Thermaltake Mozart TX: yay or neigh?

[aidanjt]

I've finished off paying for my LinITX router box, and I'm looking around specing a new build to replace my P4 box, one of the major things I'm having trouble with is choice of a new case, so far the only decent choices I've found have been the Antec P180, and Akasa Eclipse 62.

Although the Antec P180 is a bit tight in the main chamber and I don't like the positioning of the PSU, other than having a long stretch for the ATX connector, it's kinda ugly having a big hunk of cable running up the motherboard, plus I really dislike drive doors. And while the Eclipise is huge in compairison, allows for cable tidying like something silly, it's not really watercooling friendly either if I decide to go for that.

I was looking around KustomPC today, and I came across the Thermaltake Mozart TX VE1000SWA, here's some of the selling points for me:

• Massive size
• 4 thermal compartments
• Heaps of room and places for a monster watercooling rig
• Possibility of adding a MiniITX rig in the case
• Plenty of nooks and crannies for routing cables
• Fairly nice front panel styling.
• Quite affordable for all the room it has
• No silly drive doors

I've never been big on thermaltake in the past, but this one seems pretty damn nice, I'm not sure how good their fans are these days, not that I'd mind replacing them, though I remember their fans were awful in the past. Anyway, I guess I'm just looking for opinions on the case, especially from anyone that already owns one. The only thing I'm somewhat concerned about is it's depth, it looks to me like a 8800GTX is gonna be a tight fit with most stock HSF.

Cheers lads

[Clunk]

G70?

[aidanjt]

Nah, I'm not big on Lian-Li cases, expensive and rather raw looking.

[chuckskull]

I've had a few of Thermaltake case over the years, using the big Armor one right now. I wouldn't touch their water cooling or PSU's with a barge pole after previous experiences, but I cant fault the cases.

If you really want all that room and the space for a miniITX Pc in there too then there just aren't any other cases that can compete space wise. If you want water cooling the only problem I find with TT cases is then tend to have lots of pre cut holes for cooling and complex windows which makes it hard to mount a big rad.

If you can handle slightly less space I'd wait for the P190. Much nicer looking and better finished, should be plenty of room for a pair of rads too.

[aidanjt]

Meh, the P190 still has some of the design features that put me off the P180, namely the drive bay door and PSU positioning.