A Closer Look

The case itself looks very nice and sleek. The slogan "The Charm of the Ordinary" which Thermaltake uses to market this case really does not do it justice.


The front of the case is made out of black, shiny plastic as well as aluminum. The back of the case has everything needed. There are the mandatory PCI brackets, the backplate, honey comb fan grill and space for a power supply. Thermaltake also decided to place two punch-outs for serial, parallel or MIDI/game ports. This is great, as there are still some devices that make use of these connectors. An example would be entry level TV Tuner cards with remote controls. These come with serial cable based IR receivers.


The front is divided into three parts by black horizontal trenches. The Bach Vx embedded logo can be found right above the lowest divider. There is also a mirror finish line across the brushed aluminum, which houses the hard drive access and power LED. The top part of the front groups all the drive bays together. While the 3.5" drive bays are cut out of the brushed aluminum, the 5.25" variants are kept in black, shiny and certainly high quality plastic. The power and reset buttons are of very high quality and can be found to the right of the 3.5" drive bays.


The I/O, which is usually found on the front of a case, has been moved to the top of the Bach Vx. It is protected by a plastic cover which can be opened by pushing down on it and then letting it pop up. There are two USB 2.0, one microphone, one headphone and a E-SATA connector under the little hood. The E-SATA connector is a refreshing addition to the usual assortment of connectivity.


The side of the case is held in place by two very big thumb screws. These are about three to four times as big as the usual variants and can be unscrewed with ease by hand. There are two latches toward the back of the windowed side, which also hold the door in place. A lock can be found on the top latch, so you can secure your hardware if you are in a public place, like a LAN party. The combination of thumbscrews, latches and lock is something quite rarely seen for cases. the window sports an 80 mm fan hole, covered in fine mesh and an engraved Thermaltake logo with the new slogan "COOL all your Life". It would have been nice to see a fan grill with a fine mesh behind it, as the square mesh used does not look well with the round fan hole.


But wait there is more! Thermaltake also includes a 120 mm fan in the back of the case. It is the usual orange/black kind which you can buy separately as well. The PCI slots are right below the fan and feature a black, plastic based screw-less installation system. Each PCI slot is covered by a separate, perforated, metal piece, so you will not need to break anything out with force.


The lower front area houses the hard drive cage. It has space for five hard drives. There are rubber rings in each of the installation holes, which will absorb vibrations of the drives. The cage can be removed by unscrewing a single screw and pressing down on the top level while pulling it out of the case. Hidden in front of the case is another fan. While this one looks just like the back variant, using the same orange/black color theme, it is actually 140 mm and is more than sufficient at cooling up to five hard drives. This may not be the biggest fan in a case (the Twinengine we reviewed here had two 250 mm fans.), yet it is big enough to push a lot of air, while rotating at slower speeds and thus generating less noise.


The afore mentioned hard drive cage is quite tall. The back is folded, so that the installed drives can be lined up easily with the screw holes.


The 3.5" drives have to be secured the old fashioned way, using screws. The 5.25" drives are secured by plastic devices. To open these up, all you need to do is squeeze the latches together and lift it. Then place the drive in the bay and squeeze the latches together once more and press down to secure the drive in place.


The front of the case features a lock just like the side. It actually uses the same key as well. The front can be opened up to ease the installation and to gain access to the dust filter of the front fan.