Thermaltake Element V Gaming Chassis

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Product: Element V
Manufacturer: Thermaltake
Supplied by: Thermaltake
Price: 170USD/RM577
Launch Date: Nov 2009

Thermaltake is one of the premier PC chassis makers that is widely recognized worldwide. Thermaltake products are not cheap at all but this is mainly due to their superb build quality such as Thermaltake Level 10, SwordM and etc hence it is definitely worth for it. Today let us go through Thermaltake Element V which is the most high end product among the rest of Element series.

Company Profile

Started from the passion for the DIY (Do It Yourself) concepts and the desires to realize the goal of "Ideas are originated from humanity; Realizing ideas is our belief." Thermaltake Technology was established in January, 1999 and has been market to the world with "Thermaltake" brand name ever since.

Thermaltake became the number one choice for PC DIY enthusiast worldwide with its innovatively breakthrough product designs. The concept of "Quality", "Performance", and "Reliability" have been incorporated into the design of Thermaltake PC Chassis, Cooler and Power Supply to assure the components meet the highest standard.

Features

Voodoo - Color shift Fan with 6 color changing pattern for optimal gaming experience.
Vivid - Three color shifting fans creates most eye catching appearance.
Vary - Adjustable fan speed control for performance mode or silent mode.
Ventilation - Excellent thermal performance with optimized air flow.
Vast - Support up to 11X5.25" drive bay or 5X5.25" and 6X3.5" with 2 iCage.

Specifications

Package & Contents

As expected Thermaltake Element V is packed neatly and securely by a huge cardboard box with two breakable foams; further improvement is achievable since Thermaltake Element V is a high end & heavy tower chassis. Some of the important features are written in the box.

To provide higher quality of protection on Thermaltake Element V, a cotton bag is used rather than a cheap plastic bag like other entry chassis. Other accessories that are included for Thermaltake Element V are standard installation screws, side panel key, user's manual and so on. Thermaltake Element V doesn't pre-bundled with any PSU as it gives more choices to choose a desired PSU.

An Exterior Closer Look: Thermaltake Element V

Element series is one of the Thermaltake high end chassis series where its slogan is "Created for Pros" and as we mentioned previously Element V is the most expensive chassis among the rest of the Element chassis; SRP is USD169.90/RM580. The pricing of Thermaltake Element V is justiciable with its quality and features.

Same with most of the chassis, Thermaltake Element V is fully painted in black which is the most popular and acceptable color; follow by silver and aluminum. Thermaltake Element V is a full tower which is suitable for PC enthusiasts and gamers as such powerful chassis does provide excellent ventilation and room for performance hardware such as i7 CPU, dual or quad graphic card and so on.

Thermaltake Element V supports five external 5.25" drives which are more than enough for most of the usages although some of the tower PCs do able to support up to seven or even more 5.25" external drives. The whole front panel of Thermaltake Element V is fully filled with tiny air vents to provide superb ventilation.

All the front I/O panel and control are located on the top of Thermaltake Element V and it looks pretty complicated in term of design; anyway youngster should like it very much. Besides standard front I/O like USB, audio jack, e-SATA, a fan speed controller knob is available as well to balance between the performance and noise.

One of the significant cooling features of Thermaltake Element V is this dual 200mm air vents. Although only a single 200mm cooling is included at the top panel of Thermaltake Element V but it is good enough to pull out the heated air from the chassis which is mainly generated by the CPU. However if extreme cooling is really needed then an additional 200mm cooling fan can be manually added.

Right panel of Thermaltake Element V is pretty standard without any fancy design but something impressed us is the top small rectangular acrylic panel besides the 230mm side cooling fan. This rectangular acrylic is pretty small but with some appropriate lightning, the whole case can be lightened up very nicely. Side panel Lock is included to lock up the left panel to give additional protection to the valuable hardware inside.

Here are the rear and bottom panels of Thermaltake Element V; pretty standard and neat. Same with other high performance tower chassis, the PSU is located at the bottom so that it gives more room to cool down the processor more effectively. No long and giant case feet are used for Thermaltake Element V but with the high quality rubber feet, it should able to standstill firmly.

An Interior Closer Look: Thermaltake Element V

Now let us focus on the interior of Thermaltake Element V which is pretty important because a well design and spacious interior will ensure ease of use and promising cooling performance. Most of the performance chassis are come with CPU cooler back bracket mounting for easier installation and this is same for Thermaltake Element V too.

Thermaltake Element V is well structure and strengthening by the middle steel bar but it will cause some problem during installation and maintenance especially the system is powered by plenty of hardware and cabling. Thermaltake Element V is also come with tool-less installation device for the optical drive installation by using clip and lock device.

Thermaltake Element V can support up to six 3.5" hard drives and these HDDs will be installed on the hard drive cages (iCage) with standard screws and each of the HDD cage can support three HDDs. Each of these iCage, there is a 120mm cooling in front; top cage comes with colorshift fan (900/1200rpm,17dBA, 35.01/46.67 CFM) while bottom cage comes with turbo fan (1400rpm,17dBA, 46.67 CFM).

There is no tool-less installation device is available for the PCI slot but there is a reason why Thermaltake did it as a direct screw fastening is much stronger than a clip and lock device. The direct cooling from the bottom of the chassis is able to provide much reliable PSU performance but the PSU cable must be longer enough for such placement especially the 4-pin ATX cable.

One of the Thermaltake Element V unique features that impressed us very much is this electrical contact point. This contact point will be used to power up the LED fan when the left side panel is fully closed with the chassis; disconnected when side panel is removed. such contact point is not only reduce the cabling issue but also enhance the system cooling; little magic trick.

Besides the front two 120mm cooling fans, Thermaltake Element V is also powered by a 120mm rear black cooling fan (1400rpm, 17dBA, 50.0 CFM) and a 200mm silent colorshift fan (600/800rpm, 14dBA, 49.735/65.3 CFM). The black rear fan is mounted on the Thermaltake Element V with fan mount for easier installation and maintenance.

The biggest fan of Thermaltake Element V is this 230mm side panel cooling fan. This transparent cooling fan is same with the top and one of the front cooling fans which is also a colorshift by generating three different colors; red, blue and green. Although this fan is huge but it doesn't really produce any annoying loud noise and the spec is 600/800rpm, 14dBA, 57.0/76 CFM.

Here is the right panel of Thermaltake Element V and everything looks neat and clean. There isn't any tool-less device on the right panel to fasten the optical drive and HDD iCage; this is to ensure the installation process is simplified. Besides that there are couple of mounting holes on the motherboard plate which is useful for cable management.

With such simple and spacious front panel design, Thermaltake Element V offers greater flexibility in term of drive allocation as well as air flow movement by rearrangement the HDD cage + cooling fans. The front panel of Thermaltake Element V can be detached from the chassis easily to simplify the external drive installation and dust cleaning.

Installation, Testing & Performance

In term of the hardware installation on Thermaltake Element V, there isn't any single major problem at all since Thermaltake Element V is a spacious full tower chassis; some compatibility issues with certain of hardware can't be avoided but we are sure that the compatibility issue is minimal. Hence we are not going to touch much on the installation but we will stress on its unique features. One of the major uniqueness of Thermaltake Element V is the colorshift fan where the side, front and top cooling fans are powered by tri-LED and the color will be shifted in rotating mode; modders should like it very much.

Next will be the water cooling support where it can support up to 1/2" water tubing to connect the interior and exterior water cooling setup; radiator or reservoir can be placed outside to save the interior spacing as well as easier maintenance and protection. Besides that the whole Thermaltake Element V can be locked by cable lock to enhance its security although it is not that easy to carry such heavy chassis silently but it is still good to have such protection.

Sometime a little modification or tony tool will enhance the overall quality of a product and Thermaltake Element V is definitely one of them where a cable holder is provided at the rear of the chassis so that some cables can be kept properly. Another weird feature of Thermaltake Element V is the water bottle support which is pretty unreasonable for us but it will be useful for gamers especially attending some gaming events or Lan party; do you need one?

To understand better in term of the cooling structure of Thermaltake Element V, here is the detail view of its airflow; blue arrowheads are fresh air while red arrowheads are hot air. This is ideal ventilation and the system should not be affected by the PSU due to the isolation. Such ventilation design is very popular in most of the high end tower chassis as it is still the best design at this moment to provide best cooling performance without using any hardcore cooling like phase cooling.

Test Bed

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 (Gigabyte G31M-ES2L)
Heatsink: Noctua NH-C12P
Memory: Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR2 8500
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: Galaxy GeForce GTX260+
Casing: Thermaltake Element V
PSU: Aerocool V12XT-800
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Optical Drive: HLDS DVD RW +/-
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Operating System: Microsoft XP Pro SP2/Vista Home Premium
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

Finally let us close the chapter with the cooling performance result of Thermaltake Element V. Overall the performance of Thermaltake Element V is pretty promising; very similar and slightly much better than some of the full tower chassis that we have reviewed before; thanks to the cooling design and 230mm side cooling fan. The full load of Thermaltake Element V cooling fans is a bit over loading but it is still acceptable unless it is powered on 24/7 which is over killing. Anyway in term of performance and noise, we are very satisfied with it.

Verdicts

Thermaltake is one of the branded computer makers that never let us down; we believe most of us and Thermaltake Element V is another good example as a hardcore full tower gaming chassis. Thermaltake Element V is not only good to see, nice to hold but also delivers what it supposes to be. One of the interesting and unique features of this monster case is the colorshift cooling fan with tri-LEDs which makes the chassis really eye-catching and drooling for those are not able to own one. Last but not least with USD170, Thermaltake Element V is not really cheap. This is expected for Thermaltake product as their products are never cheap but in the other end of promising result and quality product.

Pros:

+ Solid construction
+ Excellent cooling performance
+ Spacious interior
+ Fan speed controlling
+ Colorshift cooling fan
+ MB's cooler back bracket mounting
+ Well security feature
+ 2.5" HDD is supported
+ Side acrylic window
+ Water cooling supportability

Cons:

- Slightly heavy
- Pricey

Thanks to Thermaltake for providing this sample for us to review.