Advantages: Will Take everything including the kitchen sink
Disadvantages: Could be too big for most Home users

...It's big, it's black and it's bloody heavy!! But thats not the review. Thermaltake has made some outstanding cases over the years and this rates as one of them. If you can't tell from this statement I'm a big fan of the thermaltake brand, and bought one of these to replace my Xaser 3 when they first came out. The first thing to strike home is the dimensions. It is a server sized case, with 10 (or 11 if you remove the drawer) 5.25" bays. 3 of these are taken up by the removable hard drive unit, which has an intregal 120mm fan onboard. Another is used for the system switch bay/floppy caddy. As I said before it is heavy at 18kg unladen, and as with the Xaser 3 this has a little to do with the 2 large, full face 3mm aluminium sheets they use for doors. However it is striking, and more of an art piece than a case. Inside at the top rear... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Solid build and numerous features
Disadvantages: Minor flaw with the expansion card fixing bracket

...[Introduction] Thermaltake is a name some may recognise as being in the CPU and case cooling markets however they are now getting a growing reputation for a fantastic array of pre-modded cases. This reputation is well deserved as I will show in the following paragraphs. [Specs] The Xaser III case has the following specifications: • Dimensions: 531 x 206 x 521mm • Weight: 17kg (steel chassis) / 8.5kg (aluminum chassis) • Drive Bays: 4 external 5.25”, 2 external 3.5”, 6 internal 3.5” • Expansion slots: (7) • Motherboard type: Standard ATX • Power Supply is optional so I won’t go into it here • Top mounted Firewire, USB 2.0 (x2), headphone and mic jack hidden under a spring flap • Cooling: 7 80mm case fans (2400 RPM / 38 CFM / 21 dBA each) • Colours: Blue, silver or black My personal choice was the silver case... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Cooler, silent, spacious inside
Disadvantages: Heavy. Very heavy. 6.8 kg heavy. No PSU included

...has already the mounting holes for the tubes. No need for a quick DIY surgery then.... See - through side panel with EMI shield Besides letting you look inside your PC guts, it also helps letting some heat to exit your PC. You can also add another fan you are willing to do some DIY. Security lock in front bezel and side panel Just in case your kids, wife,partner decide to mess around with your music collection and download Crazy Frog to the hard drive Retractable foot stand All four foot stands are retractable. The case itself is made Aluminum To be more precise, 1.0 mm All aluminum (sides) and aluminum for the door 12 bays in total , External 5 x 5.25", 2 x 3.5", Internal 5 x3.5" 7 expansion slots, Dual USB2.0, IEEE1394 Firewire, audio & speaker ports (on right lower side, when facing case) According to Thermaltake... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Control four fan channels - control fan noise
Disadvantages: No off switch for fans

...games than when you're working. This unit comes on it's own, or fitted as standard on the Thermaltake Xaser cases. I acquired mine the latter way - and, although my fans aren't deafening on full speed, they are absolutely silent at lower speeds. There is also the capacity to control the CPU fan on one of the channels. Apart from fan control, the Hardcano 9 features an LCD temperature display. The temperature sensor is designed to fit between the CPU and Heatsink cooler and gives an accurate realtime (5sec refresh rate) readout of your processor temperature, allowing you to adjust your fans accordingly. In addition to this, an alarm temp. can be set so if the CPU reaches a certain temperature the unit emits a warning beep, and you can take appropriate action. This product can be definitely recommended to the overclocking community... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Impressive cooling, near silent, good value
Disadvantages: Heavy, can be too large for some cases

...You might note that I'm a big fan (Excude the pun) of thermaltake equipment. Good solid build quality that dosen't cost the earth. I got this beast to cool an LGA 775 3.2Ghz, with the quiet nature of a 120mm fan in mind. Knowing how big the fans are I was still suprised at the size of the thing when it arrived, being 140-150mm wide. This will exlude it from some cases as it is pretty close to the edge of my motherboard (Abit), and may interfere with the Power supply. However this is installed in a Xaser 3 case so no such problems there. It is also fairly heavy at about 0.9Kg and therefore requires installing when the motherboard is horizontal, ensuring the clips are tight before placing in the case. Once in it is an impressive cooler, from the blue glow of the LED's to the near silent cooling of the fan. It recorded a drop of 13... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Powerful, cheap, quiet
Disadvantages: none

...Modern PC's are requiring more and more power. Cheap power supplys simply arent cutting it anymore, and can often cause problems. I recently purchased a Hercules Radeon 9700Pro graphics card (which I have also reviewed on Ciao), and thus I decided to equip my PC with a more capable PSU. >Value< Thermaltake do several lower models, but I felt that the 420w would be a safe bet to cope with my 2 Optical drives, new graphics card, and other hardware. Online reviews of this power supply were very good, so I was pleased to find the unit lived up to my expectations. I was even more pleased to find that the unit retails for about £40 on dabs.com - much cheaper than equivalent models from Antec or Enermax. >First Impressions< First impressions were good - the unit sports a dual fan configuaration with smart, strong gold... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Very robust, build quality, looks
Disadvantages: fimsy top lid, noisy case fans

...Ive owned the Thermaltake Tsunami Dream VA3000BWA (windowed version) for around 8 months now, I chose it as the case that would house my very own PC "creation", a custom built desktop PC. This case looks absolutely stunning. As you can see in the photo, there the curved brushed metal door on the front of the case I've owned the Thermaltake Tsunami Dream VA3000BWA (windowed version) for around 8 months now, I chose it as the case that would house my very own PC "creation", a custom built desktop PC. This case looks absolutely stunning. As you can see in the photo, the curved brushed metal door on the front of the case has two discreet blue LEDs which really make the case look elegant at night. The case comes with 3 fans, a very large intake fan at the front, large exhaust fan at the rear, and a small side fan attached... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Fast, Excellent MHz/£ ratio, Highly Overclockable
Disadvantages: Hotter than Intel P4s, Die is more fragile.

...+] (running my 512MB DDR400 dualchannel at its appropriate 400MHz) running at 49degrees C idle (53degrees full load) [note: my case itself has pretty poor cooling (ambient: 37-39 degrees) so temps could be much lower.] My CPU is fitted with a Volcano XASER 11+, an all copper heatsink CPU cooler made by ThermalTake. Price Tag --------------- This has got to be the key feature to the Athlon 2600. Selling for £68 for the retail boxed processor from Silicon-Group, my local PC store, it has a MHz/£ ratio (taking it to be a 2.6GHz processor, though realistically the clock speed is 1.91GHz) of 38.24 Mhz/£! So what you may ask. 38.24 is not much at all, pitiful really? No! Heres a little list I drew up for you to compare yourself (remember lower is WORSE, you want more MHz for each £ you spend): AthlonXP 2500+ [£61] 40.98 MHz/£ {another... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Quiet when idle, cool when pushed, temp sensitive
Disadvantages: clip could be a stronger design

...When I bought my Athlon 64 many moons ago, I wanted the best cooler around for my computer. At the time, all the reviews were rating the Venus 12 as one of the best available. Thermaltake have been in the business of producing cooling products for many years, and are one the world leaders in computer cooling. The Venus 12 is designed for a Socket 754 AMD Athlon or Sempron CPU, and has a copper heatsink with a three blade, dual ball bearing 80mm fan. When installing, you have four options for controlling the speed of the fan, the simplest is to use a jumper on the fan header which makes the fun run at full speed at all times. You also have the option of manual control via either a variable switch at the front of the case, taking up a 3.5 drive bay or via a variable switch at the back of the case that takes up an expansion slot... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Good looking case - easily as attractive as LianLi or Coolermaster equiv.
Disadvantages: No motherboard tray, despite appearance quite limited space inside.

...I bought this case a year or so ago now and i'm sill happily admiring the shiny blue LEDs glowing from under my desk. It arrived well packed and without random bits of polystyrine stuck to it with horrible tape that leaves a mark so 5/5 for that. The Thermaltake thumbscrews and "screwless" fan and PCI/AGP slot gadgets are nice and seem reliable, i must admit that i've not really stress tested the card holders much but i did manage to pull one off whilst removing a network card. Luckily it didnt break and it was a simple task to just slip it back into position again. The Thermaltake fans are a bit louder than i expected and i have since replaced them with SilenX ones. (I of course lost out of the lovely blue LED fan but i will survive). The usb/firewire/audio I/O on the top of the case is covered by a little door that feels... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful