Thermaltake M9D case

Thermaktake bring yet another light and breezy, blinged up case to market.

There’s an adage that goes you only ever get what you pay for, and it’s a saying that’s particularly true when it comes to PC cases. You can spend as little – or less than! - $100 to get a case, or go all out and spend well over $500, and the range of neat extras on the higher end cases is nothing short of mind-boggling. But does that mean, then, that cheap cases have to be, you know... cheap?

Thermaltake would say no, and part of its evidence for the defense would be the M9D. It’s a micro-ATX case, so a lot of enthusiast-grade users would already be rolling their eyes and patting their Lian Li’s or Silverstone’s for good luck. But there’s some style in this little case, we have to admit, as well as some truth to the idea that cheap is as cheap does.

The big selling point of the case is the acrylic window panel and mounted 230mm LED fan. It’s certainly plastered all over the cases packaging. The fan is big, to be sure, and we do like windows, it must be said, but there’s something that’s just too... nasty about this one. It’s just cheap clear plastic, with a faux frosted inset of the Thermaltake logo and motto (which might be a deal killer right there if you’re not that brand fanatical), and a big cheap fan. It’s noisy, too, even without being attached the rest of the case, constantly buzzing away as it pushes a middling amount of air. It also lights up, with a push button in the window’s lowest corner that allows you to switch from red, to blue, to green (okay, we like the green) to a pulsing combination of all three. The flashing is nothing short of annoying, though we’re sure there are some people out there who’ll find the psychedelic-like effect quite soothing - just not us. There are two more, more standards 120mm fans mounted at the front, on the HDD cage, and at the rear.

The rest of the case’s construction is similarly slight. It’s light, at least, but not in a good way. The interior is quite bare of supports, so is at least uncluttered, and there are tool-less mechanisms for securing both 5.25in drives and graphics and expansion cards. This latter mechanism, a sliding ratchet of sorts, is actually quite elegant, really, so if you do a lot of swapping out of cards, there’s something about this case that may appeal. The HDD cage, however, itself secured in a tool-less manner, still requires screws for the placing of drives. In this case, if you’re not the kind of person to swap drives in and out, it’s not a problem.

The M9D comes with all the screws and cables, at least, and you’ll be able to achieve a lot of clearance off the back-plate to run cabling securely underneath your mobo, but overall this is a tough case to recommend. The front fascia has a kind of modern chic going for it, but the cheap lighting, loud fan, and average build quality leave it sitting behind other cases at the same price-point.

The M9D's plain internal structure, and slightly more interesting front fascia.