Four Full Tower Cases From $150 To $600

Thermaltake Spedo--Unpacking And Build

$209

Unpacking

There’s only one way I can think to pronounce Thermaltake’s newest chassis, and as a former swimmer, fond memories are not conjured up by the word. Nevertheless, the Spedo is well-packaged in a blue fabric bag with foam supports. Two thumb screws hold each side panel in place. Pop the left one off, as usual, and—wow. Look at all of that plastic. We’ll get into its purpose shortly. Just know that to get at Thermaltake’s little box of accessories, the plastic has to come out.

It turns out that the box of accessories isn’t so small after all, though. Inside you’ll find a converter kit for turning a hard drive cage into a 5.25” device bracket, an adapter to make a 5.25” drive bay hold an external 3.5” device, an extra 120 mm case fan, a bag of screws and standoffs, an extender for the 24-pin ATX cable, and an extender for the eight-pin +12V cable.

You’ll notice that the chassis interior is suspiciously neat. That’s because Thermaltake devoted extra effort to cable management, so fan wires and leads attached to the front panel I/O remain hidden behind plastic blocks under the motherboard tray. Before installing, you’ll want to free those wires and route them around to the front.

Build

I may be dating myself here, but if the Cooler Master HAF 932 is the Shredder, then Thermaltake’s Spedo is the Super Shredder—very similar in appearance, but larger and with more aggressive angles and features. The chassis is based on a steel frame. However, much of the case is plastic, so its empty weight sits just under 30 pounds.

Like the other enclosures in this roundup, special attention is paid to cooling. Thermaltake includes a 140 mm intake fan on the front of the case, two 120 mm exhaust fans on the back, a 230 mm exhaust fan up top, a 230 mm side panel fan, and a 120 mm fan bar intake fan. All of that cooling goes hand in hand with gobs of ventilation. The Spedo’s front is almost entirely mesh and plastic bezel. The left and right sides feature prominent ventilation grilles. Its top is predominantly vented, as is the case’s back. Even the bottom has a cutout for a 120 mm fan.

We did run into one disturbing issue with the Spedo’s build. Though the case was well-packaged, thin metal at the bottom of the chassis had warped, preventing a proper fit with any of our power supplies. Once we figured out the issue, heavy pressure popped the affected area back into place and the PSU’s screw holes lined up properly.