Today we have Thermaltakes A30 MATX case from their Armor line up. Follow the link to see how it does!
Thermaltake offer a great selection of PC hardware and peripherals that range from enclosures and PSU’s all the way to cooling solutions and fans.
Here’s a few words from the company themselves:
Since the beginning of Thermaltake in 1999, it has been at the forefront of creating new and exciting products at a time where most computer users were provided little to no choices for components that may seem irrelevant, but in reality crucial to the performance of a PC.
Thermaltake Server Series solutions, with years of thermal experience and industry leadership, sets its goal on reforming total thermal management in server segment by formulating the perfect mixture of versatility, efficiency and thermal management with each respective server product category: Rackmount Chassis, Server Fixed & Redundant Power Supply and Server CPU Cooling Management Solutions.
With its comprehensive line of products available, it enables Thermaltake’s core customers to enjoy a one-stop-shop experience, reduce product design-in evaluation period and most important of all, flawless integration process. Each of Thermaltake’s strengths enables its customer to focus on their core business while taking advantage of the skills and efficiency of a single thermal management solution partner.
Since the beginning of Thermaltake in 1999, it has been at the forefront of creating new and exciting products at a time where most computer users were provided little to no choices for components that may seem irrelevant, but in reality crucial to the performance of a PC.
Thermaltake Server Series solutions, with years of thermal experience and industry leadership, sets its goal on reforming total thermal management in server segment by formulating the perfect mixture of versatility, efficiency and thermal management with each respective server product category: Rackmount Chassis, Server Fixed & Redundant Power Supply and Server CPU Cooling Management Solutions.
With its comprehensive line of products available, it enables Thermaltake’s core customers to enjoy a one-stop-shop experience, reduce product design-in evaluation period and most important of all, flawless integration process. Each of Thermaltake’s strengths enables its customer to focus on their core business while taking advantage of the skills and efficiency of a single thermal management solution partner.
Six months ago Dave reviewed the Armor A60. A midi enclosure aimed at gamers looking for great cooling performance and aggressive modern looks.
At Vortez we have the pleasure of reviewing the smallest case in the Armor model line up – Thermaltakes diminutive A30 a MATX model which is capable of accommodating long GPU’s, SSD’s and a good selection of drives all contained within the fully modular case.
Aimed primarily at LAN gamers the A30 aims to combine compact dimensions with high performance installs. A rugged and aggressive looking design is the name of the game here and will hopefully attract users of all kinds looking for the performance edge!
Features
Specifications
As you can see it can actually accommodate a reasonable number of drives – certainly more than enough for the average gamer. The modular design should offer a great deal of flexibility during installs and with support for large performance cards the A30 certainly seems to be ticking many of the correct boxes.
Packaging and exterior
The sturdy box is colourfully designed offering a full colour image of the A30 itself.
Box front.
As with most product packaging the rear states specific features along with a selection of images identifying these specific features.
Box rear.
Within the box you’ll find a manual and warranty booklet. The case comes with a generous 3 year warranty – certainly nice piece of mind!
Warranty card and instructions.
And within the case itself you’ll find a selection of screws, cable ties, 2.5″ HDD mount plates, a motherboard speaker and a plastic motherboard standoff.
Screws and other extras.
The case itself is quite an aggressive looking design with angled edges and hex mesh style vent holes dotted around the enclosure. Although not instantly attractive to me the stealth like angles and edges give it a rugged and purposeful look.
The A30.
The front has access for two 5.25″ drives and a further 3.5″ hole for something like a floppy drive.
Case front.
Up close you can see the military style Armor theme in the crosshair styled power button.
Power and reset switches.
It also has a standard selection of front ports including audio, microphone, esata and USB sockets – one of these is a USB 3.0 rated socket for newer boards.
Standard connections.
A lone Thermaltake logo adorns the central portion of the perforated front plate. The front plate and the drive bay covers are all perforated and filtered too so dust control should be good in this case.
The logo.
Exterior continued
The whole front panel can be pulled off to aid the removal of the drive blanking plates.
Filtered front panel.
Once removed the front of the case frame is exposed – I particularly like the USB/audio and power/reset boxes. Rather than individual bare switches and sockets on a PCB you get a robust looking box containing all the switch gear safely cocooned within.
