Thermaltake Urban S31 – Next in Line

It didn’t take long for Thermaltake to announce a follow-up to the first offering in its new Urban series of PC chassis. Hot on the heels of the S21 is the new, slightly bigger Urban S31.

Visually speaking, there is very little to distinguish the first Urban series chassis from the newcomer. Both cases have a brushed metal door hiding the optical drives and meshed air intake area. Likewise, both also have the beveled edges, discreet branding, and all-black color schemes as well as smoothly-integrated I/O port clusters at the top of their front fascias.

Naturally, along with the slightly increased size, the new S31 also has a few features that the S21 does not have. The new chassis’ I/O cluster boasts two USB 2.0 ports along with its pair of USB 3.0 ports; the older model only has the newer-spec USB ports. In addition, the new case has a top-mounted hot-swap dock that can accommodate either a 2.5″ or a 3.5″ storage device. There is also sound-dampening foam on the left side panel. Finally, the top of the case can fit either two 120mm fans (or a 240mm radiator) or a single 140mm fan; in comparison the S21 can only take a single 120mm fan up top.

Speaking of fans, it comes with two 120mm Turbo fans out of the box. One is mounted at one of the two front intake positions; the other is installed at the rear exhaust position. All told, you can install a maximum of six 120mm fans: Two at the front intakes; two at the top; one at the rear exhaust; and one on the floor.

The S31’s slightly bigger dimensions also confer an advantage as far as accommodating storage devices: It can fit six 2.5″/3.5″ drives internally, compared to five for its stablemate. Thankfully, the S21’s tool-less drive retention systems are carried over to the new chassis. Also carried over are the PCI-area expansion slots and the compatibility with motherboards up to ATX spec.

The S31 will be available in both a Windowed and a Classic (non-windowed) version. No formal market availability date nor MSRP were available at the time of writing.