Levelling the playing field.
Some people might believe in love at first sight, and when we first saw Thermaltake's impressive Level 10 case at Computex (complete with gallery) earlier in the year, we knew that it was true. From the imposing height, dangerous curves and attention-grabbing looks, the case was in a class of its own - it's even been designed by BMW, as a present to Thermaltake for making it to its tenth year of operation. While there's a lot to love about this case, there are also a lot of foibles, and opinions on it have been very mixed.
At first glance however, you can't help but marvel at the Level 10. Standing tall at a height of 666.3mm and weighing in at an astronomically heavy 21.37kg without anything else inside, the first drawback to this case is simply moving the thing around. Unless you're built like a steamroller and have muscles on your muscles, the case is incredibly awkward to manoeuvre, needing two people to remove it from the box and potentially three to get it into place once a full system is built inside. While the weight might seem (and actually be) excessive, it also translates into the sturdiest case we've ever seen, completely rock-solid with a wide base coated underneath with a grip-tastic rubber material. It's also constructed entirely from thick aluminium, extruded (or pressed by machine) to form the sextacular curves and straight edges.
Built more like a tower than a rectangular case, each component that's traditionally contained within a case is separated into four independent sections; ODD, HDD, mobo/VGA and PSU. Joining all of these together are channels built into the tower itself, accessible from the rear of the case via a lockable panel. All the cabling is designed to flow through the channels in the tower, elegantly connecting each of the four sections while hiding cable mess.
Optical Disc Drives (ODDs) are installed as normal in the top-right compartment on the tower, the casing swinging outwards to allow a pretty standard installation. The top bay is stealthed to keep aesthetics consistent, but if you want more devices they'll mar the appearance somewhat. HDDs are installed just below this in their own separate tower that looks like something out of The Thunderbirds; each of the six individually numbered cases can hold a single 3.5in drive, attaching to the main tower to allow cabling to pass through. It's one of the cleverest ways of approaching storage in a way that shows them off, and while the enclosures work as mini heatsinks for the drives there's also dual 60mm fans to move some air around in that small space.
The top-left compartment at the rear of the tower holds a PSU in a relatively standard ATX fashion (as standard as this case gets, anyhow). Mounting inside a frame, the PSU can suck in air directly from outside the frame and exhaust it independently of the heat of the system, allowing it to run as coolly and efficiently as possible. The length of the PSU is restricted to a maximum of 21cm, which means that while the XFX 850W listed in Kitlog will fit okay, anything longer won't. Also keep in mind cable length, as some PSUs might not stretch far enough.
The final compartment is the most important one; where the motherboard, expansion cards and other gear will be installed. Internally it's coated with sound-dampening foam, cooled by a 140mm intake and a 120mm exhaust that work in tandem to make a wind tunnel of sorts, and has room for graphics cards up to 12.2 inches. This will be plenty of cooling for most needs due to the absence of other heat-producing components, but unfortunately the height restriction for CPU heatsinks sits at 150mm - the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 heatsink from Kitlog won't fit (at 158mm tall), nor will the TRUE (at 160.5mm). Watercooling also isn't an option, since installing all the components and getting the door closed again will prove a real nightmare. Even just getting normal components installed and cabled will need a lot of experience with case building, but if you're prepared to spend this much you'll know what you're doing.
Sitting on the front of the tower are two buttons covering power and reset, both with an excellent clicky and firm response. Four USB ports, eSATA and mic/audio are lined up underneath the two buttons, mounted into a mirror-polished surface. Running from just above this surface and stretching the entire top of the case to finish near the PSU is a red strip of LEDs, lighting up when the system is running and giving off a powerful, almost primal glow.
In all, this case is something you'll either love to bits or hate entirely; it's expensive at $1000, but you'll get a case that is truly unique, futuristic and different. While it's also heavy, once installed in place it'll serve you excellently. Atomic gives a very lustful approval.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012