| Thermaltake Spacecraft VF-I Computer Case |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Cases | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Steven Iglesias-Hearst | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 21 September 2011 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thermaltake Spacecraft VF-I Computer Case
Manufacturer: Thermaltake Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Thermaltake. What do you look for in a case and what is the most you are willing to spend? Today's case isn't exactly high end and to match that it doesn't have all of the features and extras you would expect if you were shelling out cash in the €100+ range. System builders and budget gamers this one is for you, Thermaltake have released the Spacecraft VF-I Mid-Tower PC Case model VN60001W2Z and online retailers are listing it between €50~€65 and Benchmark Reviews has got an early peek at it. For that price you get a sturdy little case with a small side window, tool free drive mounting, removable air intake filters, room for video cards up to 320mm long, room for CPU coolers up to 168mm tall and also room for a 120.2 (240mm) watercooling radiator in the roof. This should prove to be an interesting review so please read on.
Many have their preconceptions about Thermaltake cases but hopefully this review might set that straight, like I said in my intro this case isn't high end but it doesn't command that sort of price tag. There are a few places where Thermaltake have skimped on features but overall it is a solid little case and does the trick for not a lot of cash, if Lian Li can do minimal and get away with it then why not Thermaltake as well. Thermaltake VN60001W2Z Specifications
Closer Look: Spacecraft VF-I ExteriorAs with all Thermaltake cases I've seen you get an nice full color box, this is good marketing as this will stand out on the shelf next to the brown boxes.
On the reverse of the box you will find info regarding the Spacecraft VF-I's main features. The massive white sticker is a big giveaway, no USB 3.0. Thermaltake will also be releasing a USB 3.0 version of the Spacecraft VF-I (model# VN600A1W2Z).
Front and back view of the Spacecraft VF-I here, the front panel is a mixture of plastic, steel and aluminium. The bottom of the front panel has three pieces of cut brushed aluminium inserts and should make a slight difference to intake air temperatures (but not a lot), it does do some good for aesthetics though. The four 5.25" mesh drive bay covers are filtered on the inside but the middle piece around thee I/O panel is stuck over the plastic and is purely for looks. The Rear of the case is fairly standard like most gaming cases on the market. It is nice to see lots of ventilation especially in the expansion slot covers. There are two watercooling tube pass-through grommets and to the left of those is a cable clamp that will secure your mouse/keyboard at a LAN party.
The windowed side panel looks more industrial than space age but is still a nice enough design. I think full panel windows are becoming a thing of the past but this window is a little bit weird still, I would have preferred to see this window to extend to the right a little (taking up the full width of the side panel), that way you would be able to see the vast majority of a watercooling loop if one were installed. The vent in the side panel allows you to install a 120mm fan to aid with cooling your video cards. The first thing that I noticed was the difference in color between the plastic front panel and metal parts of the case. The paint of the main chassis is more grey than it is black and really makes this case look cheap.
The other side panel is a similar design (minus the vent and window) and there is a slightly raised part that will help with cable management.
The top of the case has no plastic panel as we have become accustomed to from many gaming cases lately, instead you get a network of ventilation that allows you to install either two 120mm fans or one 120mm and one 140mm. Later in the review we will look at how we might install a watercooling radiator inside the case (if you haven't spotted it already).
More ventilation can be found in the bottom, from right to left you can install an 80mm fan (HDD cooling), then in the middle you can install another 120mm intake fan and the PSU intake has a removable intake filter. The four massive plastic feet give the Starcraft VF-I 20mm of ground clearance.
The front I/O panel is basic, you get two USB 2.0 ports and one each of headphone and microphone inputs. On the right side you can see the power and reset buttons, below those are the power and HDD activity LED's. Closer Look: InteriorOnwards with our journey now, time to go inside and see what's good or not. Removing the side panels from the Spacecraft VF-I was not easy to say the least, I thought they were secured elsewhere but they are just on really tight. Replacing them is much the same and is a right pain in the backside, it's these sort of things that can give a company a bad name..
The interior of the Spacecraft VF-I is quite basic as interiors go. Simple screws to secure your expansion cards, simple plastic tool free drive mounts and a very minimal amount of metal used to construct the chassis. It looks like a cheap case in person but actually feels quite solid to handle and work with. You have room for CPU coolers up to 168mm tall and video cards up to 320mm long and room for a 120.2 (240mm) watercooling radiator in the roof.
When you look at how close the 120mm exhaust fan is to the top and the side of the chassis you get a good idea of how tight it is going to be inside the case when installing your hardware, in this case it is going to be rather tight up at the top end but if you install your CPU cooler and it's fans beforehand you won't have so much of a problem in this department.
In the back there is enough metal to allow us to hide our wires out of the way, due to the lack of cable routing cut-outs and the fact that the left edge of the motherboard tray is turned and actually stands 6mm proud negates any space that there is back here, normally you would have a hole to pass through your 24-pin and VGA power cables but we will have to be creative to overcome this little obstacle.
Where there are no obstructions you get 12mm of clearance to route cables, add to that the clearance you get from the raised area of the side panel and you get approximately 18~20mm for cable routing.
