Thermaltake Level 10 GT: Monument to Excess
by Dustin Sklavos on July 26, 2011 11:50 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Thermaltake
- Full-Tower
Conclusion: Works Great, But With Caveats
If you're looking strictly at performance, it's fair to say the Thermaltake Level 10 GT comes out a winner. Thermaltake's design marries strong heat management with some of the quietest acoustics we've tested, and that's something most of us can get behind. It proves that the enthusiast can have a case that performs well and does so without drawing attention to itself--or at least, drawing attention to itself by way of noise.
Thermaltake's aesthetic is undoubtedly going to strike some of you as being pretty ostentatious and I'm not sure I disagree. If you were interested in the way the original Level 10 looked but were unwilling to shell out the mad duckets to actually purchase one, the Level 10 GT is at least a more affordable (but still expensive) alternative. Yet the resulting case still seems to speak to a "gamer aesthetic" I'm not even sure actually exists in the marketplace, at least if our readership is anything to go on. There's a switch on the top of the case that lets you toggle the LED lighting in the fans between blue, red, green, or off, which is at least a concession to both personalization and to the users that want their enclosure to be neither seen nor heard. And while the external connectivity is fantastic, the arrangement is at least a little perplexing.
There's also the assembly. While a lot of it is painless and appreciated, like the standoffs for an ATX board being built into the motherboard tray and a decent amount of space for routing the dreaded AUX 12V line, securing external drives is more fraught than it should be, and I can't fathom why the hot swap drive bays don't have both data and power leads coming off the back of each. In-Win pulled it off in their $100 BUC and the Level 10 GT is almost three times as expensive. And then having an extra piece when you want to mount an expansion card is just a bit more irritation thrown into the mix.
Finally, there's the price tag. At $279 the Thermaltake Level 10 GT is basically a luxury item. Does it perform effiicently and quietly? Yes, it does. Does it perform to the level of $279 of efficiency and quiet? That's up for debate, and it's really going to depend on your needs as an end user as well as your personal tastes and aesthetics. Personally I find it to be a bit too heavy, ostentatious, and unwieldy, but I'm also tiny and frail, and your mileage may vary.
We have the SilverStone Fortress FT02 coming in soon, and that monster is five pounds heavier than this beast. I think that will wind up being the real test for the Level 10 GT: the FT02 is an older case, but it's also established. We'll have to wait and see, but for now we can at least give the Level 10 GT a nod of acceptance, if not outright approval.
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B3an - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
Yep thats one seriously ugly case! Just what this market segment needs... yet ANOTHER ugly case.Why is it so hard for these companies to design nice looking cases that dont look like cheap tacky shit??!
If i see this at a friends house i would think a blind family member built it, or they found random old cheap case parts in a dump and glued them all together.
Sunburn74 - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
Second that thought. Own a FT02. Case is amazing. There is nothing on the market I'd replace it with, even if the replacement was free (even including some of those $400+ lian lis)etamin - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
agreed. I saw the Level 10 GT at microcenter and the entire exterior surface looks like it's covered in wads of incompletely melted plastic pellets. The market needs more clean cut refined box towers with all 90 degree angles (hint hint look at Lian Li)Built three Lian Li's: PC-A71F, PC-B10, PC-9F
dfjgkheu - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
believe you will love it.
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Stuka87 - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
No Sir, I don't like it.I actually really liked the original Level 10. It had a cool look. But this one just looks like a cheap knockoff.
It actually reminds me of a cheap plastic RC car that has the same basic shape as the real thing, but with many of the details filled in. So you end up with a plasticky looking knock off.
It seems to cool decently, but its *really* a stretch to say its worth the price.
Tetracycloide - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
Could not a agree more, this is a huge step down in aesthetics from the previous generation which and a much slimmer, sleeker look and feel to it. This one looks like some kind of grotesque, mutant hybrid offspring of the original Level 10 and the stereotypical 'enthusiast' case with plastic and mesh everywhere.ViperV990 - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
The original Level 10 wasn't something I'd have associated with ThermalTake.This Level 10 GT here however, definitely belongs.
etamin - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
"This one looks like some kind of grotesque, mutant hybrid offspring of the original Level 10 and the stereotypical 'enthusiast' case with plastic and mesh everywhere."Spot on. You read my mind.
marvdmartian - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
Personally, I'd love to know who thinks it's a good idea to build a case that looks like some half-mad person slapped together a modular home, over a 40-year period of time. Add a box here, add something there, etc.Looks like something a teenager would build, to tell the truth. And at that price point, I'm 100% certain that one of these will never cross my home's threshold!
don_k - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
This over a Lian-Li? I would say no.