Thermaltake Core P6 TG Snow Review (Page 3 of 4)

Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside

To get inside the Thermaltake Core P6 TG Snow, you will need to remove the two side panels with different methods. The thick 4mm tempered glass panel is held to the side with large silver thumbscrews. There are a total of four screws holding this panel to the rest of the case. Each are lined with rubber rings to prevent scratches between the screw and the glass while cushioning any vibration that may occur between the two surfaces. The glass itself sits on a lip on the side of the case. Unfortunately, when you remove all of the screws, the tempered glass will fall over immediately, so take care when removing the four thumbscrews. As for the tempered glass itself, it has a light tint. You probably would not tint your cars at this level, due to the fact it probably will not make much of a difference, but this is definitely more notable on the side of a computer case. This tint is the same for all of the glass panels as well. As for the right side panel, you can remove this by unscrewing the six captive thumbscrews on that side and popping the steel panel off. I am happy to see captive thumbscrews here, especially since they are quite common for side panels in general. On the back of the steel panel is a plastic mesh layer held on with magnets to prevent dust from entering here.

One thing I pointed out in the features is that this can also be transformed into an open-style case, which involves removing the front, top, and back panels. All of these panels can be removed via screws on the inside. The top and front glass panels are slid in place at their respective locations, where it sits in a lip of the frame. I do like this implementation, as it makes it clean and does not require any other hardware to keep the panel in place. On the other hand, the front and top glass panels rattle a bit, even when it is slotted in place. I think Thermaltake could improve this by adding some sort of padding onto the glass or inside the lip area just to make it a tighter fit and therefore reduce the rattle.

Once inside, you can see the very open layout. This is where the majority of your components will sit, including your motherboard, graphics card, and all of the cooling components, such as radiators, fans, or possible water pumps and reservoirs. The entire area is unobstructed for air to pass from one side to the other, presumably front to back. According to Thermaltake, motherboards from mini ITX to standard ATX will fit in the Core P6 TG Snow, although I think a mini ITX motherboard might look humorously small in this gigantic layout. At the bottom of the case is a power supply divider, but it clearly shows off the power supply. However, the divider does a good job at hiding its cables. As expected from the Snow edition, practically everything inside here is white in color, with the exception of screws and rubber grommets. All of the surfaces here are durable enough so that they do not scratch easily or reveal what is under the paint.

Moving inside, you can see a view of the top left corner near the back of the Thermaltake Core P6 TG Snow. The back shows the other side of the rails where a 120mm fan could reside. As you can tell, there are no fans included with the Thermaltake Core P6 TG. While I can understand the want for Thermaltake to include some fans with such a high-end enclosure, I also half expect users will be replacing them with their own fans once they purchase it. In my mind, it really is just something potential buyers will need to keep in mind. At the top corner, you can see a silver bar that goes from the back to the front of the case. At the top, we have a fully exposed area for more cooling options, including space to install up to three 120mm fans, two 140mm fans, a 360mm radiator, or a 280mm radiator. In the middle of this photo is an exposed area that opens up the back of the motherboard for mounting third-party coolers.

On the flip side and the bottom, you can get a better view of the power supply shroud and all of the access holes it has. This includes a hole to just see the power supply as well as an opening at the top for cable routing. The shroud also can be used to hold the vertical mounting bracket for mounting expansion cards like video cards vertically. This would need to be achieved by also flipping all of the expansion card slots on its side to be vertically oriented. It is a bit interesting to see Thermaltake force users to have them all mounted in one direction or another rather than just adding some additional vertical slots to the horizontal ones. Otherwise, this adds to the modularity of the Core P6 TG overall. Moving back to the power supply shroud, you can see there is one SSD sled attached to the top of the shroud, where users can mount one of the drives. You can also mount another one to the side of the power supply shroud if you so desire. At the bottom of the case, you can just see another set of rails to mount even more cooling options, whether this is yet another three 120mm fans, two 140mm fans, or a 240mm radiator. It does look like radiators of the 140mm multiple may be a bit too cramped here, although I am not complaining considering all the mounting options we have inside.

If you really do not like the power supply hidden, you can fully remove this shroud by removing some of the screws. Furthermore, you can also change the orientation of the power supply to be mounted vertically. This requires a bit of rejigging of the inside, and will also restrict the motherboard space to only micro ATX or mini ITX sizes. Thermaltake has all of the extra brackets required to do this, and I can appreciate the amount of flexibility here, even if I may not necessarily use it myself.

Moving to the front of the case, we have even more areas for cooling options. This includes rails at the front and on the right side of the motherboard tray. Once again, these offer rails to hold up to three 120mm fans, three 140mm fans, 360mm radiator, or a 280mm radiator. In total, the Thermaltake Core P6 TG Snow can hold up to thirteen 120mm fans in the case itself, which is truly an impressive feat. While you may not necessarily use all of these slots or have enough fan headers on your motherboard to control them all, the flexible ways you can mount your cooling is really great to see. In addition, a multi-use bracket can be found at the front-bottom of the case. This can be used to mount a water pump, reservoir, or another 2.5" drive. Thermaltake may not necessarily have provided any fans with this enclosure, but at least you will not need to worry about having a place for all your fans or radiators.

Moving to the back, we have several things to note for its cable management. For one, we have a load of cabling space with almost 4.5cm of gap between the right side panel and the motherboard tray for routing and maneuvering cables around. This is a sizeable gap and really should ensure you can place even the thickest cables wherever and still be able to slot the back panel in place. There are several cable tie points around the back, which is helpful, considering Thermaltake did provide a handful of Velcro straps to help with keeping cables in place. Otherwise, all of the front I/O cables are sleeved in black to hide them. In the middle, we have a large black box that is where the VESA mounting hardware exists to ensure this case can be stably mounted to the wall or another mount. This black box also inherently provides a tunnel to let you route more cables while keeping them contained.

As for storage, there are many places to put your 2.5" or 3.5" options. Thermaltake has provided two black sleds, which are located behind the motherboard opening and near the bottom of the case. The sled is held on with a thumbscrew. Each of these sleds can hold either three 2.5" or two 3.5" storage disks. This is in addition to the three areas for 2.5" drives on the inside. As such, in total you can put up to nine 2.5" or four 3.5" drives, which is quite good, but also expected for a case of this size. I do appreciate the many mounting locations for storage, which is helpful if you need a lot of space.


Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion