| Thermaltake Armor A90 VL90001W2Z |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Cases | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Steven Iglesias-Hearst | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 08 September 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thermaltake Armor A90 Case ReviewThermaltake is one of those companies that constantly pumps out fresh designs, if there is a hole in the market then Thermaltake will be there. The current market trend in gaming cases that I have observed lately is an extravagant exterior, a painted interior and a bottom mounted PSU. Thermaltake have Introduced the Armor A90 VL90001W2Z Mid Tower Case into the enthusiast segment priced competitively at $79.99 and if you do your shopping you can get a better deal still. Along with a great exterior design, a fully painted exterior and a bottom mounted PSU, the Thermaltake Armor A90 also gives you a place to mount your 2.5" SSD/HDD, tool free drive installation for three 5.25" drives and six 3.5" HDD's, a front door covering your optical drive bays, support for watercooling and an easily removable front panel with removable air intake filter. There are a lot of things that make up a great case, design and aesthetics are a great starting point, equally as important are build quality, great airflow and good cable management. Benchmark reviews aims to provide you an unbiased review of the Armor A90 pointing out not only the good but also the bad too, after all, nothing is perfect. What is good for me may not be good for you, but for $79.99 there wont be much better.
Manufacturer: Thermaltake Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Thermaltake. Thermaltake Armor A90 Features
Thermaltake Armor A90 Specifications
Closer Look: ExteriorThe exterior of a case is normally the deal breaker for me as my case is always on top of my desk, in this section we will have a good look at the exterior of the Armor A90 from Thermaltake.
The Armor A90 ships in a nice glossy box with some high quality detailed images of the case itself and its main features on the rear of the box. There is a nice angled picture of the case printed on the front of the box that shows just how it will look when it is powered up.
The Armor A90 has a nice abstract design, designed to look like armour or re-enforcements (hence the name). The optical drives are hidden behind a door/panel and the lower portion is vented for optimal airflow, and the power button is nicely blended into the design. The dark meshed panels of the door and panel on the left do not allow airflow they are just mesh over a black piece of plastic, purely for aesthetics.
The side panel has a relatively small window but makes up for that with a vented area to install a 120mm fan to cool the graphics card area. The paintwork on the Armor A90 is second to none and the matte black finish is flawless all round. The bottom piece of plastic trim gives 14mm of clearance for airflow into your bottom mounted PSU.
The back of the Armor A90 has also received the matte black treatment, the layout is the new standard we are becoming used to with enthusiast orientated cases. Bottom mounted PSU, plenty of ventilation both in the case itself and also the PCI brackets and four watercooling knock-outs (two at the top and two next to the PSU) although there are only two grommets in the accessories package. The watercooling holes look a tad small but you can easily pass 1/2" tubing through there (but I doubt you could get thicker tubing to pass through).
The theme also carries on to the 'hidden' side of the case, at first it makes no sense to apply any design to this side of the case but when you consider that both side panels are inter-changeable then you will see the benefit. This could benefit case modders out there that may see room for improvement with the Armor A90 design, this side panel could have a massive window in it or replace part of it with mesh, it just depends on your imagination.
On the top of the Armour A90 the same meshed panels seen on the front feature here also, once again they don't allow airflow and are just for aesthetics. Also seen here is the vent for the top exhaust fan.
The bottom of the Armour A90 is pretty standard, four equally sized feet give the case stability and stop it from scratching any surface it may reside on. You will also notice four points used for mounting a 2.5" on the inside of the case. Access to the screws securing the PSU brace is under here too. The PSU vent is filtered although the filter is mediocre at best - it will stop large particles but won't stop fine particles. Detailed Exterior FeaturesThis section allows us to look at the detailed exterior features of the Thermaltake Armor A90.
