DV Hardware reviews

The sides



Both side panels prominently feature the X and ThermalTake logo. The side panel is made out of aluminum and features two trapezium-shaped windows. The left side panel features a lock, this may be a useful feature to prevent people from messing with your hardware at a LAN party.



The right side panel features two black mesh areas but lacks dust filters. That's pretty unfortunate as I can imagine that a lot of dust will be sucked into your case through these vents.

Top of the case
Usually the top of a case isn't that interesting but that's not the case with this case - the Xaser VI is unique in many ways. The top features two black meshes and another unique feature is that you can slide the hood backwards once you've removed a couple of screws.



Under the lid you'll find a small tray that can be used to store items like your digital audio player or a phone. In the Liquid Cooling edition of the Xaser VI this area is used to house the liquid cooling system. If you have the watercooling edition you can just slide back the hood to fill up the water reservoir.





The bottom
The bottom of the case is raised a few centimeters from the ground to increase the airflow.



The back



On the back we notice the 10 PCI slots, some ventilation holes, a handle to remove the motherboard tray and some pre-cut holes for watercooling tubes.

When you just receive the case you'll notice that two keys are attached to the back of the case, these keys are used to lock the left side panel.

It may sound funny but I had to read the manual to figure out how to open this case! I first removed all the screws from the back panel but weirdly enough the panel couldn't be removed. It turned out you only need to remove 2 screws and push down the thumb screw in the middle to open the panel. D'oh!



The mechanism used to open the side panels is quite inconvenient IMO, a big lever like on the CoolerMaster Cosmos case would have been far more convenient.

Added: December 7th 2007
Reviewer: Thomas De Maesschalck
Score: 8.75/10
Related Link: ThermalTake
Page: 3/6