A Closer Look - Outside

Thermaltake has put some attention into the details of the Element V. The front edges of the chassis are not simple plastic, but have a few metal mesh elements and the drive bay covers in front of the pair of hard drive cages are made of a single piece each. While the build quality is good, this is a steel case with a price tag of well over 130 €, thus we expect nothing less. The plastic front however seems to suffer from the same soft plastic we have seen in some of Thermaltake's enclosures lately. You could easily push the edges apart slightly without too much force.


As mentioned before, the entire front is protected by metal mesh covers. But instead of using just metal, Thermaltake has placed the mesh in plastic frames, which are snapped unto the front of the case. These hold well and certainly do their job, but the chassis already utilizes a lot of plastic to start with. Turning the chassis over we can see, that the case interior is grey and that the manufacturer has chosen to place certain aspects of the chassis at the worst possible place. More on that in a second.


Thermaltake has placed plastic sliding locks on the left side panel. This makes opening the chassis very easy and you are not required to hold it in place with the supplied thumb screws. Such locks are perfect for those who dive into the chassis regularly and change things around in their PC. A large 230 mm fan has been placed in the center of this panel, right under a tiny window. These two aspect lack any kind of creativity. Why place the fan dead center? Why put that tiny window in the upper area? Another oddity are a pair of holes, which can be found on both side panels. I had no idea what they were for until I noticed the picture on the Thermaltake website. Turns out this is for a bottle holder. The same kind you may use to hold your drinking bottle on a bike frame, but Thermaltake does not include it, so you have to buy it yourself. Interesting addition for a LAN party, but certainly a pain to have on there when transporting the case.


Taking a quick look at the top, all the buttons, special functions and connectivity has been placed in the front area. Here you will find four USB 2.0 ports which have been spaced apart from each other, so you can easily use bigger devices next to each other. Above that are the two LEDs, an eSATA port and the pair of audio plugs. The bottom half of this panel is taken by the two large reset and power buttons. In the center, you will find a dial to control the included fans with. You may adjust their speed as well as their lighting with this knob. The rear area of the top is taken by two large openings for 200 mm fans. Thermaltake has chosen to supply only one of these all the way in the back of the case. The mounting holes do allow for smaller fans to be used, but the spacing destroys any dreams of using dual or triple radiators in this area - too bad.


Moving our focus to the rear of the Element V, starting at the bottom, we find the PSU bay. While this is a great location for the power supply, it would have been nice if Thermaltake could have supplied an extension cable for the P4 CPU power connector, as these are generally located at the very top of a mainboard. The lack of such a cable is usually not a problem in midtower cases with a bottom mounted PSU, but cable length could become an issue with such larger enclosures. The two holes for water cooling are right above the PSU bay, which is the worst possible spot. You will either cool you CPU or GPU with an external radiator, which is usually mounted unto the chassis where the rear case fan is at. So either you are running the tubing down the interior across the expansion slots from the CPU or you are starting at the graphic card, running it down along the last few slots, out the back, up across the rear openings for said slots. Such a problem and that lengthy sentence could have been avoided if Thermaltake had placed the openings higher up in the rear.
Moving up, we have the seven standard expansion slots. These are protected by removable covers. There is a simple air vent next to these slots. Above that you will find the rear 120 mm fan and a standard mainboard backplate. This plate is completely useless, as every mainboard - no matter how cheap - ships with their own. So Thermaltake could have saved some money by just dropping this part.