Thermaltake's $1300 Gaming Chair: Not Just for Gamers

Thermaltake's premium gaming chair — designed in collaboration with Studio F.A. Porsche — is not just for gamers, according to their new marketing materials. Alongside a series of colorful, artistic shots featuring the Thermaltake Argent E700, the company announced its commitment to discovering and supporting rising stars in the fields of art, music, and sport, with the tagline "bearing witness to a new dawn." It's an interesting marketing direction for a gaming chair, but the Argent E700 doesn't look like most gaming chairs.

To highlight the appeal of the Argent E700 — from both a design standpoint and a creator standpoint — Thermaltake has decided to co-opt the talents of a moody contemporary artist, a multidisciplinary indigenous folk musician, and a basketball player. These disparate stars represent the "master craftsmanship, cross-disciplinary creation, and stable spiritual power," of Thermaltake's products, according to the company.

Back in the gaming world, we can side-step this marketing hype and look at the product page for the Argent E700. The Thermaltake Argent E700 is a premium-priced gaming chair made of leather, aluminum, and metal, featuring a glossy finish in six colors. The chair has "race car side handles" and an adjustable seat back that can be locked at four different angles.

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Name	Argent E700
Type	Ergonomic Real (Black) Leather
Foam	High Density Molded Foam, 143.3lbs/ft³
Frame	Aluminum and Metal
Support	Gas Lift Class 4
Castors	3-inch PU
Adjustments	Chair back angle 107° / 113° / 119° / 126°, Headrest height adjust, 4D Armrests with
Human size/weight	Between 5'6" - 6'2" (170cm - 190cm) and up to 331Ibs (150kg)

The Argent E700 is a bucket seat-style chair clad in perforated black leather with red contrast stitching, while the rear shell comes in glacier white, space gray, storm black, ocean blue, racing green, saddle brown, sanga yellow, flaming orange, and turquoise. That's definitely a wide range of options — from subtle and professional to "making sure nobody misses your Studio F.A. Porsche-designed chair."

We have yet to get the Thermaltake Argent E700 in for testing, but we took Thermaltake's X Fit gaming chair for a spin last September. Our reviewer loved the X Fit's craftsmanship and adjustability, but not its overly hard and narrow seat. We don't have specs for the Argent E700's seat size, but the "high density" foam seems like it may be the same in both models. The Thermaltake Argent E700 is available now and is listed at various retailers for $1299.

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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

9 Comments Comment from the forums

RichardtST

Honestly, I do not understand these high-end gaming chairs. They are all quite literally made for intense pain. The best chairs, and I have been through quite a few, have a floating adjustable tension back, along with a base that tits slightly when the back tilts. This small amount of motion in the back of the seat is just enough to create blood flow to the vertebrae and avoid pain due to circulation cutoff. It's not an issues if you are under 30, but any older than that and the back pain will start to kick in after a few months and you'll wonder wtf is going and and what is causing the problem. Hint: It is the gaming chair with the adjustable-but-fixed-position back. Give me a spring-loaded back and a big fat soft cushion for my skinny little butt... or get lost.
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Peter_Bollwerk

If you're going to spend that much money, you're FAR better off buying something like a Herman Miller chair.
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thisisaname

All that money and the arm rests just look small and uncomfortable.
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Phaaze88

thisisaname said:
All that money and the arm rests just look small and uncomfortable.
Because it's literally that same garbage you see on DXRacer and other gaming chairs, that if you relax your arms against long enough, presses into them, cuts off circulation into that area, which darkens over time...

If one has back problems, stay away or get rid of the one you're using, and get a good office chair or one of those Herman Millers on liquidation or something.
Even if one doesn't have back problems now, don't get 'em when you're old either.
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domih

Peter_Bollwerk said:
If you're going to spend that much money, you're FAR better off buying something like a Herman Miller chair.

You beat me to it. Herman Miller Aeron Chair–C Size user here. My back is telling me TYVM every day :-)
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OldManYellingAtClouds

Herman miller used to have a practice where instead of fixing a color mismatch on an order, they would build an entirely new chair and let employees buy them at a GREATLY discounted price and if no one took it they pushed them out to the resale shops where they are sold for half price. I got an embody from a friend who works there for $200. Best $200 I ever spent.
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derekullo

Finally a way to stabilize my spiritual power although I would also like it to have lumbar support.
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FrozenGerbil

I previously bought this E700: Style and Appearance: 5 stars. Build quality: 5 stars. Long-duration seat comfort: 2 stars. Back support and ergonomics: 0.5 to 1 star. Extremely firm armrest pads that you usually find on $70 office chairs: 0 stars. :-( RMA returned in the end...

The E700 looks better and is built a lot better than Secretlab's 2022 Titan Evo overhyped overpriced crap. But for a similar price range as the E700, Herman Miller has several chairs that would TOTALLY kick the E700's azz for comfort and ergonomics. And the overhyped chairs from Secretlab and Razer could not even enter the boxing ring with those Herman Miller chairs. This E700 would enter the boxing ring but get immediately knocked out by Herman Miller, Steelcase, or Haworth chairs.

The E700's arm pads literally feel like the external vinyl is just wrapped around hard plastic, without any foam or gel cushion underneath, which is inexcusable for a $1200-$1300 chair.

The E700's backrest can lock into reclining angles, which is nice to have. But the main problem with its backrest is that at its most upright position, the backrest still leans back about 6 to 8 degrees as if you are sitting in a dentist chair (dentist chairs also still lean back even in their most upright position). So if you like to sit upright with great vertical posture in the E700, it feels like you are sitting on a bar stool because the entirety of your back never comes into contact with the backrest, so there is no back support and no lumbar support. There is a slight curved contour in the backrest that looks like lumbar support, but it is located too low to fill into any adult's lumbar curve. If you always lean your back into the backrest at its most upright, but still reclined, position, you will destroy your back, spine, and posture due to the E700's very poor ergonomics. The same thing happens in chairs made by Secretlab, Razer, and DXRacer - sitting in all these chairs for 8+ hours every day will destroy your back.
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cryoburner

That first marketing image seems like it would be a really awkward way to sit at a computer desk. Assuming the screen were turned on, that is. I'm not sure what he's looking at.
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