Thermaltake Goes Small: Core V1 mini-ITX Chassis Launched
by Ian Cutress on August 4, 2014 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Mini ITX
- Thermaltake
- Core V1
When meeting with one of Thermaltake’s main press relations people at Computex, he was keen to show off what he described as ‘his baby’. We reported on the Core V1 at the time – a mini-ITX chassis to incorporate better cooling, quieter cooling, easy maintenance and a good-looking, fast system. Aside from the size, the interchangeable top, bottom and sides of the chassis could be replaced with Perspex side windows to increase the view of the internals, but also the front was fitted with a 200mm fan with space for another 120mm in the rear. The front of the chassis is designed with the fan offset such that longer GPUs can fit inside, up to 250mm.
Much like the full size ATX cases being designed with a warm side/cold side, the V1 uses the same concept but for top and bottom. The top half houses the motherboard, processor and CPU, with space for 140mm of CPU cooler. The bottom half is for storage and the power supply, with space for PSUs up to 180mm in length with another 80mm of cable management space. Thermaltake quote the Core V1 as supporting mounding points for 120mm and 140mm fans on the sides with an additional two 80mm points at the back. Thermaltake point to its Water 3.0 Performer and Pro CLCs as being supported.
The front panel is located on the left hand side, with power/reset buttons, two USB 3.0 ports and audio jacks.
One of the key elements of the Core V1, apart from the design and the visuals, was the price. During Computex I was told that Thermaltake was aiming at a US$50 MSRP, which caught the eye of a number of our readers. The Core V1 is currently listed at Newegg for $49.99, hitting that price right on the nose.
Source: Thermaltake
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Daniel Egger - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
> I don't see a major problem with the lack of an optical drive any more.For HTPCs having an optical drive is almost a must, otherwise you'll always have an armada of standalone players around.
Also if you want to play any of the even just slightly older games you will need to a real drive thanks to copy protection schemes, well, that or you'll apply some Chinese/Russion No-CD crack that will with 95% probability infect your system with some sort of nasty malware. I might sound outdated but I still like to play NBA 2K13 for example...
bernstein - Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - link
> For HTPCs having an optical drive is almost a must, otherwise you'll always have an armada of standalone players around.Only if you are a legacy user that still has/uses dvds/blurays... every movie junkie (e.g. htpc user) i know has long archived his/her collection onto hdds...
Bob Todd - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
Those seem like quite different cases though in almost every aspect. The price gap is obvious, and would be enough for a very nice PSU + case for the Thermaltake. The Hadron is tiny in comparison (the Core is 44% larger), which can either be a pro or con depending on what your priorities are. The design of the Hadron makes it ideally suited to vertical orientation, where it is too tall to be a good HTPC candidate for most.Really, the Core seems like Thermaltake's alternative to something like the Cooler Master Elite 130 which shares the exact same MSRP and is very close dimension/volume wise. I like the aesthetics of the Core better, so it will be interesting to see if/when it starts hitting sale prices of $40 or less. The Cooler Master has been my go-to case for cheap HTPC builds, and I still think it's an awesome case for the seemingly-perpetually-on-sale price in the $35 range if you aren't trying to build an overclocking monster.
Troff - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
That is definitely a feature and not a bug. I don't even use optical storage once a year and a USB-attached solution for those special occasions makes all the sense in the world.DanNeely - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
"the front was fitted with a 200mm fan with space for another 120mm in the rear."...later down...
"Thermaltake quote the Core V1 as supporting mounding points for 120mm and 140mm fans on the sides with an additional two 80mm points at the back."
Looking at the pictures I think the latter is right. There're 2 fan mounts in the rear and they look too small to be 120mm.
fic2 - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
From Newegg specs:Cooling System
80mm Fans
Rear:
2 x 80mm
120mm Fans
Front:
1 x 120mm or
1 x 140mm or
1 x 200mm
Daniel Egger - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
What's up with the flood of crappy pictures? Is Anandtech out of usable cameras or is this supposed to be a phone camera real life test?Troff - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
Someone needs to stick a CPU in one of those, measure the temperature at idle and under load and then get back to meaxiommods - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
yes Im wih you on this. Someone is going to have to stick a CPU and RAM with cables and do an unbiased test on it. Im interested in the temps under load.As for whoever thinks they need a optical drive. Hahah. this is 2014. With usb boot and UFD with HDD a storage. This is really irrelevant. And an optical drive decrease airflow.