Thermaltake Tsunami Aluminum Chassis – VA3000SWA

The thumbs screws are nice touch and make things a heck of a lot easier, but as I was screwing my drives in place I got stabbed by something. I thought that I was nuts at first, then I started looking around and found this:

All the drives are installed and I go to put the rack in place inside the case and… WOW. That is tight. There is about ¼ inch between the drives and my video card. That makes for a big headache for a couple of reasons. If I want to hook these drives up, I have to remove my video card. What a pain in the ass. If Tt had only made this case ½ inch longer there would be no problems here. This means that I couldn’t use rounded cables, and if Tt hadn’t given me enough room between the drives to shove the ribbon cable in there, I would not have been able to use the second designated HDD mounting area in the rack at all! Not only is this a pain in the ass, but it also restricts airflow throughout the case. Like I said, this is the case’s best and worst feature.

With everything in the case, it does look a little crammed, but installation was, for the most part, simple. Outside of the placement of the HDD rack and the issues with large video cards, the stabbing of my finger, the lack of removable motherboard tray, and the inability to use super duper noisy loud 38mm width fans, I have no issues with this case. Most people will not load this thing up with 6 hard drives so the issue with the video card shouldn’t really be an issue at all. Just remember to consider this if you plan on using a large video card and multiple hard drives. It may sound like I have a lot of problems there, but some of them are just me being me. The removable motherboard tray is not a necessity because most of the case is removable. The fans, yeah, most people want a quiet case, I LIKE IT NOISY.

Overall, I think this is a great case, even considering the aforementioned. I will even go as far as saying that I would buy one; even at $140.00. I have to hand it to Tt here; they did a good job with this case. Fix the HDD rack problem and keep me from getting stabbed and you would have nearly a perfect 10.

About Joe D

I have always had a passion for everything computing. In early 2000, I decided to take my passion to the web. Thus, C.O.D. was born. Through the years we have made many great friends at C.O.D. and hope to continue our journey for years to come.

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