Enermax Thormax Giant E-ATX Full-Tower Chassis Review

Peter Donnell / 9 years ago

Introduction

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Enermax have created some truly stunning products over the years, from stunning CPU coolers, loads of amazing chassis’, great power supplies and much more! So I’m very happy to see one of their flagship chassis in the office today, the Thormax Giant, the E-ATX edition of their ever-popular Thormax. Of course, as the ‘Giant’ part of the name would suggest, this chassis isn’t small, and it’s not especially cheap either, clocking in at around £120 here in the UK.

From the Thormax Giant, you get a lot back in return for your investment. There’s room for E-ATX motherboards, which means 9 expansion slots; more than enough for a triple GPU configuration. There’s a pair of 180mm T.B.Vegas fans pre-installed, as well as a rear 120mm fan, with room for plenty more fans should you need them and impressive water cooling potential to boot.

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One thing is immediately apparent, this is one seriously aggressive looking chassis! It may look a little out of place in the office of an accountant, but it’s going to look the part for a high-end gaming rig. There’s a funky side panel window, lots of ventilation and even a 180mm Blue LED fan on the left side panel.

The right side is much the same design as the left, albeit without the window or the fan.

More aggressive shapes on the front, with loads of ventilation on the bottom half for yet another 180mm fan, with support for 200mm, as well as ventilated 5.25″ drive bay covers.

Around the back you’ll find a 120mm fan pre-installed, with support for a 140mm fan if you need it. There’s two pop-out covers at the top for cable/water routing, as well as four rubber grommeted cut-outs down the side for more of the same.

Even more ventilation on the top for optional top mounted cooling. You’ll even find room for an (up to) 360mm radiator here.

The front panel is very well equipped. There’s a flat space for storing your phone, keys, loose change, etc. There’s a control panel for the power and reset, as well as fan LED control and fan speed control. Finally, you’ll find HD audio jacks, dual USB 3.0 and quad USB 2.0 ports.

The base of the chassis has two slide-out dust filters and four very sturdy feet.

The feet can be swung outwards, providing you with an extremely stable base for your system; this is great if you have a lot of cooling in the top, making your chassis top-heavy.

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Interior

Behind the front panel, you can better see that huge 180mm fan, which comes fitted with a nice fan guard to help prevent cables from getting trapped within the fan blades. The side panel will also support a 200mm fan.

The interior of the Thormax Giant is well, giant! There’s a large CPU cooler mounting cut-out behind the motherboard, as well as a plethora of cable routing grommets.

There’s room for even the largest ATX PSUs on the market and four thick rubber mounting pegs to help reduce any vibrations.

There’s a lot of clearance below the storage bays, allowing you to install a thick 240mm radiator of some fans in the base of the chassis.

There’s two hard drive bays on offer, the lower offers two tool-free drive trays, the upper offers three more. the top three bays are mounted on a tool-free fitting and can be quickly removed should you feel the need.

There are four 5.25″ drive bays with tool-free fittings and one comes with an adaptor for 2 x 2.5″ drives and 1 x 3.5″ drives; this can be removed should you actually need to install a 5.25″ drive.

the rear 120mm fan. One thing that immediately stands out to me is the quality of the fans included with this chassis, most chassis I take the fans right out and install my own, but the Enermax fans are premium quality.

All nine expansion slots come fitted with thumb screws and ventilated metal covers for easy installation.

There’s loads of room behind the motherboard for cable management. Here you can also better see the huge amount of cable routing grommets, as well as yet another 2.5″ hard drive mount behind the motherboard!

With the top cover removed, we find a plethora of fan mounts, with 120/140/180/200mm fittings. You’ll also find support for 120/140/240/280/360mm radiators!

Behind the front panel, the 180mm intake fan, which as I said before, can be swapped out for a 200mm if you felt the need.

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Complete System

Building a system inside the Thormax Giant was an absolute job, as the chassis is very spacious and easy to work with. Here you can see my 2.5″ hard drive installed easily enough behind the motherboard.

Around the front, a very nice and tidy build overall. There’s so much space in here for clean airflow from the front mounted fan and cable management is fantastic.

There’s a lot of space in the bottom for a radiator still.

I have bundled my GPU cables here by choice, as they’re quite long cables and I didn’t want them traveling over the GPU, but Enermax include some rather nice Velcro ties in the box to help with cable management.

I removed the upper hard drive bay, I didn’t need to, but it’s nice to show you that if anyone makes a GPU the size of a cargo ship, the Thormax Giant will support it.

More than enough room here for our dual Sapphire R9 270X graphics cards and dependant on your motherboard PCI-e layout, you should be able to manage a third graphics card too.

There’s a lot of clearance at the back and top of the motherboard, leaving you ample room for rear and top mounted thick radiators, perfect for those who wish to install a custom water cooling loop or AIO solutions.

All panels back in place and you can appreciate the view through that funky shaped side panel window. Yes, I know you can see the fan cable trailing there, that’s my own silly mistake and it can be easily hidden. I’ve also deployed those cool feet to help keep the chassis nice and stable. Those with keen eyesight will also notice the headset holder on the top right corner. The headset holder is magnetic and simply snaps onto the chassis, this was included in the box and it’s always nice to have a few freebies with your chassis.

Time for the light show and you can see how cool those T.B.Vegas fans look. The fan control button on the top of the chassis allows you to adjust the speed of the fan, as well as the lighting mode between a few common effects, as well as turning the LEDs off completely.

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Final Thoughts

Pricing

At the time of writing, I couldn’t find a retail link from one of our preferred partners, but a quick Google will find you a Thormax Giant for around £120 in the UK. Readers in the US will find it at Newegg for a very reasonable $139.99.

Overview

The name of this chassis implies something big and Enermax have certainly delivered in this regard, as the Thormax Giant is huge, but also brings a huge amount of features and a fair amount of value for money at the same time. When you need room for a multi-GPU configuration, mass amount of storage, a high-end motherboard, as well as all the power and cooling requirements that go with that kind of hardware, then you’re going to need a big chassis and you certainly get that here.

What does impress me, is just how many features are tucked away in this chassis. First off, we have three very high quality fans, two of which are massive 180mm LED fans. Then you’ve got a fan controller, LED controller, six front panel USB ports, slide out feet, headset holder, washable dust filters, removable and tool free drive bays, extra drive bay adaptor for 5.25″ drive bay, as well as another 2.5″ drive mount behind the motherboard. That not enough? OK, we also have vast amounts of cable routing space with extensive use of rubber grommets, the side panel window, lots of ventilation, rubber grommets on the rear of the chassis; the list goes on.

Sure this chassis isn’t cheap, but once you factor in those high quality fans and the fan controller, it’s surprisingly great value for money. Pretty much any hardware you’re ever likely to need is going to fit and while I admit the aggressive design is somewhat subjective, it has grown on me and it looks pretty funky with the LED fans fired up too. Build quality is spot on and while there are a lot of plastics on show, they’re all nicely constructed and finished, giving the chassis a nice matte finish.

Pros