Thermaltake Incorporation



Thermaltake Incorporation, based in Taipei, Taiwan is the global leader Thermal Solution and Thermal Management for PC & Industrial Market. Its Engineering Staffs masters in Airflow Analysis, Material Conductivity and Heat Dissipation Efficiency. Thermaltake offers a wide range of products and services, providing effective and cost-conscious cooling devices. The Company has more than 1,000 employees worldwide supporting customers from its headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, as well as from offices in China, Europe and United States Continent.

PRODUCT INTRODUCTION

With Thermaltake, it's almost always a given that expectations will be high. With one of the best known brand names in the computer industry, often the expectation of nothing less than the best is one they meet with gusto. One of the newest products they've released is our topic of choice tonight - the Thermaltake Swing Midtower case. Although midtower is sometimes admittedly not the first choice for some enthusists, Thermaltake has brought a couple of strong options to the table, and the Swing is shaping up to be the same. With a few obvious flaws in the traditional midtower design (airflow and interior space are two major ones) the Swing looks to address a couple of common complaints in some interesting ways.

I know its been mentioned before, but Thermaltake does an excellent job in choosing their shipping materials. The Swing case makes it to us in one piece, securely shipped in a heavy cardboard box, and snugly nestled in styrofoam and plastic wrap. After removing from the packaging, the Swing is flawless - no damage to the case or paint is visible.

In a gray matte finish, the Swing is stylin. Not too flashy by any means, but the simplicity of it is what attracts me. Once again Thermaltake has an excellent design - admittedly simple, but still very appealing. Smooth lines across the front bezel give this case a smart, clean look. Interesting design note - you can see at the top of the front bezel we have a USB/Firewire/Sound connection, and just underneath that a 3.5" drive bay. This is definitely not a usual design, but leaves an ideal spot for a fan controller or temperature monitor (maybe one made by Thermaltake...who knows!). Continuing down the front bezel we've got 4 5.25" drive bays and a second 3.5" drive bay for the standard floppy...if you still use one.

The left side of the case features a bit of honeycomb mesh for airflow. Here you can attach another 80mm fan, should you need it. There's another side window design should you decide to opt for that version as well.

The rear of the case is fairly standard. A 120mm fan (which is included) provides the exhaust ventilation, and there's honeycomb mesh again to the right of the PCI slots which technically will do nothing seeing it is blocked by the tool-less PCI slot mechanism. Everything else is standard but do note that side panel access is very easy thanks to the included thumb screws.

On the flipside of the rear panel, you can see the included 120mm fan which runs at a whisper quiet 1700pms and 17dBa while still pushing ~35cfm worth of air flow. At the bottom, you can see the included tool-less design for attaching your combination of up to seven PCI/AGP/etc. cards. After installation, while using the tool-less clips, they fastened the PCI/AGP card down and did do their job just fine. However, I like to know everything's really solidly secure, and the clip left a bit of wobble that didn't ride right with me, so the clip bracket was removed, and the standard screw-in method was used. Either way works quite well however.