Thermaltake Armor VA8000B

As I’ve noted before the slots to pass cables through are fairly small so IDE cables are a no go. You can pass loooooong SATA cables through there though but you need 24" for use with the upper drive gondola. And now for how the case looks with a full system in there I didn’t include buildup pics because I’d be giving away another review and I can’t do that, stay tuned for more pics though.

As you can see the Armor has plenty of room to allow for quite a setup to be placed in it. The system in question consists of an ASUS A8N32SLI-Deluxe, 2 X BFG GeForce 7800GTX 256’s, X2 4800+, 2 X 74 gig raptors, 400 gig Western Digital 16mb buffer SATA HDD, 2 X LG DVDRW drives, Swiftech H20-Apex Ultra water cooling kit and XG Duro 900 PSU. The radiator for the water cooling kit is standing vertically in the front of the case with the pump behind it and even with the radiator taking up 6 of the 11 front drive bays there are still 5 free for optical drives, fan controllers, the button/LED bay and or another HDD. The Armor really lends itself to water cooling. It even features knockouts in the rear to use an externally mounted radiator.

The verdict: The Armor in steel is insanely heavy. We’re talking close to 40 pounds here. A built system in this case tips the scales at close to 70 pounds. In my opinion this case really needs to be available in aluminum only but I’m biased, I have a bad back so picking up and toting around a 70 pound PC is a no-no. The ability to hide wires is hampered by the full 5.25" bay design but the flexibility is enhanced by it so it balances out there. The mostly decorative blowhole is a minus as is the lack of options on the PSU positioning. There is the lack of a removable motherboard tray but due to the huge size of the case (It’s even EATX capable) dropping in an ATX mobo is no problem, even with the water cooling kit installed so that balances out.

After taking everything into consideration, I am removing 2 points overall for the issues with the PSU mount and 1 for the blowhole. I am, however adding one for the flexibility of the drive bay options. This leaves me with a great score of 8 out of 10. Quite a good showing for a nicely appointed case that lends itself well to water cooling. Quite a good showing for a nicely appointed case that lends itself well to water cooling.

I’d like to give my thanks to Vince for loaning me the system I installed in this case. Someday I’ll have the good stuff but I don’t have $5000 to lay out at the present time.