Some people like doors on cases and some don't like them, I personally like doors on my cases as I don't regularly need access to my optical drive, and the door covering them makes for a much nicer looking exterior. The door itself is really sturdy and solid, as are the drive bay covers. The drive bay covers are meshed and have a foam filter that is sandwiched between the plastic frame and the mesh vent, the foam is not removable but should stop any dust from entering here. Although it kind of defeats the object of having any sort of filter if you are going to put unprotected holes in the same part that is filtered (at the edges of the drive bay covers).
Zoom in a little to the right hand side of the door and you have the front I/O panel comprising two USB 2.0 ports, a headphone and microphone jack, hard drive and power status LED's (red for HDD blue for power) and a reset button, finally there is a rather large power button that is integrated into the design theme very well.
On top of the case are a further two USB 2.0 ports and an eSATA port.
The front of the case is super easy to remove, only requiring a gentle tug at the bottom to remove it. looking behind the front panel you can see the removable filter that can be unclipped on the right side and easily removed for cleaning. Also a bonus here is that the front panel I/O is secured to the chassis rather than the front panel itself, and means you wont risk pulling any wires out when you remove the front panel from the case. Installed in the front of the Armor A90, providing the intake is a Thermaltake TT-1225 blue LED 120mm 12v DC fan 16db @ 1000rpm.
Zoomed in now on the back of the Armor A90 and looking in particular at the three security features present, at the top is a little bracket to secure your mouse, keyboard, headset etc. This works by undoing a thumbscrew inside the case and then you pass your cables through and then lock down again with the thumbscrew. Secondly, on the right towards the bottom, you will notice two loops are aligned - one on the case and one on the side panel, this allows you to attach a padlock to lock your side panel in place. Last but not least is the Kensington lock point, these are welcome additions and shows that Thermaltake are aiming the Armor A90 at the LAN party crowd. Closer Look: InteriorMoving on now to the interior of the Armor A90, let's see what's good and what's not.
This is the accessory bundle, there is a multi-lingual user manual, standard silver screws, two plastic grommets for the watercooling knockout's on the rear of the case, eight long screws for securing fans in the front of the case, four tiny screws for mounting a 2.5" HDD/SSD in the bottom of the case, and last but not least, four plastic spacers for installing a ThermaltakeAF0046 200mm fan in the front of the Armor A90 chassis.
Thermaltake say that you can install a 200mm fan in the front of the Armor A90 but before you run out and buy one you need to know that they are referring to the ThermaltakeAF0046 200mm fan (same as top exhaust), which is actually a 170mm fan, the mounting points are 200mm apart in a weird oblong fashion (top left to bottom right and top right to bottom left), confused yet? same here.
Moving on now to the inside of the Armor A90 case, the first thing that catches your attention is the fully painted interior, next is the CPU backplate cut-out and then the lack of cable management cut-out's. Don't worry though as cable management is taken care of, as we will see in just a minute. Thermaltake recommend a maximum CPU cooler height of 18cm which I agree with, but at the same time they advise a maximum graphics card length of 26cm, by my own measurements there is 30cm between the PCI back plates and the 3.5" HDD rack, which would increase that limit a little. There are also bumps on the motherboard tray in place of where you would normally install risers, in all but three of the nine locations needed to install an ATX motherboard, leaving you to install three risers in the remaining places. Either Thermaltake think it's difficult to install risers or it's to speed up install time, I'll leave you to speculate.
We get a better look at the cable management system when we remove the other side panel, there is a generous 5" (wide) x 11" (tall) x 3" (deep) area to the side of the 3.5" HDD bays in which to bundle your cables out of sight. There isn't a great deal of room behind the motherboard tray but there is room for your 12v ATX cable and fan power cable. You may notice there are no tool free securing mechanism's for optical and hard drives on this side of the case, I would only install a screw on this side if I knew I would be moving my case regularly, otherwise the tool free option on the other side is adequate for a static case.
The 120mm Rear exhaust fan looks like a black version of Thermaltake's red 120mm TurboFan although this black version spins at a slightly slower 1000rpm @ 16dBA according to Thermaltake's specifications. Below the fan we have a nicely vented back panel and expansion area, there are seven expansion slots with re-usable covers that secure in place without screws. There is no tool free option to secure PCI cards in place and user's need to revert to the good old fashioned method of using screws. Detailed Interior FeaturesLet's look a little closer now at the interior features of the Thermaltake Armor A90.
