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Thermaltake Soprano DX Mid-Tower Case
Inside the case
Motherboard Tray There's almost an inch of clearance on the top and bottom of the motherboard, so it's possible to install a motherboard with a large, pre-installed heatsink without difficulty, as well as to connect the various cables to the motherboard headers at the bottom without squinting and pinching. On the other hand, there's enough space for a removable motherboard tray or some cable management ports around it, which are both completely lacking. Power Supply The power supply mount is sturdy. With that said: anyone not using a standard ATX 2.0-sized power supply will immediately run into problems. The top IO panel's cables all poke straight down into the center of the case, blocking space for a long power supply. Thermaltake could have avoided this by either using angled cables, or just making the case an inch or two longer. And the power supply isn't the only thing that would have benefited from the extra room...        Drive Bays This is the other area in which the case could have used a couple more inches. There's enough room for the hard drive cage to be rotated 90 degrees, but who would want that ease of access? The hard drive cage, at least, is removable. The hard drive cage mounts the drives so that they occupy a serious amount of expansion slot space. Even if you don't have full-length video cards (or an allegedly compatible--they aren't--8800 GTX), you'll have to be clever or forceful with the cables between them and the drives, or remove the cage entirely and use (not included) 3.5"to5.25" bay adapters. The three lower 5.25" bays are fine, no problems. The top bay, however, is partially obstructed by the hinge of the front bezel, and it might complicate the installation of some drives. The external drive bays all use tool-free latches, and Thermaltake could do worse. In fact, they have, so these latches are a marked improvement over their past tool-free designs. Cooling Behind the front bezel is a sizable 140mm intake fan that operates at inaudible speeds but moves very little air, which is in no small part thanks to Thermaltake's standard plastic (admittedly easy-to-clean) fan filter, on top of the constriction provided by the steel chassis and the front bezel's indirect air flow. It's enough for the hard drives, but I wouldn't count on it to pump fresh air across the expansion slots by the gallon. The rear fan is just your standard Thermaltake Orange 120mm fan. Both use fan clips for mounts, and not screws. As a whole, the cooling isn't overwhelming. But it isn't substandard, and the fan clips make for easy changes.
Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Inside the case Page 3: Installation, Quality Check & Conclusion 
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