Thermaltake Mozart TX

[PAGETITLE=Introduction] We've looked at several Thermaltake cases in the past and overall they're pretty nice. They offer a wide variety of cases varying from SFF to huge towers with more drive bays than any sane person can conceive of using. Today we're looking at one that falls into the latter category. The Mozart TX. Let's list the features as Thermaltake tells it. Features: Cube tower with aluminum front panel. Dual PC in one chassis: Primary ATX / BTX + Secondary Mini ITX. 7” Drive Bay: Compatible with 7” LCD monitor. Media Lab(Optional): Media Center / VFD compliant. ITC: Independent Thermal Chamber Technology for optimal thermal management. Liquid Cooling System: Spacious design for two 12 x 24 cm radiators. Superb Airflow: Total 11 vents for ten 12cm and one 8 cm fans. Color: Silver (all aluminum case) Black (SECC body with aluminum front panel) Case dimension: 720 x 330 x 360mm (H*W*D) Specifications Model VE1000SWA Case Type Cube Tower Dimension 330x360x720 mm (WxDxH) Window Side Panel Window Case Front Panel Aluminum Case Body Material Aluminum Color Silver Cooling System Front: 12cm fan x 2 (Up to five 12cm fan) Rear: 12cm fan x 3 (Up to five 12 cm, one 8 cm fan) Motherboard Primary: ATX, Micro ATX, BTX, Micro BTX, Nano BTX, Pico BTX Secondary: Mini ITX Drive Bay 7" Drive Bay x 1 5.25" Drive Bay x 5 3.5" Drive Bay x 7 (Exposed x 1; Hidden x 6) Front I/O E-SATA Connector; USB 2.0 x 4; IEEE 1394 Firewire; HD-Audio Expansion Slots 7 Slots Weight (Net/Gross) 9.0kg / 9.5kg Now, Thermaltake calls this a Cube Tower and it's key emphasise is on the tower part. This case is twice as tall as it wide and high, actually a bit over twice as tall if you want to get technical. In inches it's just in at 28" tall X 13" wide X 14" deep. That's a fairly tall and wide footprint although the depth is very shallow. I'll discuss what this means to you when we look inside, but if you're using this case as a floor standing unit it means that the case takes up just a bit over one square foot of real estate. The box is huge! It stands nearly a full three feet tall. It looks like the box took a good hit in transit so we'll take a look at the case and see if it took any damage. After pulling the Mozart TX out of the box and giving it a good once over I found that there were no dings, dents or broken windows so I gave a huge sigh of relief and got started looking the beast over. I say beast because this thing is a freaking monster! At half as wide as most of your conventional cases (or more than half) and a full 28" tall it's a hard case to miss in a crowd. The face is made from a curved aluminum panel that's around 4mm thick and each end (top and bottom) is covered with an aluminum cap. Near the top you find four USB ports, front audio ports, a lone Firewire port (when will motherboards incorporate more than one front Firewire port?) and an e-SATA port and power for the e-SATA port. The downside about the e-SATA port is that the power requires a legacy plug and Thermaltake neglects to include one. Booo! The side panels are held in place with thumbscrews and latches. The left side is the same traditional location where we find the motherboard mount. The HDD's also live on the left side of the case while the opticals live on the right side. The rear of the case is pretty interesting. There's enough room back there for 2-240mm rads and at the bottom there are eight knockouts for plumbing in any external water cooling that you can think of... as long as the tubing is 5/8" O.D. that is. Moving around to the right side we see that there's nearly enough room for another motherboard, and in fact there is. ITX is the form factor that will fit there due to the fact that the power supply lives on this side of the case and there's a support that that runs from the front of the case to the rear and over to the mobo tray. This support holds up the power supply and adds structural support to the case. Here's what I'm talking about. The box with the accessories is also on that side of the case. Moving around to the left side we see the HDD cage with the front port cables stuffed into it. We can also see that there's room for three 120mm fans below the HDD cage which also has a 120mm fan in it. Next to the fan mount between the lower fan and the HDD cage fan there is another fan mount, which if a fan was loaded there would blow air across the motherboard tray on both sides. There is no other fan for blowing intake air through the right side of the case. Actually, aside from the power supply there are no fans on the off side of the case below the divider. There is a mount for an 80mm fan below the PSU mount but if you're after silence it's a marginal solution. A silent 80mm fan is basically useless for providing adequate air flow and an 80mm fan that does provide adequate air flow is about as much fun to endure as a dentist's drill. Basically a no win situation, although, if you don't have anything on that side of the case you don't really need any air flow and even