Naked front panel.
The side panels are part of the main case itself and are fundamentally identical. Forward ventilation mesh will allow thermal control for HDD’s as well as the main PC components themselves. The angled window also complements the look and of course allows you to see the components within.
Windowed case side.
Around the back of the case we find a standard layout including the i/o plate, PCI blanks, PSU location and dual fans for additional heat extraction.
Case rear.
The fans are 60mm units and should aid in extracting warm air from around the CPU socket.
One of the 60mm rear fans.
Looking closely you can also see a selection of the thumbscrews used in the securing of panels in the A30. There are quite a few of these used in the case and Thermaltake has been kind enough to bundle a spare just in case one is misplaced.
Thumbscrews.
Still at the back we can see the small removable latch that Thermaltake has thought to include. When the relevant thumbscrews have been removed to allow the extraction of the backplate and motherboard (which you’ll see later) this latch affords a little extra purchase making the procedure a little easier.
Small motherboard latch.
The top of the case is dominated by the 230mm ventilation fan. This is set up to extract warm air and flow it upwards and out of the case.
The 230mm.
Interior
First thing to come off is the roof. Here you can see the large LED fan – coloured blue when illuminated. It’s not speed controlled and simply runs off a molex connection.
The 230mm LED fan.
The motherboard tray and backplate come off as one – this makes it easy to fully install the motherboard, chip, cooler, memory and ancillary cards. You can also see the dual 60mm fans. Just as with the roof fan these are molex driven.
Removable motherboard tray.
The PSU cradle is removable allowing the power supply to be installed easily in either orientation – you could have it the right way up or upside down.
PSU cradle.
The forward cage hold the all important 5.25″ drives a single 3.5″ drive and can even accommodate two 2.5″ drives meaning SSD raid is a real possibility.
Front optical cage.
The last removable internal part is the 3.5″ HDD cage. This can hold two full sized HDD’s and even uses rubber mounts to help isolation that should reduce noise whilst running mechanical drives.
HDD cage.
As you can see once empty there’s a good deal of available space plus that 92mm fan that helps cool the 3.5″ drive cage!
The empty case.
It’s another blue LED model to match the 230mm fan above.
Front 92mm LED fan.
Installation
Working in reverse I started with the HDD cage. The supplied screws fit snugly and provide a secure anchor for the drive.
Installing the HDD.
Here you can see the rubber mount in place – it’s a tidy solution and certainly very easy to work with.
The rubber HDD mounts.
It can then be slid into place on the floor of the case. A single screw secures it in place and as you can see cool air should be readily supplied by the 92mm case fan.
Installed into the case.
For the upper optical drive cage install of the DVD drive is a standard screw affair. The Laptop drive is slightly different and involves a plate that sits along one side of the drive.
Optical drive cage.
The other side of the drive then docks into two tabs and the whole arrangement snaps into place. Very quick, tidy and secure.
2.5″ drive in place.
Installed into the case the space has already been used quite effectively.
Cage is in.
Motherboard installation was a breeze thanks to the removable tray. The board could be installed quickly and the components installed into just as fast. I did initially install the GTX260 graphics card as well but ran into a problem.
Motherboard install.
Installation continued
Thermaltake advertise the A30 as being able to cope with a 350mm graphics card meaning virtually any high performance card should be useable in the case. The GTX260 is a 270mm card as you can see.
GTX260.
I installed the card into the PCIe x16 slot (the No 2 slot) and slid the tray into the case. It stopped with around a centimeter remaining… the card had come into contact with the vertical 3.5″ drive bay in the forward upper cage as you can see below.
Cage contact.
Here you can see the protruding tray at the rear of the case – to close the GTX260 would need to be installed into the first socket which in the case of the Gigabyte MA785GMT-UD2H board here is impossible since it only has a x1 slot in that position.
Case not shut.
Thermaltake specifically state that 350mm cards can be installed in both the 1st and 2nd slots however I believe they should add a note explaining that a card installed into the 2nd slot needs to be a single slot design to successfully clear the front cage. Indeed, use of a triple slot card like the recently reviewed ASUS HD6950 2GB DirectCU II would simply be a non starter.
Unfortunately as a result of this I had to forgo the install of the GTX260 and rely on the MA785GMT’s onboard video capability for testing.
