A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the interior of the chassis, simply remove the two thumb screws holding the windowed side panel in place. You will require tools for the other panel, as it is secured with traditional case screws instead. The insides of the chassis are all black and the drive bays are lined with plastic locks. Besides this, the case is kept quite simple in terms of layout and how drive bays are formed. Multiple openings in the motherboard tray should aid in cable management, while a large one will allow access the the CPU cooler backplate.


To keep the chassis as affordable as possible, the motherbooard spacers have been replaced by arches created from the tray itself. Having worked as a system builder, I strongly suggest you insulate these before installing a board. Simply taping over them should do the trick. There is no usable space behind the mainboard tray, except along the three openings for cable management. Even here you only get around 1 cm to work with. While the side panel is extruded slightly, this accounts for at most 0.5 cm more space.


You may install up to five 3.5 inch drives within the Commander MS-I, but only three of these utilize a black & red, plastic locking mechanism. A single 2.5 inch drive may be installed unto the floor of the chassis on four little bumps. Of the three 5.25 inch bays, only two have the same type of screw-less systems. While these are generally alright to use for a system that is never moved, such locks are also the source of unwanted vibrations in many scenarios, as these do not tend to hold the drives well. Luckily, Thermaltake includes enough screws to secure the devices, which should be an easy fix for such issues.


In the rear, the bottom PSU bay has a dust filter which cannot be removed easily and the power supply will rest on a support bar. This latter part needs to be removed before you may even install a power supply. Above that are the afore mentioned motherboard expansion slots. Even though the bottom and top ones are removable, there are no screws holding these in place. In the very top you will find the 120 mm exhaust fan, which is semi transparent and features two blue LEDs instead of the traditional four. A nice touch is the sleeved cabling of the cooling unit which may be connected directly to the mainboard with a 3-pin connector.


The bottom slot for a fan can hold a 120 mm unit, but does not have a dust filter protecting the intake. Besides the fact, that I think such a slot is rarely used in a system, it may be obstructed when a longer PSU is used within the Commander MS-I. In the top you will find the two, simple 120 mm air vents. These are intended only for fans, if you wish to pull air out the top of the chassis.


Before we dive into the assembly process, let us take a quick look at the case cables. The ones for general functionality are nothing out of the ordinary and are multi-colored and the I/O leads are of the standard variety. Thermaltake has chosen to use an external USB 3.0 connector instead of an internal 20-pin one. Other manufacturers offer similarly priced cases which do offer internal connectivity and I strongly suggest that Thermaltake considers this option as well.