Thermaltake Chaser A71 Full-Tower – Is Bigger Better?

Hot on the heels of the recently-introduced Chaser A41 mid-tower, Thermaltake has announced the A71. 

The newest Chaser chassis is a full-tower, but it’s easy to see that it shares a lot of design DNA with its Chaser brethren.  Aesthetically it’s a scaled-up A31.  The bulging flanks on the side panels, cooling-optimized full-length mesh front fascia, and a stylish side window that allows you a look into the engine compartment, er, motherboard area, are all Chaser series styling design staples.  In fact, the A71 won the 2013 Red Dot Award for Product Design. 

The A71 comes with four fans out of the box:  Two of them are 200mm fans with blue LEDs mounted at the top of the case and in the left side panel over the VGA area, one is a 200mm (no LEDs) at the front intake position, and one is 120mm fan mounted at the rear exhaust position.  It should also be noted that the top fan mount can accept either two 120mm fans (not included) or a dual-120mm radiator, should the end user prefer to use either of these cooling options.  And if that’s not enough, there is also an optional 120mm fan mount on the case’s floor, just like the A41.  The muscle-car inspired design cues and the bling-tastic stock fans should go a long way towards pleasing gaming- and performance-oriented system builders who want a PC chassis that gets noticed and can cool down even the hottest hardware. 

In terms of storage drive installation, the A71 can mount five 3.5”/2.5” HHDs/SSDs and three 5.25” optical drives.  The new case, though, also has an external HDD dock built into the top, just behind the I/O cluster.  The dock accepts both 2.5” and 3.5” drives, conferring the case with very good versatility and utility.  And speaking of the I/O cluster, it boasts two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, and HD Audio mic in and headphone out ports.

 The case’s interior is all black, as is most of the bodywork.  It does have baby blue accents on the front fascia, which match the blue LEDs on two of its fans.  The motherboard area is festooned with strategically-placed cable management openings. 

Thermaltake did not state precisely when its newest Chaser will be available for sale, nor an MSRP.