Thermaltake Tsunami: A Complete Visual Overhaul
by Purav Sanghani on September 10, 2004 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
External Design
The external design of the Tsunami reminds us of a car. It has curves and a shiny paint job that we see on automobiles.
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The bezel consists of a door that features an S-shaped curve from side to side. At the top of the door, Thermaltake has printed the market name of the case "Tsunami Dream" with a Tsunami wave under it. Half way down the door is a horizontal silver strip, which resembled the trim on some cars. At the bottom of the door, there is an array of machined out vents for the intake fan mounted on the opposite side. When turned on, there are two blue LED's that shine from behind the column at the right of the door.
Click to enlarge.
To open the front door, there is a key lock located on the right side of the bezel. The lock itself has 3 positions; locked, half unlocked, and completely unlocked. When half unlocked the front door will open to reveal the drive bays, Power/Reset buttons, and an array of vents that covers about 1/3 of the façade. This front bezel also has a glimmering paint job to match the rest of the case's shell.
Click to enlarge.
Click to enlarge.
This bezel can also be unlocked and opened in the same way as the front door to show the bare front of the chassis. When this final piece is opened, new drives can be installed or replaced by removing the drive bay covers, which are secured to the chassis by Philips head screws.
Click to enlarge.
Moving to the sides of the case, we notice again the shiny paint job. The right side panel is completely bare with no special features besides the mirror-like paint. The left side panel, on the other hand, features an X-type window, which covers about 95% of the panel. The plastic window features the Thermaltake logo and motto pressed into it.
Click to enlarge.
The left side panel also has a new type of locking device to secure the panel to the case. To remove the panel, the two release devices would need to be pulled forward simultaneously and the panel pivoted outward from the back. Though it is not a feature that will especially benefit the average user, it is a luxury to have. The top one of the two securing devices features a key lock to prevent unwanted access through the side panel.
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At the top of the case, we see the auxiliary connections behind a trapezoidal flap. It includes the standard dual USB, audio, and FireWire ports. This pod can be removed if the wires on the inside interfere with other components as we will explain later.
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JohnnyCNote - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link
JarredWalton - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link
#2 echoes my thoughts, except there is one major difference from the SLK3700-BQE: the hard drive cage is rotated on the Antec.If that is truly the case (ow - bad pun!), then I can almost certainly vouch for the difficulty of putting a PSU into such a case after the other components are installed. My Antec PSU started having fan issues, so I replaced it with a Thermaltake Polo12. With a Zalman CNPS7000a heatsink on the motherboard, it was almost impossible to get the PSU into position without removing the motherboard. I eventually succeeded after taking out all the CD/DVD drives, but I think if I have to do it again, I'll just save myself the trouble and removed the motherboard. Which is really not saving much trouble. :(
So, install your PSU first in these cases, and pray to whatever gods you hold dear that your PSU doesn't die before you're ready to upgrade the system. ;)
Other than that, it's a nice looking case, other than the orange fan on the window.
LocutusX - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link
To article author:Please address the points raised by me in #3 and the other person in #8. Thanks!
(IMO, swapping PSUs seems to be pretty frequent nowadays among enthusiasts - almost as frequent as swapping mobos, in fact)
GhandiInstinct - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link
So let me get this right, I'll have to install my PSU before my motherboard? And I'll have to remove the top audio/fw/usb?Also, I didn't see anything said about the filter in the front of the case, on the 120mm.
Happy Buddha - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link
NIce review. There is still something I'd like to be add on the thermal and sound benchmark; since I am(and sureley other) interest in buying this case with the non-window version wich do not have the 90mm side fan, I't would be nice if you could redo these Bencmark with the side fan off + completly plug the hole. This way it would make a fair comparison of the two version available for this case. Thanks.whitelight - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link
#5 - it won't work against the CPU fan. if you have a side intake fan, you can duct cold air directly onto the cpu. and you obviously shouldn't use the CPU fan to suck air from the heatsink, rather using the CPU fan to blow air onto the heatsink.jkostans - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link
If the Side fan is an intake, how does it work against the CPU fan? I've never seen a CPU fan move air any direction but through the heatsink towards the motherboard. Maybe I'm wrong.....ciwell - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link
FINALLY! Thanks for the review I have been waiting for. ::thumbs up::LocutusX - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link
The problem I had with my Tsunami was that I couldn't figure out how to open the top cover, making it quite difficult to swap PSU's - I guess that relates to the whole "front audio/USB pod" thing, and because they put that there, they had to permanently nail down the top cover?That's too bad, it means you'll probably have to remove the motherboard whenever you swap PSU's.
themelon - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link
Its almost identicle on the inside to the Antec SLK3700. Same 5 and 2 bay drive cage, same fan placement. The only major difference I see is the flip up clips for the expansion card mounting.