an ITX board will be more than adequately cooled by the 120mm intake fan that blows on both sides of the case so I guess it's not a huge issue but it still sort of bothers me. [PAGEBREAK] [PAGETITLE=Closer Look] As you'll notice, the sides don't come off the case, instead they're hinged and you're stuck with them unless you want to pull the screws holding the hinges to the panels. This isn't a huge issue but it does make laying the case down and installing hardware a bit of a challenge. The doors open only 90 degrees so unless you prop them open they tend to keep closing with the slightest bump. I'd like to see a prop rod incorporated into the case to keep the doors open in the event that you're laying the case on it's side to install hardware as trying to install a motherboard in a standing case is like herding cats. Inside the box pictured earlier resides the screws and standoffs normally associated with PC cases along with four grommets for passing tubing through, a mylar plate to put over the mobo tray where the BTX mounts protrude through the plane of the tray, although I haven't had any issues but some motherboards with long component legs could. There are also a pair of cables for use with an ITX mobo. They're extended length cables to reach the extra distance from the ITX mobo mount to the HDD cage. Normally bundled cables will be a bit short since they're usually 18" and that might be too short to reach all the way around the tray and up to the cage. Taking a look at the right side of the case wee see that the power supply mounts on edge. There are screw holes for mounting the PSU on either side although for units with a fan on the bottom it is best to mount the PSU with the fan facing the side panel since there is an intake grille in the case window. This will ensure that the fan isn't being blocked by the motherboard tray / case divider and gives the added benefit of supplying the power supply with cooler room temperature air. If you'll note the arrows, they're pointing to the ITX standoffs that are pre-installed in the case on the same side of the case that the PSU mounts on. If you're a modder and don't plan to use the ITX motherboard mounts for that purpose you could mount a plate over them using the standoffs to screw the plate to and mount something else to the plate such as a water pump, reservoir or anything that you imagination can conceive of. The openings in the divider are very handy for routing cables through. As you can see the fan opening in the case window doesn't line up perfectly with the fan in the PSU I've installed in the case for testing but even with the mismatch it still worked very well. During my time with the case I've never noticed the exhaust from the PSU becoming any warmer than if the unit was laying on my desk running under load. As the build progresses you can see that the aforementioned holes in the divider really do a nice job at keeping the wiring sanitary. Taking a peek at the wiring from the front ports located at the top of the case we can see that these babies are very long. In point of fact, the audio and USB and Firewire cables are so long that they'll hang a good foot (or more) below the case. This means that you can route the wires easily behind the divider and bring them out under the motherboard in the holes below it. All the front mounted ports feature monolithic plugs so you don't have to deal with individual mini plugs, although, the Firewire plug does feature the individual mini plugs just in case you have a 1394 mobo connector that isn't dual row. Here's the power to the e-SATA port, although since you don't get the adapter it requires to function isn't included it's kind of like an appendix ...utterly useless. Moving around back we find a feature that's a bit more useful, screw-less PCI slots. The slot covers are held in place by individual locks that are released from the back of the case. Each one has a latch that you squeeze and pull outwards. Like so... The tang end inside the case swings out from the PCI slots and releases the cover. I'm happy to report that the clamps do a very good job of locking your PCI devices down and if you're not comfortable with them you can simply bend the ears at the pivot point away from the lock, remove it and use a screw instead. Moving along we come to the hard drive bay. It's held in the case with three thumbscrews and a clip. It has a 120mm fan mounted to the front and holds five or six hard drives. I say five or six since it depends upon if you desire to mount a floppy drive in the topmost bay. Personally, I'd avoid mounting a drive up there since it's beyond the flow from the fan but that's just me. [PAGEBREAK] [PAGETITLE=Installation, Final Thoughts] If you want to use this case for a three terabyte server then slapping six 500 gig hard drives in the drive cage is the answer. The lower five bays feature rubber grommets to isolate the hard drives from the case to avoid any...

Thermaltake Mozart TX

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