), it arrived. (In other words, yesterday)I haven't had a chance to open the box until this morning because my new Core 2 Duo laptop came on the same day, and I was pretty busy playing around with it yesterday evening. Well, after what's need to be done (Like uninstalling McAfee on the Dell Inspiron 6400) I went down to the basement and took out this PC case. The Thermaltake Aguila is now in my hands
Computer is not fully assembled yet; just partially as I slapped a few parts inside to see if everything is still working properly. Inside the case: Core 2 Duo E6300, abit AB9-Pro, Tagan Turbojet series 1100W PSU, and all the fans and such that came with the case.
Installing the power supply wasn't hard -- but the other side of the case panel has to be removed because a supporter beam needs to be placed underneath the PSU. But anyway, after a quick slide of my rather large (Both physically and wattage rating) Tagan 1100W PSU (Soon to be reviewed by the way) and installing the beam, it was not that hard. The only bad thing I can say right now is the frame surrounding the PSU area at the back is very sharp, and gave one of my fingers a pretty deep cut during installation. (To give you a picture, blood was actually dripping out
)The motherboard backplate is labeled with which hole is for what kind of motherboard; in general is was labeled nicely with one hole on ATX mislabeled. Everything went on fine, nothing too much to talk about in a preview just yet
Add on cards are tool free installation. I'll get to the rest later. I gave it a quick run and the case seems to be reasonably quiet so far.
Onto the physical aspects, it holds Thermaltake's 2 door design -- the front panel and the second one for drive installations as well as access to the fan. The second inner door can be locked along with the window panel. The front door cannot be locked and it's not held together that tightly.
Build quality is very good aside from the sharp edge at the back and the top seems to be fairly 'soft' and bulges a bit under pressure. The case itself is fairly light though, although not the featherweight kind of light as we've seen in the Tt Matrix VX we reviewed a few months back.
There's no direct front USB ports as they are on the top of the case through a press to unlock flip door. Opening the door reveals 2 USB ports, one firewire, headphone and mic jack.
Unique plastic feet is at the bottom and utilizes Thermaltake's mesh design. Probably pretty good at collecting dust like the Tt Matrix VX -- but overall the outlook of this case looks very well. Full review soon
