The fine folks at Thermaltake USA were kind enough to send along a Element G mid tower case for us to review.  The slogan attached to the Element G by Thermaltake is “Create For Pros”.  We are assuming that means the professional gamer as the pictures on the back of the box show several different gaming scenarios.

Lets start with a little company profile of Thermaltake to get an idea of what they are all about.

“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.

The brand personality of Unique, Aggressive, Vivid, and Stylish makes Thermaltake an expert in creating Exciting things and Fascinating environment for gamers and enthusiasts, also Keep them Constantly High physically and mentally. Excellent technical expertise and integration ability, plus dare to experiment on the new possibilities give Thermaltake the source of authority in the market. Moreover, Thermaltake get close to consumers and observe lead users behavior and requirement, to design aesthetic and high quality products which will greatly improve system performance and bring the user to the up most potential. With innovative design and unique style, Thermaltake products spread rapidly among the enthusiasts in DIY market and soon become the number one choice for PC DIY enthusiast worldwide.”
Read on as we take a tour of the Element G offering by Thermaltake!

We have been on a roll lately with the shipping Gods being good to us, the Thermaltake Element G arrived in perfect condition.  Before we dive in to the packaging, lets first have a look at the specifications and features of this mid tower case.

Taking a look at the packaging of the Thermaltake Element G case reveals the care taken to ensure the chassis arrives to the consumer in excellent condition.  The traditional black and red theme of most Thermaltake packaging is implemented here.  The front of the box  displays a picture of the top half of the case with the fans in red mode.  The part number and above mentioned slogan are also printed on the front of the box.  The back of the box is loaded with pictures related to gaming, an air flow diagram, and internal and exterior structure information.  The two box sides contain a list of specifications and features.

As we began to unpack the case from the box, the first thing that caught our eye was the lack of a standard clear plastic bag wrapped around the chassis.  Instead Thermaltake opted for a blue cloth bag with the Thermaltake logo printed on it.  We can’t say that we have ever seen this before, but it’s definitely upgrade to the standard clear plastic wrap and a nice tough on Thermaltake’s part.  The Element G is heavily protected with two very stout styrofoam blocks on each side, another well done packaging job by Thermaltake.

Now that we have the Element G case unpacked, lets take a tour of the exterior of the case shall we?  The paint on the case exterior is a matte finish, not the normal shiny finish most cases use.  We love the paint job on the exterior of the case as it does a good job of hiding blemishes and finger prints.  The case is extremely sturdy, no “tinney” feel here!  Looking at the front of the case you can see three 5.25 drive bays.  The accessories package includes a 5.25″ to 3.5″ bay adapter should you need to mount a 3.5″ drive of some sort.  The rest of the front side of the case is a mesh design with red highlight strips running down each side.  Each 5.25″ drive bay as well as the entire front panel has a filter of the back side of the front panel (more on that later).

Moving around to the left side of the case, Thermaltake has opted for a non windowed side panel in favor of of a large mesh area.  There is no filter on the left side panel.  The right side of the Thermaltake Element G has no fans, windows or ventilation holes.  The rear of the case features two punch out holes for a water cooling system tubes to pass through, seven PCI expansion slots, bottom mount power supply opening, a 140mm exhaust fan (will accept a 120mm fan if desired), and an option to add two 60mm exhaust fans if desired.  The top of the Element G  has a 200mm fan at the top as well as a fan speed controller (fan speeds adjustable between 600 and 800 RPM).  If pressed, the fan speed controller will toggle between the different LED light options.  Those options are red, green, blue, a combination of all, or you can simply turn all the lights off.  There are also four USB ports, a headphone and microphone jack, the power and rest buttons, and finally the hard drive activity light on the top panel.  The bottom of the chassis has filtered power supply ventilation and four plastic feet.  Thermaltake should consider using rubber feet on their cases as they do not scratch the surface and greatly aid in reducing vibrations.

Lets continue on and have a look at the inside of the Thermaltake Element G.  First we popped off the front panel by grasping the bottom of the front panel and using the release lever, then pulling outward.  Removing the front panel reveals the 200mm front intake fan which can be swapped out for two 120mm fans using the provided brackets.  Also note the back side of the front panel and the filters included on the three 5.25″ bay covers.  As mentioned previously there is a large filter that covers the entire bottom section of the front panel, thus providing 100% filtering of the front panel.

Next we removed the left side panel showing the included two 120mm fan brackets and a box of hardware taped to the inside.  Worth noting here is that both side panels have a thin rubber strip around the inside outer edge, this eliminates the possibility of the side panels vibrating.  The entire inside of the case is painted black which seems to be very popular amongst computer enthusiasts, another great feature!  Many cases in the same price range are not painted on the inside.  Another thing we instantly notices was the hole in the motherboard mounting area for easy access to the backside of a CPU cooler, this obviously is a huge time saver should the CPU or CPU cooler need removing.  Also pleasing to the eye was the inclusion of many wire management holes which should greatly aid in making things tidy as we assemble a system.  There is also a bracket that mounts over the power supply to secure it, this bracket also doubles as a place to mount up to two SSD hard drives, one on top and one underneath.

