Up front and personal…
The word hybrid applies to more than just the case and water-cooling kit. The front door is an example; is it a door, a flap, or what?In reality, it's basically two flaps protecting the front of the chassis, held in place with two magnets.
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Although the opening between the flaps isn’t big enough for an optical drive tray, it’s certainly fine for a cardreader or floppy drive.
The front would lead you to believe that up to 10 drives can fit in the panel; if only it was that simple!
A nice touch is the power bay at the top, a simple solution that allows you to move the power buttons to any of the top four bays.
In addition, the power bay can also accommodate a 3.5” device, perfect for a floppy drive or cardreader.
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The left-hand panel is pre-fitted with three windows, made from one single sheet of Perspex secured to the panel using push-clips. In the bottom window is the Thermaltake slogan ‘cool ALL your life’.
The panel itself isn’t the easiest to remove, with the exceptionally tight fit and the need to use two latches at the same time.
It's catch-22 here, at least there is very little vibration from the panel as the fit’s so snug.
Oh, and before I forget, there are two thumbscrews holding the panel in place at the back. These are not your average thumbscrews, in fact they look like they were designed for Shrek-sized fingers. If anything, you’ll never lose them and they certainly are easy to work with.
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Up top is the ventilation for the internal heat that surrounds a simple pop-up cover for access to the exterior ports. The usual suspects are here, One FireWire, a couple of USB 2.0, headphone and mic. ports.