Today I finally took the plunge after many weeks of procatinating and finally bought the Thermaltake Tenor HTPC case.
http://www.thermaltake.com/xaserCase/tenor/silver/silver.htm
After a good couple of hours transplanting my hardware into the beasty I thought it might be a good idea to give you all a heads up on what I learnt and my opinions off this case.
First off here's what I currently have in my HTPC.
My first impressions of the case when the guy behind the counter handed it over to me was jeez thats big.... and heavy. The truth is this case is a pretty big desktop PC case (430mm wide x 460mm deep x 170mm high). Now as far as I'm concerend that's not a problem it will fit under my TV no probs and thats all that matters, buts it's definatley an issue so make sure it will fit before buying. Now a benefit of having a big case is that its a dream to work with.... initially. My Asus Mobo went in no probs and connecting up all the USB cables, LEDS, switches and the like was a doddle and plugging in my graphics card and PVR also went in a dream as I had loads of room to manouvre. Another bonus of this case is, if like me you have a load of hard drives then you can squeez them all in. But this is where the fun and games start. I had wired up the mobo, plugged in all the cards, put the hard drives in the two removeable caddies and then got stuck. The trouble is with the memory and graphics card in place you can't get one of the hard drive caddies in, so out come the RAM and the graphics card. In goes the hard drive caddie in goes the RAM and the graphics card. Nuts the hard drives sit right over the IDE1 and IDE2 connectors so I can't wire the hard drives up. Out comes the RAM and the graphics card and the hard drive caddie. Connect up the Hard drives put back the caddie and the RAM and the graphics card...nuts the SATA cable is fouled by the graphics card, out comes the..... you get the picture. The point is plan out how everything is going to go. This case will fit a hell of a lot of stuff but its a squeez.
One final thing, the case comes with three case fans. And on the whole they are pretty quite, My graphics card is the loudest thing in the case, but with CPU fan, graphics card fan, three case fans and two PSU fans the system certainly isn't quite and a fair amount of that noise does come from the case fans.
On the whole the Tenor for about 50 quid is a good option, it can fit a lot of drives, for a desktop, is pretty well speced and looks pretty neat too. Just remember its pretty darn big so make sure it's gonna fit before yoou get one.
http://www.thermaltake.com/xaserCase/tenor/silver/silver.htm
After a good couple of hours transplanting my hardware into the beasty I thought it might be a good idea to give you all a heads up on what I learnt and my opinions off this case.
First off here's what I currently have in my HTPC.
- ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard
Intel P4 2.4 GHz
nVidia Fx5900 XT
Haupaugge PVR350
Nexus PHT 3600 silent P4 heat sink and fan
Sony DWQ28ASV 16X16X8 Dual Layer DVD Burner
15Gb Quantum Fireball PATA HD (This is my system drive)
80Gb Maxtor SATA HD (This is my recording drive)
2x 200GB Maxtor PATA HD (Movies, Videos, Music, Pics etc store)
512MB RAM
My first impressions of the case when the guy behind the counter handed it over to me was jeez thats big.... and heavy. The truth is this case is a pretty big desktop PC case (430mm wide x 460mm deep x 170mm high). Now as far as I'm concerend that's not a problem it will fit under my TV no probs and thats all that matters, buts it's definatley an issue so make sure it will fit before buying. Now a benefit of having a big case is that its a dream to work with.... initially. My Asus Mobo went in no probs and connecting up all the USB cables, LEDS, switches and the like was a doddle and plugging in my graphics card and PVR also went in a dream as I had loads of room to manouvre. Another bonus of this case is, if like me you have a load of hard drives then you can squeez them all in. But this is where the fun and games start. I had wired up the mobo, plugged in all the cards, put the hard drives in the two removeable caddies and then got stuck. The trouble is with the memory and graphics card in place you can't get one of the hard drive caddies in, so out come the RAM and the graphics card. In goes the hard drive caddie in goes the RAM and the graphics card. Nuts the hard drives sit right over the IDE1 and IDE2 connectors so I can't wire the hard drives up. Out comes the RAM and the graphics card and the hard drive caddie. Connect up the Hard drives put back the caddie and the RAM and the graphics card...nuts the SATA cable is fouled by the graphics card, out comes the..... you get the picture. The point is plan out how everything is going to go. This case will fit a hell of a lot of stuff but its a squeez.
One final thing, the case comes with three case fans. And on the whole they are pretty quite, My graphics card is the loudest thing in the case, but with CPU fan, graphics card fan, three case fans and two PSU fans the system certainly isn't quite and a fair amount of that noise does come from the case fans.
On the whole the Tenor for about 50 quid is a good option, it can fit a lot of drives, for a desktop, is pretty well speced and looks pretty neat too. Just remember its pretty darn big so make sure it's gonna fit before yoou get one.