Thermaltake Commander MS-I Snow Edition Mid-Tower Chassis Review
Andy Ruffell / 12 years ago
The right side of the case offers a plain white design with a slightly raised area for your relevant cables to sit behind. Being a flat panel wouldn’t allow the necessary space for cables, as well as extra ventilation needed.
The opposite side however, offers up the same slightly raised design for continuity, but also includes space for a small custom shaped perspex window. The square fan grill could possibly be used for custom mounting a fan, though Thermaltake don’t list it as one of the available spaces in their official specifications.
The top of the chassis has space for a single 120mm fan towards the front, though another fan grill is situated next to it, towards the rear of the case. Once again, with some custom fittings, a fan could most likely be installed, but Thermaltake don’t mention this in their product breakdown or specifications.
The front of the chassis has a very unique design with a monochrome look which utilises a slanting design to give extra flair to the front fascia. Three 5.25″ optical drive bays are on offer with black ventilated panel covers, all inclusive of padded dust filters. Moving further down, you’ll see a few front panel connectors and buttons with a further black ventilated panel for the best ventilation possible. While Thermaltake mention that a 120mm fan could be installed here, it looks as though things could be very tight and probably not the best idea if that’s what you’re looking to do.
When looking at the front panel connectors, we find a single USB 2.0 port, microphone 3.5mm jack, headphone jack and a further USB port, this time however, utilising USB 3.0 technology which is routed directly to your motherboard through use of a native USB 3.0 header.
Slightly further over towards the right of the case, we find a power button, reset button and two front panel LED’s including a hard drive activity light.
The rear of the chassis really sets that monochrome styling off by offering a full black panel. The rear I/O is situated in its usual location, but slightly further towards the top of the case, leading us to believe that fitting any form of top mount radiator of 240mm or above could be tricky with overlapping the board. A pre-installed 120mm fan comes included which incorporates a blue LED for some funky mood lighting too.
Moving further down, we find two holes for watercooling tubes, though no rubber grommets are included if that’s the direction you want to take you system into. There are 7 expansion bays in total which is typical for a mid-tower sized chassis, and little to no ventilation is present on these. The expansion bays do include a locking mechanism which requires you to remove before removing the separate bays, though this is simply just a normal screw and doesn’t provide much security. Further to this, we find the power supply is installed at the extreme bottom of the case and includes a removable dust filter..
Flipping the case over and taking a look at the bottom, there are four feet which allow the chassis to sit off of the floor or desk surface to give extra ventilation when exhausting hot air from the power supply. You can see the relevant clips for the removable dust filter, as well as space for a further 120mm fan at the bottom of the case.
