Best Of The Best, Part 2: Who Makes The Most Elite PC Case?
Our search continues for the one performance-oriented case with the highest-quality fit, finish, features, and materials. A spate of recent arrivals extend our series out into three parts, so today we see if the second round can top the first.
Inside The Urban T81
A split door separately covers the motherboard and drive sections of the Urban T81. The rear door lifts off of its hinge pins in the same manner as today’s two other competitors. The front door’s screwed-on hinge appears to have a snap-away design, but our efforts to dismantle the hinge were fruitless (and undocumented in the user manual).
The side window is made of extremely hard plastic that resembles thin glass and even rings when struck. That hardness will likely make it scratch-resistant, though it could also reduce impact resistance.
Spinning the case around the other way, we find a convenient ten-fan hub for the built in controller. Conversely, we also find too little space to conveniently hold cables…without the help of that side panel extension shown on the previous page. This delayed our build process tremendously as I was forced to move wires towards the center of the tray and re-route them around each other so that none of the smaller cables passed over the largest one.
Filter removal aside, full access to front fans is only available after pulling off the front panel. Thermaltake's Urban T81 includes two 200 mm blowers, though its mounts are also designed to hold 120 and 140 mm parts.
All of the Urban T81’s drive cages are removable, as is the divider seen in front of the lower cages on the top photo. Cage removal allows the front to support triple-fan radiators at 120 or 140 mm, or dual-200 mm-fan radiators. The divider can be re-installed to hold a single fan plus one 3.5” hard drive and one 2.5" SSD.
Not interested in giving up all your storage bays? The Urban T81’s top panel supports those same radiator options. Alternatively, you could mount dual-fan radiators in both locations while leaving the top and bottom drive cages installed.
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Crashman
You know the original Level 10 was probably "more elite"13773314 said:Answer (YMMV): Thermaltake Level 10 GT.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/level-10-fortress-2,2594-5.html
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vertexx Hope the Phanteks Enthoo Primo is part of the final - will we have to wait another 2 months for that?Reply -
ykki I wish that they would use the new powercolor devil 13 290x (their version of the 295X2) for their testsReply -
amk-aka-Phantom Who makes the most elite cases? Corsair and NZXT, no need for investigation :) Still, a nice roundup.Reply -
Drejeck There are some cases CNC made, you should talk about this indipendent manufacturers. On SweClockers I saw the best mini ITX computer ever made, with 2 ssds, 2 fans, a picopsu and a discrete graphic card with riser card.Reply -
Neve12ende12 I don't know much about cases, but I have an Azza Hurrican 2000 and I think it is pretty badassReply