Installing

The first thing that I installed in the Thermaltake Element T was the motherboard. The Element t’s motherboard tray has a unique design by having rasied points where some of the motherboard standoffs would be. One critisim is that there are many points on the motherboard tray which need standoffs and therefore you can’t get away with simply using the raided points. On a positive note, the motherboard installs easily and without problems and has more than enought room. Even though the Element T’s top fan and rear fan are close to the motherboard like the Cooler Master Storm’s are, these are not nearly as close.

Just like the hard drives and optical drives, 5.25" drives are installed in the same way, just slide the drive into the place, secure with the four screws and it’s done. In terms of installing hard drives, cd drives, and other drives the Element T had to be one of the most hassle free cases I have used. When the front cover is removed you can see that the hard drives are in clear view, this is because one or two fans can be attached to the front cover to provide cooling for the hard drives. When looking at the back of the front cover, you can see that the black mesh panels in front of the cd drives are removed by the use of two clips either end of the panel, these are very easy to remove and requires no effort whatsoever.

If we take a closer look at the now installed hard drive, a test I used to see if it was secure in place with just the screws was to see if it moved at all by applying different amounts of pressure to it. The test showed that the drive was impossible to move out of place using just your own force. These test result applied to the other drives secured in place in this manner as well, making it a very secure case and meaning that if you picked it up the and shook it violently (i don’t know why you would do that in the first place but lets say you did!), the hard drives would stay in place. Also, remembering that one hard drive and cd drive have a security lock on them adding even more protection and security.

The CPU Cooler that I used was the Akasa AK-876, a very quiet fan, not necessarily the best cooler out there but a good cooler none-the-less. The AK-876 does not require a back-plate but with the available window in the back of the motherboard plate, this makes installing CPU coolers that require a backplate very easy and also, a very useful feature for many enthusiasts. The Element T has space for cable management, however, there are no cable ties included to do this.