Thermaltake Mozart TX Entertainment Center Case - Articles / Reviews

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Thermaltake Mozart TX Entertainment Center Case

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Max Slowik
Brian
Thermaltake
Dec. 13, 2006

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Inside the case

Despite the feature as listed, the case is far from tool-free. The all-aluminum interior is reflective and sharp-looking. While most of the edges are rolled, some of them are literally sharp, and thin aluminum cuts deep. Care must be taken passing wires around the corners of the motherboard tray and with fingers near any fan-screw mounts. Also, fingerprints will show on the interior surfaces like they've been hit with UV powder under a blacklight.

Motherboard Tray

At first glance, it appears as though the case has a removable motherboard tray, but in actuality it's a removable back for an optional BTX kit, the motherboard tray itself is fixed. This is unfortunate for two reasons, first that because the doors only open 90 degrees (and are difficult to remove entirely) so the motherboard must be installed vertically, or with the entire case on its side, with the risk of the case door slamming down. Second, the BTX kit mounts stick up off the tray, and will come in contact with the motherboard's component side, causing a short circuit. To circumvent this, Thermaltake includes a sticky-backed Mylar sheet. Longer standoffs would make more sense, but they may have their reasons.

Power Supply

The power supply is installed on the Mozart's interior cross-bars that make a very solid shelf, holding the PSU in place completely, leaving both hands free to screw it in place. The power supply has the length of the whole case to itself, so there's plenty of room for any PSU. Loose cables dangle freely behind the motherboard tray, and it's easy to tie the extra down. Because many of the drives are far from the PSU, the cables' extra length is used neatly, but the distance isn't so great that they might not make it.

The PSU is also given its own air intake, lowering its temperature significantly, in turn reducing the speed of its fans. Unfortunately, the opening isn't aligned quite with the PSU, and sits a little low in respects to power supplies with 120mm intake fans on the top (or bottom, given your perspective! sideways in this case). Also, the fan opening uses mesh without a filter, and the mesh isn't neatly trimmed. It too is held on with plastic rivets, in the windowed case.

Drive Bays

The drive area is one of the prominent draws of the Mozart TX; the bays are numerous. There's also the proprietary 7" bay for Thermaltake's Media Kit, which includes a retractable 7" LCD monitor. Why a 5.25" adapter for the bay isn't included is a mystery. Who else makes 7" bay devices? The LCD monitor is, of course, sold separately.

Optical drives and 5.25" bay devices should probably be installed with the 3.5" drive caddy removed, as the caddy blocks access to the opposite side of the 5.25" bays. The 5.25" bays use tool-free latches that are as lightweight as the drive cage, and combined with the thin aluminum they pop off and don't really slide well; there's too much give between the two and the sharp edges on the rails cut into the latches rather than guide them. The latches also fly out of their rails when too much pressure is applied, which is easy to do because they catch instead of sliding, and it takes a lot of pressure to move them. The case would have been better off with regular guides and plain screws.

The 3.5" bay holds five hard drives with screws, through rubber vibration-dampening grommets. One of the two external bays is off-limits; it's for a vacuum-fluorescent display (which are conveniently acquired from Thermaltake). The drive caddy may be removed entirely, it's held in by three thumb screws and a chromed steel latch. There is a fan mount on the caddy, so be sure not to tie down the fan cable associated with the hard drives, as it won't come out easily.

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Page 2 of 4

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Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Inside the case
Page 3: Cooling & Installation
Page 4: Quality, Safety & Conclusion

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5 User Comments

1 - Posted by christopher3393 on December 29, 2006 - 10:17 pm

This is the 6th article I've read on this case this evening. It is by far the best! Thanks! Imagine if this case had close to the thickness of the Thermaltake Tai Chi, the smooth edges of a Lian Li case, and some of the other quality improvements that you recommended. Now add locking wheels that are place so as to avoid pronenes toward tipping and handles that fold down when not in use, like the Zalman TNN 500AF. Perhaps add a few centimeters of depth...I'd pay a premium price for a case like that.

2 - Posted by Kurtis on January 1, 2007 - 2:11 am

Thanks for the feedback, Christopher. Glad you liked the review. :)

Happy New Year to you.

3 - Posted by Max Slowik on January 10, 2007 - 10:34 pm

Hey, thanks for the feedback. I hope I helped you not make a mistake. . .but believe me when I say that the dissapointment is personal. I wanted pretty badly to like that case.

I'm going to sell it on eBay, I sort of hope that guy /doesn't/ read this ;P

4 - Posted by Retr0 on February 25, 2007 - 10:28 am

I am the ebay-buyer. I hope my experiences are more positive. I'm optomistic because I have enormously different needs than you. I plan to use it to house my dedicated Mythtv backend and my trixbox PBX mini-itx system. These systems need to be together for access to phone and cable lines, so this seems ideal. This replaces 2 large antec cases. I'll post a follow-up in a couple of weeks to comment on my experiences.

5 - Posted by Max Slowik on February 26, 2007 - 12:49 am

Hehe, well, I'm glad to see that it's getting used to its full potential.

Also, I'm glad you didn't get up-bid to high Hell on it.

I'll be very interested to hear how it suits you, so come back and fill me in.

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