With the power supply retention bracket removed the filter that sits under the PSU is visible, unfortunately removing this filter for cleaning would entail loosening the power supply.  Also take note of the removable hard drive bay which holds up to seven 3.5″ hard drives, that should be more than adequate for even the most demanding of storage requirements.  The hard drive bay can be installed in two directions, facing to the front or side.  We removed the hard drive bay as well to assemble our drive in to it, which gives us a good look at the back side of the 200mm front intake fan.  There is a picture below of the PSU bracket and the hard drive bracket after removal to give you a little better look at them.

The following two pictures show a closer look at the three wire management holes cut in to the far right side of the motherboard mounting area, and the two directly below the CPU cooler access hole.  There is also a large opening to the right of the bottom power supply mounting area, this is probably where most of your cables will initially be fed through.

Thermaltake did a nice job of including four very large fans with this case, the stock cooling should do a very nice job keeping the contents nice and cool.  We took a closer look at the stock cooling, starting with a picture of the underside of the top pane and the rear.  The top 200mm fan is a multi-colored LED fan, the rear 140mm fan is not a LED fan.  Neither the top or rear fan is filtered.  The front 200mm fan is also multi-colored and is filtered by the front panel.  The last fan is the one attached to the left side panel, it is a massive 230mm multi-colored LED intake fan.  Worth noting here is Thermaltake’s “Plug and Play” side panel design.  The wire harness from the fan connects to a three pin bracket, which in turn mates with a contact point on the main chassis when the panel is installed.  This is a very nice feature, no longer do you have to remember to unplug a fan attached to the side panel, we really loved this feature!

Installation componts are as follows:

Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H
2x VisionTek HD3870 in Crossfire
Thermaltake Toughpower XT 775 Watt PSU
Intel i3 540 CPU
Western Digital 500 Gb Sata II HDD
Lite-On DVD Burner
G.Skill 2×2 Gb Trident PC3-2000
Thermal take Frio CPU cooler

We began installation by mounting the motherboard loaded with the memory modules and the Frio cooler.  Included in the hardware kit are plenty of brass standoffs and mating screws to secure the motherboard to the chassis.  Worth noting at this point is that all the component mounting screws included in the hardware kit are black, which is a nice touch!

Next in line was to mount the DVD Rom Drive, this is not a tool less operation.  On the left side of the 5.25″ bay you can use up to four screws to attach a drive.  The right side utilizes two pressure tabs to hold the drive tight, you still have the option to add two screws for added security.

The method for mounting a hard drive includes using special screws with a large head and a rubber stopper.  The instructions say to install all the screws to the drive, four in total.  Actually you want to begin by only installing three screws to the hard drive, the fourth screw can’t be put in until the drive is snapped in to place.  This is a pretty unique design, I guess you can call it semi-tool less?  Once installed a hard drive feels very secure in it’s environment.

Next we grabbed our pair of HD3870 video cards and mounted those along with the crossfire bridge.  All but one of the PCI expansion covers are throw a ways, once removed they can not be re-installed, plan accordingly!  Here is how we are looking so far.

Finally its time to wire this system up!  We are using a modular design power supply which should aid in keeping the wire management under control.  We installed the power supply and re-installed the hold down bracket over the top of it.  If you do not plan on using the power supply hold down bracket for it’s SSD mounting capabilities, then you might consider leaving it out all together.  The four mounting screws at the back will do a more than adequate job of securing the PSU.

We spent some time going over the different options for cable management, some options are great and others not so much.  The only real issues we had with cable management were the lack of room between the right side panel and the back of the motherboard mounting area.  Smaller cables used for fans, SATA power, and molex power will fit, but the bigger cables such as the 24 pin main connector will not allow the side panel to be installed.  If you remember from out exterior tour of the case, both panels are dented inward at the rear portion.  While this adds to the look of the case, it does hinder the space needed to route thicker wires.  We were able to utilize the three cable management slots just to the right of the motherboard mounting area and ended up with a pretty descent appearance.  As we were working on the back side of the motherboard mounting area, we did notice that the hole for accessing the CPU cooler was off center and the bottom two CPU mounting screws were not accessible.  About another inch added to the bottom and the access hole would probably work for any motherboard.

And finally the light show!

In case you are wondering, yes the fan on the left panel illuminates in sequence with the rest of the fans.  Sadly there is no window to show off the pretty colors, so we though we’d give you a “panel off” view!

Lets take a look at our Pros and Cons:

Pros

• Stylish appearance
• Loaded with BIG LED fans
• 100% front panel filtration
• Built in fan controller
• Multiple light options with a push of a button.
• Solid structure
• Adequate cable management options
• Unique hard drive mounting
• Matte exterior finish
• Black painted interior
• Larger overall that standard ATX cases
• Left side panel fan connection, no fan unplugging required to remove panel

Cons

• Right side panel too close to motherboard mounting surface
• CPU access hole could stand to be an inch bigger
• Power Supply must be loosened to access filter
• No filter on top or left side panel fans
• Plastic feet instead of rubber

The Thermaltake Element G Mid Tower case is priced around $149.00 USD and is fairly priced at that range.  It’s loaded with unique features such as the push button color changing lights, the hard drive mounting system, and the power supply bracket that doubles as a SSD hard drive rack.  The included massive sized fans do an excellent job of circulating air and keeping your components nice and cool.  There is plenty of room to work inside the case as it is slightly larger than most mid tower cases.  The case is also very sturdy and the build quality is excellent.

If your looking for a mid tower case packed with features, great air flow, and some added bling, then the Thermaltake Element G needs to be at the top of your list.  Thermaltake has earned a very solid 8/10 and the accompanying Silver Award!