Thursday, July 08, 2010

Thermaltake Armor+ MX Case

It's been a while now and I HAVE to write this.

This is one of the poorest designed cases I've seen in a great many years.  There are a number of issues with this case that shouldn't have passed pre-design:

  1. Hard Disks
    1. The way they mount sideways means that you need both sides off just to install a drive
    2. Where they mount means that full size ATX mainboards, as most these days have right-angle mount SATA connectors, end up losing access to a number of the SATA ports - you cannot get a cable in no matter what cabe (straight nor right-angled) and no matter how hard you try
    3. You have to force all the HDD cabling into a small space just to get it to the back of the hard drives
  2. Fans
    1. The large 230mm side fan is made of such appallingly flimsy material that the fan blades flex, causing an unbearable amount of noise
  3. Stupid flappy things
    1. The stupid flappy things on the front of the case just get in the way - of the CD, of removable HDDs, of my knees, of cables... They just get in the way. They are utterly pointless.
  4. Stupid plastic toolless slot clips
    1. The stupid plastic toolless clips that are meant to hold in any cards you add to the system, such as a video card, basically break the first time you try and clip them in place. theya re made of some thermosetting plastic that doesn't have enough "give" to be able to flex as much as is required to make them functional

Now, aside from this, the case actually DOES stop all of the bits in it from falling in a heap.  That's probably the best thing about this case.  Unfortunately there are so many bad features that it leaves me wondering where Thermaltake went so wrong and if they have totally lost the plot!


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

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