Towards the front of the case, in the HDD rack there are raised bumps to secure a 2.5" drive, it is still possible to use the bottom 3.5" bay when you have a 2.5" drive installed here which is good news, giving you a total possible drive count of seven HDD's. You can also see the unrestricted cable management area.
Installed in the top of the Thermaltake Armor A90 is the ThermaltakeAF0046 200mm 12v DC blue LED fan with a max rotation of 800rpm @ 15dBa.
Looking now at the bottom of the Thermaltake Armor A90 we see the PSU mounting area, this is one area of the case that I am not keen on and I will explain why. Firstly it is vented and filtered which is great but the filter really wont be stopping much and it isn't easily accessible either. Secondly, Thermaltake use a supporting/securing bar (seen towards the middle) this makes installing the PSU a pain and time consuming, as this bar needs to be removed prior to installing the PSU and then re-installed after. Removal and re-installation is done by removing/securing two screws that are underneath the case - and after all this the bar really doesn't do anything other than prop the PSU up from underneath, which could be done much more simply with two rubber standoff's.
A look here at the drive bay tool free securing mechanism for both 5.25" and 3.5" bays. The only difference between the two is size, they work by sliding the latch to the right and the mechanism will swing open upwards, once your device is inserted you swing it down again and two pegs (one on each end) insert into the screw holes of the device to be installed, then you simply push the latch to the left to lock it in place. As previously mentioned these latches only feature on one side of the drive bays and so should only really be used in a static case that won't be moved around, otherwise it is recommended to also use screws in addition to the tool free locking mechanism's.
At first I was a little skeptical about the lack of cable routing holes and lack of space behind the motherboard tray, I really thought that I wouldn't get very good results by simply jamming bundles of cables behind the 3.5" bays. But as you can see above, with a little time and planning, you can get a really nice and tidy install. It would have been nice to have a partition to cover over the PSU and front panel header wires as seen in the HAF-X but it's not the end of the world.
This is where the cables you want hidden go, it is possible to do this tidier but they are hidden and don't matter too much once they are back here. Also, after talking about it so much, I finally decided to buy a premium 12v ATX power cable extension from NZXT, this allowed me to pass my power cable round the back of the motherboard tray rather than over the motherboard, making for a nice tidy install. Thermaltake Armor Final ThoughtsThermaltake have pleasantly surprised me with the Armor A90, sure it doesn't have all the features that come with other higher end mid tower cases have these days, but it also doesn't come with a high price tag. If you are looking to knock of some $$ from your next build or order without having to compromise on looks and cooling ability then the Thermaltake Armor A90 may well be for you. Put quite simply, the Armor A90 does what it is supposed to and that is three fold - Hold your hardware, cool your hardware and look good doing it. Below is a screenshot from HWiNFO32, which I used to monitor component temperatures while my system was idle (Min) and while under load (Max). The front and top fans installed in the Armor A90 run at 12v connected straight to the power supply and the rear exhaust fan connects to a three pin header on the motherboard, all fans were running at max speed and remained very quiet and are actually drowned out from the noise of my graphics card cooler, the XigmatekBiFrost, ambient room temp during testing was 26°C.
