Hello again, I’m Rodney Reynolds and welcome to another video review. Today, I’m looking at the Thermaltake Element S Case. This Mid-Tower ATX Case is available in black color. It is mostly steel except for a few plastic parts such as the top bezel as well as the front.
At the top there’s a large red 203mm fan to exhaust warm air out of the case. Conveniently located at the top are two USB 2.0 ports, a microphone jack, headphone jack, external Serial ATA port, power button, reset button, power LED and hard drive activity LED. This case comes with a door which is held in a place by magnets. This swings open from left to right in can be repositioned. The door also has spaces around it to allow the fans to intake cool air when the door is closed. When the door is opened, it reveals three 5.25-inch drive bays at the top and each drive bay has a dust filter.
The remaining drive bays are occupied by fans. They include one 120mm fan at the bottom and another optional 120mm fan can also be installed here. There are two removable fan cages so the fans can be very easily removed for installing a fan or replacing a fan. The front panel can also be very easily removed by pulling on a release lever at the front bottom of the case. This is a really good idea, just have a closer look here at this lever.
The left and right side panels both have ventilation at the back. There is also a rubber around the inside parameter of each side panel. And this is to prevent vibrations. At the back of the case, there is ventilation; they include a motherboard’s I/O shield plate and one 140mm exhaust fan which can be replaced if preferred with a 120mm fan. Note that two optional 60mm can be installed if extra ventilation is required and here are the seven expansion slots and one of this expansion slots is ventilated.
At the bottom is where a standard ATX power supply gets installed and there are two punch outs for an external water cooling systems tubes to pass through. There are three thumbscrews on each side panel and the left side panel can be secured using an optional lock. They also include a small metal clip that can be mounted in any of these positions. You just slide it in like so and then you secure it from the inside with the screw that secures and organizes the keyboard and mouse cables.
This case fits standard ATX and Micro ATX Form Factor Motherboards. Since this is a mid-tower case, there’s not a lot of room to work on the inside and unfortunately the motherboard tray is not removable. Also you’ll notice that the inside of the case is also black.
The motherboard tray has lots of cable management holes for the cables to pass through and this allows the cables to be hidden which cuts down on the cable nest inside the case and thus will improve airflow. There are a number of clips throughout cables through that are attached to the case. This is very handy because it not only organizes the cables, it also keeps them in place.
The motherboard tray also has a large hole to allow access to the heat sinks or waterblocks mounting hardware. Since many heat sinks and waterblocks require a mounting hardware to be installed on the back of the motherboard, this hole means that you won’t have to remove the motherboard if you wish to remove or replace the heat sink or water block. This is extremely handy and an enormous time saver. Up to seven hard drives can be installed in the removable hard drive cage.
To install a hard drive, you can leave the hard drive cage in the case or remove it if preferred. Now, install four included rail screws to on each side of the drive. And note where I have these screws installed. These are installed differently than this because of the way that it goes into the removable drive cage. Once you have the screws on, just carefully slip the drive into the removable hard drive cage. And by the way, if you want to remove the drive, you just press here to release it and pull it out. Note that an optional screw can be installed.
Now, I’ll push the hard drive cage back into the case securing it with two thumbscrews. This removable hard drive cage can also be repositioned and installed through the front of the case if preferred. Also note that this case fits 10.50-inch long consumer level video cards.
There is also a removable power supply compartment plate at the bottom to organize the power supply cables. This keeps all the power supply cables in one area which is really good especially if you don’t have a modular power supply. They even include a removable dust filter for the power supply. At the bottom are four plastic feet soft rubber or silicon would have been preferred because it doesn’t scratch the surface and has better anti-vibration properties. Finally, have a listen to the stock cooling.
Thermaltake has done a fantastic job of designing this case right from the outside to the inside. Now, the outside is plastic but it’s not your typical cheap shining looking plastic. The inside is steel that does add weight but it also keeps the case really rigid. I’ll prefer an aluminum case but that would really jack the price up and this is a reasonably price midsize tower case for all the features that it does have. My only personal—with this case is it doesn’t come with a removable motherboard tray and that’s not a concern for some people. Overall, this is a kick ass product. Until the next time, take care.
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