Thermaltake Armor VA8000BWS Case Review

[Capper]

Manly men like their enclosures big, and rugged....like their women (I kid I kid). Honestly, sometimes you need a monster case to store and cool that monster system. With high end enthusiast systems housing huge power supplies, super cooling, multiple HDD, and more, a simple mid-tower enclosure isn't going to get the job done.

Today HL takes a look at one big, tough, yet attractive case....the Thermaltake Armor. Thermaltake is well known in the enthusiast community for their excellent selection of well built cases. whether you are looking for an HTPC, light weight mid-tower, or super case to house your water cooled quad core, quad SLI, quad RAID5 monster, Thermaltake has a case solution for you.

Thermaltake Armor VA8000BWS Case Review

[Jokerswild]

Nice review Rich. I like that case, the only thing's that bug me are the 2 front doors and the plastic lid on top. I see no reason for the lid on top or the doors on the front.

[Capper]

Yeppers, I totally agree....the doors look nice, but I found when set on a carpeted floor (which can be a little uneven), the doors tended to swing open/shut on their own, which really caused problems when you open an optical drive tray. On more than one occasion the doors caught my drive and prevented it from closing.

As to the plastic cover on the top, I'd much rather they used an aluminum or steel cover, which wouldn't be prone to breaking, marring the aestetics of an otherwise beautiful case.

[Tyreal]

This case is starting to grow on me. It's big, spacious, and I love how you there is a hard drive case on top where the power supply is. But as you mentioned... tool less sucks!

[onebxr]

I think tool less doesnt suck for hdd and optical drives, but i do agree in that I havent found a tool less option for pci yet that works well.
Nice case and nice writeup. I like this case and the Jr. and was considering both when looking for a computer case. But I went for the Lexa and have been happy with my choice.
-1

[Pete]

I personally always remove the tooless for PCI cards.

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by TTPete

I personally always remove the tooless for PCI cards.

Yep, and reviewers in general (us HardwareLogic gurus excluded, of course) need to do a better job in pointing that out. Most tool-less PCI retention systems leave a lot to be desired, but pretty much all of them can be removed in favor of screws.

[Jokerswild]

When you really only have one place that a card is secured then a screw makes the most sense. I have never liked the retention system for any computer cards but thats a industry wide standard so what can you do.