Assembly

To install the mainboard you are only required to use three traditional spacers for the mainboard. The rest are already present in form of round little bumps in the tray. These my cause shorts if components of the mainboard touch them, which in turn will result in non booting systems or worse - permanent damage. I have no idea why Thermaltake has chosen three traditional spacers in combination with these bumps. Installing the board is done with the use of the included screws. There is plenty of space above the board, even with the included 200 mm fan. It would have been nice to see mounting holes for radiators here, but Thermaltake has chosen not to include this option with the Element T.


The screw-less system for the hard drive does not work very well. You are still required to use the included thumb screws to really tie things down and to avoid any vibration from the drive. One will need 22 such screws to fill the case with six hard drives. Then add seven more to secure the expansion cards of the mainboard. Thermaltake does not supply nearly enough for these purposes. The optical drive bay system on the other hand, does a surprisingly good job in holding the unit in place, so you won't need any additional screws there. But since there is only one such lock present, the bottom three external bays need at least 12 screws. Once again there are not enough of the type available. Such shortage can be found with most the screw types supplied with the Element T.


Installing the power supply works extremely well. It snaps into place very nicely with the use of the rail. Once everything is in place, there is plenty of space left to work inside the case.

Finished Looks

Upon turning the case on, the power LED and the top fan light up. The chassis looks quite nice, but it is not obvious if it is aimed at a gamer or professional. It looks too clean and a bit too boring for a gamer, but maybe a bit over the top for a professional user. I cannot image the chassis standing next to a stylish 30 inch LCD screen in photo studio - can you?


The overall fan noise of the included cooling units can be considered fairly quiet, but the internal parts will also add to the overall noise level as there is nothing holding it within the Element T.