Conclusion and Award
A far as air cooling and general layout for the aforementioned; the case richly deserves our gold award and is hard to fault. However when one looks at this from a water cooling viewpoint then the issues become apparent. How the top panel has been designed and also the metal struts going across the 850gt radiator is inexcusable. This combined with no space to fit an enthusiasts radiator has made matters worse. This is further compounded by the bundled radiator stopping the CPU power connector from being attached, unless the previously mentioned radiator is removed first.
In all honesty these are errors that any seasoned case enthusiast should be aware of. It is our suggestion that Thermaltake should employ a water cooling enthusiast whom knows the market to redesign their liquid cooling systems. For the reason of this Thermaltake ‘water cooling’ products are very hard to sell in the United Kingdom.
The issues with the water cooling systems is best put in an analogy as follows:
The owner of Thermaltake always likes to buy BMW motor cars, as he wants something classy and unique in addition to something special to him. However would it be still special if he was the only one that could drive that car? Or yet it performs worse due to it non industry standard parts? Or if that car breaks down and a new one is purchased its performance is hampered by an engine component, knowing that replacing that part that is NOT from BMW will increase its performance.
Thermaltake needs to change in order to win the hearts and minds of the water cooling enthusiast. Given the price of this case and its liquid cooling, one could have purchased a ‘Coolermaster case that supports water cooling STANDARD parts right from the outset and then purchase a semi professional kit that can easily be upgraded.
Having said the above negative comments, on the balance side of things as as proven by the test results, the 850GT LCS system does perform very well. However we cannot shake the feeling that if Thermaltake will adopt an industry standard as far as water cooling, and use a motherboard backing plate, then performance for the price will increase drastically. These small changes could go a long way towards Thermaltake again selling well in the United Kingdom.
The last thing is we should come to some final award based on the following criteria.
- Air Cooling Case (Gold Award)
- Amateur Water Cooling (first time) (Bronze Award)
- Amateur performance (Silver Award)
- LCS Upgradeability (Did not meet the criteria for an award)
- Quality OF LCS PARTS (Bronze Award)
- Unable to install a semi or professional water cooling radiator inside (No award did not meet criteria)
Based upon our findings and our exhaustive tests we award the Thermaltake Chaser MK1 LCS a 7/10 and therefore a Bronze.
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Author: gilgamesh
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