Ginormous side and top fans inside

Computer cases have become much more than a beige box designed to hold the guts of a vanilla PC. To the enthusiast, a case is as important as the components inside; it can be a reflection of its owner’s personality and dedication to their craft.  Today we take a look at one of Thermaltake’s offerings to demonstrate such dedication: the V9 Black Edition.  The V9 Black Edition is an all steel mid-tower case with an MSRP of $94.99 ($74.99 after $20 MIR).

Specs:

• Model: V9 Black Edition
• Case Type: Mid Tower
• Case Material: Steel
• Front Panel Material: Plastic
• Expansion Bays: 4 x External 5.25”, 2 x External 3.5”, 5 x Internal 3.5”
• Expansion Slots: 7
• Cooling: 1 x Red LED 120mm fan (front), 1 x 120mm fan (back), 1 x 230mm fan (top), 1 x 230mm fan (side)
• Dimensions(HxWxD): 18.19” x 8.19” x 19.1”
• Weight: 14.9 lbs

Inside the Box:

The case arrives with a small bag containing screws, standoffs, and zip ties. Drive locks for the 5.25” and 3.5” bays were fastened to their slots.

The front panel detaches for easy access to the front 120mm fan and removal of drive bay covers. Drive locks are provided for easy installation/removal of devices in nine of the eleven bays.

An interior view of the case

Expansion cards are held in place by a plastic locking mechanism rather than traditional screws.  The motherboard tray is non-removable, but comes with six raised mount points for an easy microATX motherboard installation.  For those requiring more mount points, five standoff screws are included.  The power supply area is located at the bottom of the case, a feature that has become a more popular option recently.  Air intake is provided by a single 120mm fan at the bottom front of the case (which also cools the hard drive bays), and a 230mm fan mounted to the left side panel.  Exhaust is performed by a 120mm fan at the back of the case and another 230mm fan on top.

The back panel of the case is a single, stamped piece of metal.  This includes a basic I/O shield and expansion slot covers which must be bent and twisted to separate from the case.  This is a disappointment as it would not have been much more expensive to provide real slot covers, and would have improved the overall perceived value somewhat.  Also of note is the thinness of the back panel.  In the process of removing the I/O shield I managed to bend the edge of the case–an unfortunate, but not unrecoverable problem.  A little re-bending was all it took for things to be as normal as possible.  Still, at this price point a little more sturdiness is expected.

The 3.5” drive cage is rotated 90 degrees from the 5.25” bays, which is a great thing.  We saw this in the NZXT Beta review and loved it.  The difference from the Beta is the drive must be inserted with the SATA/IDE interface facing away from you.  This helps with cable management and overall airflow.  The power supply is installed beneath the motherboard.

Assembling the System:

Since Thermaltake made a claim of the V9 being a marvelous gaming case, we decided to pull the guts from a gaming rig and install them in the V9:

• Motherboard: MSI P6N Diamond (nVidia 680i SLI chipset)
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0
• Heatsink: Stock Intel (explained later in this section)
• RAM: 8 GB (4×2GB) OCZ Blade DDR2-800
• GPU: 2 x 8800GT 512MB Factory OC’ed (675MHz Core/1950MHz RAM)
• Seagate 7200.9 300GB SATA 7200RPM drive (primary)
• Seagate 750GB IDE 7200RPM drive (secondary)

The motherboard was a breeze to install

Assembling a system in the V9 is pretty straightforward. Almost everything installed without any major problems in about an hour.  The only problem we ran into was the heatsink.  The actual heatsink for this setup is the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme, however it will not fit in this case.  Normally it is installed perpendicular to the top of the case, but after an hour of fighting with the fan clips and case top we rotated the TRUE by 90 degrees.  This required the removal of two sticks of RAM as the OCZ Blade heat spreaders were too tall and blocked the TRUE.  No big deal, just remove the offending stick and its dual-channel mate.  Well that would have worked except the V9’s side case fan ran smack into the heatsink and fan, preventing the side from closing.  Frustrating?  Yes, very.  The only other heatsink immediately available was the Intel heatsink, so in it went.

The plastic locks that hold expansion cards in place left us a little concerned.  The tension was almost non-existant.  In fact the dual graphics cards were pretty much left to hang freely when the case was set upright.  In this case screws would have been a much better option.

A pleasant, non-blinding glow

Once the computer was assembled, we fired it up to see how things looked.  The front 120mm put off a subtle red glow–not nearly as bright as the standard blue LED fans.  It was a nice change of pace to not go blind from staring directly into the case.

Thermal Comparison:

We decided to compare the cooling ability of the V9 to another excellent case–the Antec Nine Hundred.  For those unfamiliar with the Icrontic community, there are several of us absolutely in love with the Nine Hundred for its construction, airflow, and cooling capability.

For idle temperatures, we turned the system on and let the temperatures stabilize.  Load temperatures involved Prime95 (In-Place Small FFTs) for maximum CPU load and the GPU Folding client for maximum graphics load.  The load test was run until temps stabilized for at least five minutes.  Since the Antec case has low, medium, and high selections for fan speed, we selected the low setting as it most closely matched the noise levels and estimated fan speeds of the V9.  Temperatures were reported by the nVidia System Monitor application.

Temps in Celsius, lower is better

Temps in Celsius, lower is better

As you can see, the Thermaltake V9 Black at idle performs respectably at both idle and load. The GPU temperatures are nearly identical, but the CPU and system temperatures fall slightly behind the Antec case.

Conclusion:

Despite a few minor flaws, the Thermaltake V9 Black Edition is a very good case.  There is plenty of room for expansion, cable management is very good, and airflow is excellent.  While large heatsinks such as the TRUE and Noctua NH-U12P are a no-go, the giant cooling fans in the side and top of the V9 go a long way to compensate.  At a price point of $74.99 the Thermaltake V9 Black Edition is a good deal.

Pros:

• Excellent airflow
• Cable management
• Nearly tool-free installation
• Low noise levels

Cons:

• Large heatsinks such as the TRUE and Noctua NH-U12P will not fit
• Expansion cards aren’t secured well
• Weak back panel