Sunday evening we were invited to a dinner buffet hosted by Thermaltake, a great opportunity to meet with Tt and socialize with many of our affiliate sites. Today we’ve been invited to the Palazzo to meet with Thermaltake for a hands-on introduction to what Thermaltake will be bringing to the table in 2013. So far Tt has been fairly quiet about what their plans for the upcoming year, and it’s time for them to reveal their hand.
Written by: Adam and Wes
Pictures by: Wes
The first area of the Thermaltake suite that we had the chance to checkout was their case lineup. Thermaltake was showing off their Chaser lineup first. With the Chaser lineup they spoke about fundamental changes in their case designs. For example in the past Thermaltake has focused more on side panel fan designs than windows, they are now planning on having more of a focus on having side panel windows in response to consumers having more interested in aesthetics. Another part of their changes are chassis designs that are slightly longer and able to support a wider variety of motherboards like E-ATX for example. The Chaser lineup pictured below has a few different models, with small differences like some being mid towers and other being considered full towers. If you notice they all look fairly close in height, with only an inch or two setting them apart. They are also playing around with going beyond black and white with other colors like the blue cases pictured (they called it Thunderblue). They also mentioned testing out a Yellow as well.
Our tour guide Art spoke to us about a project that he has been working on that wasn’t ready as of CES. Much like me (Wes) he is a big fan of Mini ITX builds. Thermaltake is working on a Mini ITX case that should get people excited. They are currently working on tweaking the design to support a full ATX power supply and to add more hard drive capacity from its current 2 SSD, 1 HDD configuration. One of the most interesting things that he pointed out was that they are planning on fully supporting a Water 3.0 kit in the case, something that can be a little tricky in some other small form factor cases. They are expecting to announce this case officially by the end of the month with a late first quarter or early second quarter launch.
Next we took a look at the upcoming “Urban” series. The Urban series is similar to their Soprano series with a quieter design. Those of you who like a simpler stylish design with love this new line of cases. I (Wes) asked them is this was in response to gamers getting older and looking for a cleaner look as they buy houses and have kids (an age group that in my opinion used to look more to pre built computers, but with pc building experience are more likely to want to build their own). Their response was this:
“Thermaltake, for the most part, is going to be segregating more of a simplistic, elegant design for some cases, and then we have our gaming. So before it used to be all gaming, all radical looks, everything. But now we’ll be splitting. We’ll have that demographic where they just want that nice, elegant design.”
The Urban series does have an elegant design but they did still focus on features that enthusiasts expect. For example the docking station on the top of the case has a dust cover now in response to past designs. They of course included USB 3.0 and there is more room for water cooling support. For example they went slightly wider and when you run a thick water cooling loop on the top you aren’t limited to low profile memory any longer. There are a total of four variations on the Urban series including a model with a window and even one with sound dampening material for an even quieter experience.
We moved on to Tt’s upcoming cooling solutions, the line currently referred to as Nic representing air cooling. They are designed to look similar to the Frio, but currently sport the more traditional company colors of red and black. The mold has been compacted to help with heatsink clearance while still maintaining traditional 120mm and 140mm fans. The Nic family is slated to phase out the Frio and should be priced about ten to fifteen dollars cheaper.
Liquid cooling neighbored the Nic line, with samples of both the new Water 3.0 and 760 Pro kits. Notable improvements from Water 2.0 include a shift from the sleeve bearing design of the Asetek units to ball bearing, resulting in quieter performance. Tubing is also fully integrated instead of detachable, and all the fans will be PWM. Continuing with our interest in Tt’s plans for mini-ITX and small form factor builds in general, Art mentioned goals of combining the 760 series with Water 3.0 for better customization. A benefit of this would be smaller tubes, which can alleviate a lot of pain when installing water cooling in a small chassis. He also spoke of the ambition to eliminate the 240 radiators for 120mm or 140mm specifically, and even on to 80mm options.
The 760 Pro is a redesign of the 760 Plus, with a few upgrades, such as a full Koolance block; instead of the hybrid plastic and aluminum design, the Pro will feature aluminum and steel mounting. The pump will also see an upgraded flow rate from 500 to 700, a response to customers’ desires for graphic card water cooling.
“We took a lot of feedback from customers. We like to look especially at Amazon and Newegg primarily. In fact this was actually a recommendation, to go to the Swiftech block, because people just love the mounting.”
This flow rate was tested with two 680s in regular SLI and performed without a hitch. The Pro also sports a stronger tank, addressing some leakage issues reported from an admittedly “brittle” solution before, and will feature barbs instead of rubberized fittings.
Power supplies were on and running, providing power to a display of Thermaltake’s case lighting products. Labeled as Lumi, these string lights are daisy-chainable and are planned to be offered in several lengths. While lights aren’t too exciting by themselves, it was intriguing to hear Art talk of the brainstorming that went in to how to power the accessories. Realizing the the traditional Molex connector is becoming overshadowed by SATA or even 6-pin PCI Express power, Tt is researching the latter leads as a replacement. The lighting was one of the many products that could take advantage of multiple power sources. Art assured that regardless of the outcome, convenience for the customer was priority, and adapter would be included in the box.
“That’s our focus this year: making everything easier for the customer, so they don’t have to go out and buy an adapter or figure something out, it’s just a lot easier. Everything is in the package, while maintaining the price points.”
The EVO Blue 2.0 sampled a few upgrades for us, including a Turbo button that allows an extra 100 Watts of power on demand. Thermaltake had ran this in simulation for 14 hours straight without any hiccups. The Blue 2.0 is based off the Toughpower design, including quality features like Japanese capacitors while maintaining a more affordable price point.
Battery backups are something we’re seeing offered from a lot of companies, but as reminded when my camera died while recording our interview with Art are much needed. We did also see a nifty pocket-size device that will serve as a USB Ethernet with powered Hub and WiFi version available, to combat the bulky portable routers. Though the sample was USB 2.0 and 10/100 Mbps, the goal is to move into USB 3.0 for full Gigabit support.
We’ve covered the BlacX docking stations and still use them in the office, what we thought was just a color scheme shift to the Snow white theme we see in many of Tt’s products actually held a few new features. Cloning, for example (one of our main uses of the docks), has been built into the dock, with software included. RAID options are also available. These models will be completely USB 3.0, and are slated for the March time frame.
The Tt eSports brand finished out the remainder of the suite, which prompted me (Adam) to ask about the recent news of Thermaltake’s own competitive team, the Tt Dragons, dissipating as of the beginning of the new year. Thermaltake seems to be repositioning, moving more towards StarCraft II sponsorship, which was also apparent in the design of many new eSports mice when Art told us they catered to input given from professional players of the title. While they may be moving more towards sponsoring individual players instead of team, we were assured that Thermaltake is still very much committed to the competitive gaming scene, especially when it comes to spreading exposure into North America.
As we were guided to the Draco line of headsets, we immediately picked up on the cradles they rested on. If you’ve been to one of our LANs, chances are you’ve seen headsets hanging from banana stands purchased from grocery stores, enough to the point it spawned a faux gaming group within our community dubbed Team Banana Stand. In alternative, Thermaltake will be offering a much more appealing Hyperion headset cradle to be priced at around eleven to twelve dollars. Considering the dull white banana stand will run you near seven, that price point makes the Hyperion a great value.
The Draco series, split between Signature and Classic, are marketed more towards the music industry. One of the complaints from older models was the lack of a microphone, which is being addressed through models included a detachable solution.