My CPU is a Core2Duo E6600 o/c to 3.4Ghz and cooled by a Xigmatek HDT S1283 - I loaded the CPU to 100% for 30 mins using Orthos stress prime using the stress CPU option. At the Same time I loaded the GPU using FurMark in stability testing mode, as mentioned my 9800GT is being cooled by an aftermarket cooler and as such doesn't get very hot at all but this is also thanks to good air intake at the front of the case. I have two HDD's installed in this system, my primary drive (2.5" 160GB Seagate Constellation 7200rpm 32MB cache) is installed in the dedicated 2.5" location (under the 3.5" bays), the second drive (3.5" 200GB Western Digital Caviar 7200rpm 8mbcache) is installed in the bottom most slot of the 3.5" rack, both are kept nice and cool without restricting airflow. Overall a very good result in a tried and tested cooling environment (top and rear exhaust) that is becoming more widely adopted by case manufacturers lately. Armor A90 ConclusionIn this section I am going to write a brief five point summary on the following categories; Performance, Appearance, Construction, Functionality and Value. These views are my own and help me to give the Thermaltake Armor A90 a rating out of 10, a high score does not necessarily mean that it is better than a PC case reviewed by another writer here at Benchmark Reviews that may have got a lower score, it is however a good indicator of whether the product is good or not. I would strongly urge you to read the entire review if you have not already, so that you can make an educated decision for yourself. Performance is a strong point of the Armor A90, showing that Thermaltake really know what they are doing (in case you ever had any doubt), the included fans provide great airflow while not making loads of noise, a factor that cannot be ignored. Appearance of any PC case is a very subjective matter, for too long now manufacturers have been making clones of popular cases, but that trend is slowly changing and some real creative flair is being seen lately. The Armor A90 is one of those cases that has dared to be bold and broken the mould, and they have pulled it off quite successfully too. The Armor A90 looks the part whether you are an FPS, RPG, RTS or MMORPG gamer this case would look good at any LAN event. The construction of the Armor A90 is very good too, the side panels come off and go back on very easily and don't flex much, the finish of all edges inside and outside the case are very smooth - there are no sharp edges to injure yourself on, the front and top plastic/metal panels are very well constructed and the finish is great - Thermaltake managed this while at the same time keeping the weight relatively low @ 8.2kg empty. Thermaltake have been making great cases for a long time now and it really shows here. When I had my first look at the Armor A90 I thought it was a very basic case, I have been pleasantly surprised by the simplistic approach to managing cables. Installing your components is straight forward enough except for the PSU which needed extra steps that could have been avoided. The tool free options are only good if you don't plan on moving your PC around at all, otherwise you will find the need to use screws which negates the use of tool free in the first place. Good old screws are used to install PCI cards as they should be as tool free is not necessary here considering a simple screw is easier and better. Value is another subjective matter, as it is not just about price. You really need to look at all the other ratings and also take into consideration the brand name. There are many steps during the making of the case that can increase or reduce costs, such as interior paint and extra cut-out's for example. At the moment the Armor A90 is at a sweet point between features and cost retailing for $79.99 at Newegg.com and if you are quick enough some extra savings can be made too (at the time of publishing there is a free shipping offer and a $20 mail in rebate offer) To summarise now, the Thermaltake Armor A90 has shown me that an over complicated and technical construction isn't the be all and end all when it comes to cases. The Armor A90 is a great case in the hands of a creative owner and can certainly save you some money on your next order - money that can be better spent elsewhere. The Armor A90 Is a good looking and great performing case and is very deserving of its gold award. Pros:
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Comments
How about measuring that distance? That way we can decide for ourselves how generous that space is.
I especially like how CM states that distance - 16mm - in their HAF 912 specs.
I have corresponded with owners of other Thermaltake cases, since many of them are quite wide. They all report cramped space behind the mb tray.
One last thing: I wish there was a consistent way to measure the cooling power of a case. Clearly, if we buy this one we'd stuff more fans into it. So how do you compare it with a case that has a bunch of fans? How do you compare it with another case that - like this Tt case - skimps on fans?
I actually thought about you as I wrote this very sentence, seeing as you comment on it alot, there was no point in measuring the gap as there are no cable routing cut out's.
There is a 1cm gap behind the mobo tray, which, like I said, isn't gonna do a lot.
Actually, there isn't really a need for additional mb tray cutouts, since the cpu window extends above the mb, as shown by the last photo on page 5. That extended cpu window provides all the function of a separate cutout. I wish more case manufacturers would do that.
But I get your point: it's real clear Tt has no plan for running wires up there beyond the ATX cable.