Thermaltake's Booth and Lanbox Gaming Cases

Articles: Event Coverage: CES 2007

Pre-CES | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Extended Coverage

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Bradford Day
Brian

Jan. 11, 2007

Specifications

Thermaltake's Booth and Lanbox Gaming Cases

Thermaltake's booth at CES was an impressive array of computer enclosures, cooling solutions and power supplies all crammed into a relatively small space. It seems that Thermaltake has adopted a new advertising slogan, "Key 3 Spirit". Eventhough I sat through a 5 minute demonstration on all the aspects of Key 3 Spirit, I pretty much came away with the impression that it was, like most ad campaigns, just a gimmick. It seemed to me that Key 3 Spirit really just meant that they would couple 3 basic ideas together in a very catch wordy way, like for instance: "Key 3 Spirit shows - Innovation, Fashionable Design, Professionalism. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

But despite the marketing train, Thermaltake actually had some great stuff on display. Let's start with the enclosures. The pride of the booth had to be their MozartTX entertainment center, which we reviewed a while back. The humongous aluminum cube is like no other computer case I've seen. Firstly, the case is absolutely over the top. It stands over 28" high with a footprint of 13" x 13". It also features 7" drive bays made especially for their 7" retractable LCD monitor. The MozartTX can accommodate 10 120mm cooling fans and has plenty of room for a liquid cooling system. In fact, it has pre-drilled holes to allow cooling hoses to pass through. And as Max mentioned in his review, why would anyone need a case this huge? The MozartTX is designed to contain two separate, independent PCs. The lower mounted primary system motherboard tray can house either an ATX or BTX based machine while the upper section would house a Mini ITX mobo.

The Key 3 Spirit demo guy pointed out that users could set up the primary system to run as a home theater PC and the smaller ITX board could act as a home security system monitor. Perhaps not every home user will find this to be an ideal use of a dual PC system, but there are many uses we could find for 5 hidden 3.5" hard drive bays!a HTPC/media server/game system comes to mind. Thermaltake's MSRP is around $260 for the case, more with the LCD panel and liquid cooling. Sadly Max found the quality quite lacking in his first review and I'm inclined to agree with him.

HTPC cases were easy to find. The Bach and Mozart HTPC cases on display featured Thermatake's Media LAB multi-media integration system. A VFD panel, IR remote and software package connect all aspects of a home theater and multi-media in a horizontal format case.

Apparently gaming enclosures aren't dead yet as proven by the LANBOX. The fully modular chassis has removable!well removable everything; the motherboard tray, drive bays and power supply bracket all come apart for easy assembly. A cast aluminum handle is installed on the VF1000 series and allows lan partiers to tote their machine around with one hand. The LANBOX chassis is SLI and Crossfire ready and is designed to contain 3 silent 60mm cooling fans as well as one quiet 90mm front fan. Topside ventilation holes, vented PCI brackets and video card ventilation holes perforate the LANBOX from all sides.

Thermaltake is known for their cooling options, as is implied in the company name. This year they did not disappoint in the cooling department. Coolers and radiators of every shape and size were on display. Two external liquid cooling options, the Tribe VX and the Orchestra looked more like the dehumidifiers my parents used to have in their basement than PC cooling options. I couldn't quite figure out what the heck the Mini Typhoon Value Pack was all about. A massive copper heat pipe heat sink fan with 2 50mm fans sort of haphazardly stuck to the side of the cooling fins. It wasn't until I took a look at their product sheet (about the size of your average roadmap, by the way) that I realized the little fans can be positioned to cool your northbridge or RAM modules. Then of course there is the Big Typhoon!it's ridiculously big and has a massive 12cm, 9 blade fan resting atop an equally massive heat pipe/heat sink. And there were many other heat sinks and fan combos too numerous to mention. Let's just say they have cooling covered, although the general TTL consensus around the hotel room is that Thermaltake's impressive and vast product line up is marred by a lack in quality.

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1 User Comment

1 - Posted by daytroxative on February 13, 2007 - 2:15 am

That LanBox with the handle seems really cool and usefull, i know a friend with a Silverstone SG01 black. It's superlight and compact. But it doesn't have a handle!

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