A Closer Look - Inside

Both side panels may easily be removed by unscrewing the pair of thumb screws holding each in place. As mentioned before, the interior is all black, but Thermaltake has also added blue elements to the case. There is a large opening in the mainboard tray to give you easy access to the CPU cooler backplate along with several smaller ones to route cables through.


Six fairly large, bright blue and surprisingly good looking hard drive trays make the installation of the drives a breeze. The locking mechanism works great and due to the shape you can easily hide even the ugliest, oldest drives. Above that are the four external drive bays with screwless locks, similar to those found on other modern cases. These snap into place automatically and should work quite well.


In the rear, the bottom mounted PSU rests on a metal cross bar. This means an extra step when installing the device. It would be easier and cheaper for Thermaltake to use rubber mounts instead. Above that are the eight expansion slots, which are protected by separate covers being held in place with thumb screws. An all black, turbine shaped fan pulls air out the back of the Chaser MK-1.


As the power supply is located on the bottom, Thermaltake has placed a 200 mm cooling unit in the ceiling to pull hot air out the top as well. As you can see, there is space for another one to the right.


Before we dive into the assembly process, let us take a quick look at the cables within the Chaser MK-1. Interestingly enough, the SATA based HDD dock utilizes a Molex plug to deliver power to the drive. On top of that you have the usual connectors for the I/O and power/reset/LEDs. Thermaltake has kept them all black to go with the rest of the chassis.