The front panel pops off real easy and gives you access to remove the filtered 5.25" ODD covers and the external 3.5 inch cover, you also get access to the removable front air intake filter. You may notice that there is no fan installed in the front, there is only one fan installed in this case and that is at the rear as an exhaust. I think I would have preferred intake to exhaust, still it's only four screws away from rear to front I guess.
The PSU area has a slightly raised part that allows your PSU to sit off the bottom of the case but there are no type of anti vibration mounts in sight. Thermaltake Spacecraft VF-I System BuildIn this section we will build a system inside the Thermaltake Spacecraft VF-I case and report back our findings.
The Accessories look quite basic too. You get all the usual things like stand-offs and screws plus a few extra things like fan spacers/grommets, re-useable cable ties, long fan bolts (for front intake fan) and some plastic motherboard supports.
In the accessory package there were twelve screws that could be used to secure the motherboard but four of these were also purposed for securing the PSU as well, this left only eight of the usual nine screws for securing the motherboard into place. As you can see in the image above I pre-installed one of the plastic motherboard supports in one location of the motherboard where I know it will be very tight to secure a screw with the CPU cooler pre-installed. With this in place I know there won't be any flexing of the motherboard in this area VS having nothing there at all.
Beneath the ODD cage you will find a little pair of brackets for installing a 2.5" HDD/SSD. If it wasn't for me reading the manual I may have not noticed this or I may well have overlooked it in either case. The fit is very tight and I didn't need to use any screws to hold the drive in place, your mileage may vary.
Depending how resourceful or creative you are it is still possible to hide your cables out of the way round the back here. I cable tied the 24-pin cable to the spine of the motherboard tray as there were four pre-drilled holes and it made sense. My 8-pin CPU cable extension makes it easier to route the CPU cable without having to over stretch it etc. The very bottom motherboard tray cut-out is completely blocked by the PSU and therefore rendered useless.
With the aid of cable ties and creative planning we end up with a pretty tidy install. I had my doubts as to whether I would be able to pull it off but the Spacecraft VF-I case came through in the end. There is still room to spare which could be put to good use...
If you hadn't noticed earlier there are small mounting holes (highlighted by the red arrows) that allow you to install any 120.2 (240mm) watercooling radiator with 15mm fan spacing, which is most of today's current line-up. Thanks to the offset (70mm from the side panel) position of the mounting holes you get a lot of clearance inside the case to install a thick radiator.
That is close to 55mm clearance before I run into problems with my RAM, if it were low profile RAM I would have more clearance still. Sure the whole setup will overhang the motherboard but it is a clever way to get around the radiator mounting limitations of mid tower cases, the Fractal Arc Midi also has this radiator mount setup. Spacecraft VF-I Final ThoughtsThe Thermaltake Spacecraft VF-I is a cheap case with lot's of potential. It is minimal in all the right areas and for that reason it has won me over. I was sceptical of this cases potential when I first got it and have a little look around it, it wasn't until I installed some hardware into it that I realised it wasn't such a low end case after all. There aren't many sub €60 cases that have a 2.5" SSD mount and support for watercooling beyond a sealed loop from the likes of Asetek, Corsair, Antec etc. Cable routing could have been better but it turned out well considering the limitations of the case and I think I got a reasonable looking install in the end.
Thermaltake Spacecraft VF-I 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 Spacecraft VF-I PC case a rating out of 10. A high or low score does not necessarily mean that it is better or worse than a similar PC case that has been reviewed by another writer here at Benchmark Reviews, which may have got a higher or lower score. It is however a good indicator of whether the PC case 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 where this case will suffer due to the fact that it only has one fan installed as stock. Without installing extra fans in the case I can't properly test it with a heavy overclock. We make a point of testing cases as they come here and one pre-installed fan won't cut muster for me. There is a lot of potential to be had but it will be an extra cost so I won't be talking about it in this review. Appearance is always a tricky one for manufacturers to get right as us enthusiasts are so damn picky. The front face of the Spacecraft VF-I is aesthetically pleasing but it's a shame that look wasn't carried on round to the side panel. The fad for full window side panel is coming to an end but I would have also liked a full width side panel window (which is only a couple of minutes of dremmel work away) as the current window is just that bit too small and oddly shaped. The construction of the Spacecraft VF-I is surprisingly good all being said. When I first got my hands on it my initial impression was somewhat different but since I have installed my system inside it I have come to the conclusion that it is actually quite well made, less is more as they say. Functionality is quite good, you shave a couple of dollars off by doing without USB 3.0 but you still retain the SSD mount and watercooling potential. It depends what is important to you in a case at the end of the day. The prices I found on the web for this case have it between €50 ~ €65 which is quite reasonable (at the lower end of the scale), if it cost much more than that then I would look elsewhere. Thermaltake states that while it is not yet available in the UK, it will become available in November and it will have an MSRP of £49.99 inc VAT. This price roughly translates to €55. Definitely one for the system builder / budget gamer out there. You could certainly do much worse. Pros:
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Comments
But then again, for £50 you could do far worse in terms of functionality.