Test System

Assembly

Liquid Cooling

We will be using the Thermaltake Divider 300 TG ARGB Snow edition with the liquid-cooling setup first. Installing the motherboard and 240 mm Water 3.0 ARGB was easy and should allow for clean cable management with a bit of creativity. As you can see, we are using the short EVGA Geforce GTX 1650 instead of our usual Palit Geforce RTX 2080.


Unfortunately, the longer GPU collides with the AIO liquid cooler, so it cannot be seated into the PCIe slot properly. This is quite the glaring oversight as one of the main reasons for the side-mounting possibility is the ability to go with liquid cooling while benefiting from the airflow at the front, and long GPU support. The Palit graphics card is 295 mm long, which is shorter than most GeForce RTX 3070/3080 and aftermarket Radeon 6800/6800XT offerings, so most high-end GPUs are out of the question with this setup. This is especially unfortunate because users who spend the extra money on liquid cooling are likely also those pairing their system with a potent GPU. The only way to make that work is to buy a PCIe ribbon cable and install the GPU vertically. On the upside, with the unique ability to rotate it all, you should be able to do so for some breathing room for the graphics card.


Installing SSDs is easily done by taking one of those trays and securing the drive by traditional means, using screws and a screwdriver. Once filled, simply put the whole thing back where you found it and make sure it stays there by screwing down the thumb screw.


Including 3.5" drives in your build is similar, as you simply pull out the plastic tray of your choice and screw down the drive before sliding it back in until it clicks down securely.


Lastly, adding a power supply is pretty traditional as well. It slides underneath the metal shroud easily—simply screw it down and move on.


With everything installed, the Thermaltake Divider 300 TG ARGB looks really clean. The front fan connectors are the only element I would have loved to route differently, which I figured out in the black air-cooled build below. Also, turning on the system with the side panels off, you can clearly see the lighting of the PSU, memory, AIO, and front fans!

Air Cooling

Air-cooling assembly is naturally the same with the exception of the side-mounting step. Instead, I left the SSD plate in place and screwed down a drive for clear viewing when examining the system closely.

Finished Looks

Liquid Cooling

With the panels back in place, turning on the white system has the white LED around the power button turn on as well. Hard-drive activity is indicated by the smaller part of the ring above the round power button.


With everything up and running, the three fans with their hub-mounted ARGB components, those right behind the clear glass panel, look beautiful, not at all overpowering. All the ARGB and RGB elements within look great, and you can clearly see the Water 3.0 fans trough the glass side panel, along with its ARGB-lit pump over the CPU, alongside the memory. The GPU and power supply are essentially hidden from view as they are behind the other, solid panel piece. In the rear, things look quite normal, but you can see the glow of the PSU as well.

Air Cooling

Looking at the black, air-cooled setup, we were able to close the side panel, but things are very tight. We have had no issues using this cooler in essentially every traditional mid-tower case we have reviewed, but things were ever so tight as with the Divider 300. It fit, everything closed, but the steel panel was bulging a little bit, while the part of the cooler covered by the glass offered just enough clearance. Thermaltake mentions a maximum height of 145 mm, while the cooler for our thermal testing setup is 160 mm tall. So the fact that it even fit shows that Thermaltake is quite conservative with their marketing. That said, if the steel panel were flat, none of this would have been an issue, so this is clearly a design over function limitation.


With the black version, the shadows thrown by the fans and parts are not quite as pronounced, but the glow of the fans in front looks just as cool.