I screwed the PSU into place within the cage and lowered it into the A30. Thermaltake state that the clearance between the CPU and PSU should allow a heatsink height of up to 90mm.
Installed into the cage.
Here you can see the clearance between the PSU and the Scythe Shuriken cooler.
PSU/CPU clearance.
Top on and ready to go. There’s a little space around the DVD drive but that allows the cases front cover to be removed without needing to extract the drive.
Installed.
Powered up and functioning – the supplied fans are pretty good although the 60mm fans may need to be undervolted a little.
Looks great powered up.
Setup, temps and sound
Test system
CPU: AMD Athlon II 440 X3 @ 3ghz
Motherboard Gigabyte MA785GMT-UD2H
RAM: 4gb OCZ DDR3 1333mhz
HDD: 250gb WD 7200rpm SATA HDD
Optical drive: HP DVDRW
CPU cooler: Scythe Shuriken
PSU: Hyper Type-R 580w
GPU: Gainward GTX260 (attempted)
Motherboard Gigabyte MA785GMT-UD2H
RAM: 4gb OCZ DDR3 1333mhz
HDD: 250gb WD 7200rpm SATA HDD
Optical drive: HP DVDRW
CPU cooler: Scythe Shuriken
PSU: Hyper Type-R 580w
GPU: Gainward GTX260 (attempted)
Temerature
The case did admirably although these figures were of course with no graphics card in place. The results almost mirrored the Lian Li V354 I tested although CPU wise that was with a different CPU cooler.
Temperatures.
Sound
As mentioned earlier the sound profile of the fans is quite acceptable. The 92mm and 230mm fans were particularly easy to live with at 12v – I’d guess they would be very quiet indeed at 7v. The 60mm fans are of course faster running units so they are a bit more intrusive than the others. Dropping them to 7v should make things better and 5v should make them very quiet indeed.
Conclusion
On the whole I’ve been nicely surprised by the A30. It’s well built, is quite nicely thought out and provides some good features to the end user.I do have reservations though and these specifically relate to two things – the first is the price which at over £100 I feel is a little steep for a steel MATX case. This may change as stock seems to be quite limited in the UK at the moment which may be a reason for the high price.
The other issue is the long GPU install. If you only intend to install one ‘long’ graphics card then there are a couple of rules that have to be followed. If (in the unlikely event) your card is a single slot design then you can use either of the first two slots closest to the CPU socket. If it’s a double slot design then it can only be placed in the first slot closest to the CPU socket and if it’s a very large triple slot design then you’ll either have to find a new case or be prepared to cut out a portion of the 3.5″ bay frame at the front of the case.
The Thermaltake Armor A30.
Besides all that and assuming you follow the guidelines above the A30 is a very serviceable case indeed. The look is perhaps verging on the marmite in my opinion but I’m one of those who actually quite likes it.
The case has some wonderful design touches and very grown up features for a case of this type. Build quality is incredibly robust with no flexing or bending of the chassis. Many aspects of the case allow fast installation through the use of the thumbscrews, clips and that removable motherboard tray. Carefully specced up I’d say you could fit a very high end system within the A30 – great stuff!!
Pros
+ An interesting and aggressive look
+ Good cooling performance
+ Largely tool-less design
+ Sturdy quality build
+ 3 year warranty
+ Nice 2.5″ drive retention mechanism
+ Removable motherboard tray
+ Windowed design with attractive illuminated fans
Cons
– Standard dual slot 350mm GPU install issues in any slot other than the 1st
– Online price is somewhat steep in my opinion
+ An interesting and aggressive look
+ Good cooling performance
+ Largely tool-less design
+ Sturdy quality build
+ 3 year warranty
+ Nice 2.5″ drive retention mechanism
+ Removable motherboard tray
+ Windowed design with attractive illuminated fans
Cons
– Standard dual slot 350mm GPU install issues in any slot other than the 1st
– Online price is somewhat steep in my opinion
Because of its minor GPU issue and the apparent high price I can’t give the A30 our highest level awards. It is still a commendable case and with the correct motherboard installed to allow a suitable GPU to be installed the A30 with its great build quality, useful features and 3 year warranty receives the Vortez Silver award.
