and immediately caught my eye. The ports are all constructed of thick aluminum which means your PCI cards are going to remain firm and in place, unless you toss your case off the roof of a house or something.

Through my experience, I have never found a tool-less design for PCI slots that I would favor over thumbscrews; I just prefer thumbscrews for some reason. However, the tool-less setup in the Armor is the best I have seen. They are basically a little clamp which clicks into place via a plastic tab. To open the mechanism, simply press the tab down and the clamp opens up. Unlike some other tool-less designs, these clamps do not get in the way of taller or awkward card sizes. If you still prefer to use the tried and true method, the clamps can be removed and cards can be installed with screws.

The I/O Shied is also put together with the same attention to detail as the PCI slots. The Armor can use any type of motherboard as it supports the entire form factor series currently available. These include the Micro ATX, ATX, Extended ATX and of course the new BTX standard. The unit's total overall size is 530 x 220 x 560 mm (H*W*D) and empty it has a weight of 7.5Kg, which is very light indeed. The motherboard tray is not removable, but the spacious interior leaves plenty of room for installing and removing your motherboard so it shouldn't be a problem. You can purchase the Armor case with a kit that allows installation of the new BTX form factor motherboards in the case as well, which may or may not be very useful yet but perhaps will come in handy later as BTX becomes a more mainstream form factor.

Cooling

One of the things that I really enjoyed about this case was the amount of cooling options. Thermaltake did a stand up job in this area, providing the user with a diverse number of possible methods to stabilize air pressure, keep their parts cool, and lower temps within the case. Since you can theoretically incorporate three 120mm fans into the front of the case, matching exhaust flow proves to be a relatively simple task. As mentioned earlier in the review, you can have up to three exhaust fans (not including the PSU) with the Armor. Single 120 and 90mm fan holes can be found on the back panel, as well as an additional 90mm fan exhaust on the top of the case. So all that is needed to match exhaust pressure is the appropriate amount of intake received from the front bezel. Another great thing about having so much versatility up front is that airflow moves best from the front to the rear of the case, and up to the top (as heat undoubtedly rises). So having intakes in the front and exhausts in the back and up top creates a perfect atmosphere for achieving the lowest temperatures possible.

Thermaltake also sells a liquid cooling kit that mounts perfectly within the confines of the enclosure if you want to go that route. Rubber grommets with pre-cut tube holes are installed and ready to have a 1/4" ID water cooling kit from Thermaltake hooked up.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Impressions
Page 3: Inside the Case
Page 4: Quality Check
Page 5: Conclusion

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17 User Comments

1 - Posted by PennyManDeux on May 7, 2005 - 4:43 pm

Nice looking case! A big change from what Thermaltake normally does. Good job!

Now.... MOTHERBOARD TRAY!

2 - Posted by Dyrewolph on May 7, 2005 - 8:17 pm

well here i was with my mouth on the floor that brian had done a review... i thought he was just some admin dude and didn't do much *snicker* but its okay I realised it was Bryan and not Brian :twisted:

3 - Posted by Brian on May 7, 2005 - 10:08 pm

If only I had time to do a review, would be a nice change of pace. I've been putting in a LOT of work behind the scenes... too bad I can't show it to you guys... yet...

;-)

4 - Posted by Kurtis on May 8, 2005 - 1:04 am

brian, u don't have to lie to them. they all know that the "work" you have put in behind the scenes is just creating that silly bouncey badger avatar! :-P ;-)

oh and in case u guys care, i've been working on some video card reviews. you can look forward to the X800 XL 512MB review going up either tomorrow (sunday) or monday

5 - Posted by Dyrewolph on May 8, 2005 - 6:02 am

someone's on drugs :lol:

6 - Posted by Kurtis on May 8, 2005 - 10:16 am

/me points at Dyrewolph

7 - Posted by Brian on May 8, 2005 - 10:17 am

The Bouncy Is Fun! The Bouncy Is Important! The Bouncy Rules All!

Don't Dis The Bouncy!

8 - Posted by J2T on May 9, 2005 - 8:38 am

Well thats a definate improvement over their Xaser line of cases IMO. The only thing is I would like to see a removeable mobo tray and those "guards" in the front seem rather pointless.

9 - Posted by Kurtis on May 9, 2005 - 8:58 am

those things are just for looks i think, they don't really serve a purpose. certainly, they won't conceal any color mismatched bay devices :-P

10 - Posted by PennyManDeux on May 10, 2005 - 11:14 pm

Dey is fo da style my shizzle fo crizzle! A tizzle bizzle bling bling don't hurt nuttin!

11 - Posted by PsychoSnowMan on May 12, 2005 - 12:39 am

That's an awesome case.
I have a problem. My current case is the standard cheap non-name brand beige box type. It's all metal except for a plastic cover that goes over the front. Cooling is atrocious. So bad in fact that I have to leave the side panel off or it will overheat, and the dust that that lets in probably isn't all that good. I could add another case fan to the back which would be a good idea but I'd still have the problem of my big IDE cables blocking the front intake, I already know I could switch to rounded IDE cables. Unfortunately I don't really have the money to buy that sweet 160$ case. And all the ones I see on newegg below 60$ are either white/tan boxes that probably don't have good cooling and aren't that attractive, or look like someone made a computer case out of some riced out Honda chassis.
I looked over the case reviews here but most were either fairly expensive or didn't have that good of cooling.
Are there any stylish cases that aren't covered in LEDs, with good cooling for under $60-70? And can anyone suggest some good ones? If there aren't I suppose it wouldn't be too bad to go for a more expensive case, especially since cases don't become outdated nearly as fast as the rest of my components.

12 - Posted by J2T on May 12, 2005 - 9:45 am

Ok, here a few I like in that price range at the Egg. I'm assuming you are just looking for the case and not necessarily a PSU also

Antec SLK3000-B (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...)

Chenming 301KEB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...)

Enermax CS-517FS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...)

13 - Posted by Brian on May 12, 2005 - 10:56 am

Of those three I would go with the Antec. Looks like it allows for better airflow than the Enermax.

14 - Posted by Rich on May 12, 2005 - 1:02 pm

I am a big fan of Antec cases too.

I have used this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...

15 - Posted by J2T on May 12, 2005 - 1:11 pm

Well, out of those three I do prefer the Antec, but I thought I would give some variety. ;-)

16 - Posted by billycat on May 17, 2005 - 4:51 pm

Just how thick are the sidewalls on those armors? I have a Antec P160 and a Thermaltake Tsunami and the Tsunami's sidewalls are paper thin and feels flimsy. Antec's sidewall feels fairly solid in comparison (seems like 1.5mm or more though I didnt measure.)

Case has great features, I'm just a bit concerned about the durability.

17 - Posted by Guest on June 8, 2005 - 5:44 am

i just wish you would have told me how quiet this case is and how cool, compared to same setup in another case.
i bought one last week dammit. then discovered thermaltake has zero tech support. won't respond to any emails and has no phone support at all

now, just today, antec has a new sonata and the p180, both much better construction than thermaltake

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