Thermaltake Mozart TX Entertainment Center Case

Reviews: Cases

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Max Slowik
Brian
Thermaltake
Dec. 13, 2006

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Cooling

The Mozart TX is not likely to lose to other cases in an airflow match. With eleven fan mounts, no fewer than seven ready for radiators, (including two 240mm spots and one 360mm spot) totaling ten 120mm fans and one 80mm spot, there's enough air for any cooling system. The case doesn't come with fans for all the mounts, just five. Still, including five isn't terrible, as many people have strong opinions regarding fans and probably have a fan (or ten) he or she would rather use.

The fans all use 4-pin Molex connectors and don't have 3-pin fan headers, and though they can be daisy-chained, they can't be used in conjunction with many fan controllers. The five front fans have filters. Three are independent filters, for the fans pushing air across the motherboard. These fans draw the majority of their air through the small openings on the bottom of the case front. The other two draw air through the mesh and foam.

There are two significant problems with the air intake. First is constriction; the airflow paths are small. There is very little as far as openings are concerned for the fans. Not that the case doesn't have generous cut-outs, but rather, the small air holes in the bezel combined with the very thick foam behind the mesh block most any fast-moving air going to the fans. Also, the filters in front of the fans are thin plastic frames and thinner plastic film with pin holes through it. They don't move easily, again, the aluminum chassis cuts into their frame rather than guide them, so they have to be muscled out if you're trying to add or remove the fan behind them. This, of course, means that the filters, which are glued onto their frames, rip off.

Secondly, the fans included with a self-coined HTPC are loud. Way too loud for a home theater setup. This would be less offensive if Thermaltake included a fan controller, even just a simple volt-modder to run the fans off the 5V rail, but then Thermaltake would just sell it separately anyway. On the other hand, with all the fans going, this case was able to drop the processor temperature, under a full load, by "six degrees Celsius" over a mid-tower case. This is no doubt assisted by the compartmentalization of the various components.

Installation

Putting the parts in the case is easy, if quirky. While the front bezel doesn't need to be removed for the drive bays, it does in order to add or rearrange the fans. The front bezel is so large and heavy by itself that it doesn't need the front connectors getting in the way, which they do. Again, if there was a separate, inset bezel for the front panel, this wouldn't be a problem.

One possibly nice thing is the use of standard audio blocks instead of individual pins for the front panel connectors. Still, without individual pins, some motherboard and sound card owners will be out of luck using them.

If the front panel cables slip out of their routing (not that there is anything holding them in their place) the whole bezel will not clip back into place. Even after they're arranged, the cables still pinch tightly between their connectors and the front of the chassis. There is no apparent reason why the opening into the case is so small. (To add injury to insult, after trying to figure out how Thermaltake managed to rout the front panel connectors' wiring, when I finally got the panel to shut, the F'ing retention clip nearest the connectors broke off completely. This is at best an oversight and uncommon problem, and at worse cheap construction and lack of regard for the owners of the cases. The retention clips are very, very thin.)

Wiring for power is easy, but wiring the drives is unnerving. Some will find that their cables just aren't long enough; the Mozart TX requires at least two-foot IDE cables (realistically, it requires 36" cables) for regular ATX motherboards. SATA cables aren't much better off, and even 24" cables, routed behind the motherboard, will stretch tight.

The case completely abandons internal USB connectors. There's no way a 5.25" or (lone) 3.5" bay devices will have a USB cable long enough to reach the headers. Consider these devices unusable, as Thermaltake does not include extensions for them. (They'd be extra if they did, but good luck finding extension cables from your regular vendors.) The unsettling thing is how easy it would be for Thermaltake to right this. If the case was designed with the motherboard flipped over, sometimes called "Reverse-ATX" none of these would be issues. Everything would reach just fine. Well, perhaps not everything. The case would still have shortcomings, but about half would be remedied.

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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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