Thermaltake Level 10 GTS Snow Edition Case Review

Today we are looking at Thermaltake’s mid tower snow edition version of the Level 10 case series, The Thermaltake Level 10 GTS Snow Edition case. This case does come in black and is identical except color. They also have a windowed version. I’m sure a lot of you have read about Thermaltake’s $800 full tower level 10 that was released a couple years ago that was in part designed by BMW. They brought out the full tower GT editions and this case is the mid tower copy of both of those cases. Due to its size, Thermaltake has either limited or excluded certain elements from the other cases but overall it’s a pretty good mid tower case for air or liquid cooling depending on your setup.

 

Specs from Thermaltake:

• Case Type: Mid Tower
• Dimension (H x W x D): 18.2 x 9.2 x 20.1 inches
• Weight: 6.8Kg / 15.1lb
• Colors: Exterior: White,  Interior Black
• Cooling System
  • Front (intake) : 200 x 200 x 20 mm Blue LED fan x 1 (600rpm, 13dBA)
  • Rear (exhaust) : 120 x 120 x 25 mm Turbo fan (1000rpm,16dBA)
  • Top (exhaust) : (optional) 200 x 200 x 30 mm fan x 1 or 120 x 120 x 25 mm fan x 2
  • Side (intake) : (optional) 200 x 200 x 30 mm fan or 140 x 140 x 25 mm fan x 1
  • Bottom (Intake) : (optional) 120 x 120 x 25 mm
• Drive Bays
  • HDD Easy swap : 4 x 3.5’’ or 2.5’’
  • Hidden : 1 x 3.5’’ or 2.5’’
• Expansion Slots: 7
• Motherboards: 9.6” x 9.6” (Micro ATX), 12” x 9.6” (ATX)
• I/O Ports: USB 3.0 x 2, USB 2.0 x 2, HD Audio x 1
• PSU: Standard PSU
• LCS Upgradable Supports: 1/2”, 3/8”, 1/4” water tubes
• CPU cooler height limitation: 175mm

Above I listed the specs but let us get deeper in what this case actually can do. The Thermaltake Level 10 GTS case can fit a huge heat sink and fans but make it hard to get the any wiring on the board in the top left accomplished. As a test bench for this case I used a MSI 870a-G54 ATX motherboard and an AMD Phenom II 965. To cool off the CPU I used Cooler Master’s V6GT cooler. While it works just fine and the cooler fit in there without any issues. I had put the motherboard in with the cooler attached and had issues with getting the 8 pin power connector plugged in, I ended up taking off the fans to get my 3, 4, and 8 pin connectors plugged in the top of the motherboard I was using. While not a big deal I did not think about this beforehand, it becomes a minor nuisance. Also if you have a cooler as big as the V6GT then you will not be able to use a side panel fan mounts for this case. You have about 1/4”-1/2” space between the side panel and top of cooler.   The video card that we used in this case was a XFX HD 6870 GPU. The video card is about 10.5” long and fit in without any issues. Of total space you do have about 12” for GPU length so you have a wide variety to choose from for this case.

Cable Management

Now all these items fit in fine because Thermaltake did a very good job with cable management for this smaller sized case.

You have ample holes to run cables though to get them out of the way for maximum organization and air flow. The only cables that stick out are if you are using the hidden 3.5” bay below the 5.25” bays. Since the rear of the drive is not facing the rear of the case you cannot conceal those cables.  Also it has rubber gourmets for the cables to go through to keep air in the important part of the case. One last note is they put a bracket on the rear of the case to run your cables though to keep them from cluttering up behind the case.

Drive Bays

The Thermaltake Level 10 GTS comes with easy swap bays like its big brother, the Level 10 GT. Unlike its big brother though you only have 4 of those trays along with a hidden one as I mentioned above. They do use the same mechanism to pull out with a button along with two keys so you can lock the HDD bays. The great thing about these trays is that you do not need any trays to fit 2.5” drives. It has holes already there for mounting along with screws that come with the case. For 3.5” drives they have rubber dampeners on the sides of the trays.

With this case you have technically 5 front bays. Four are 5.25” bays for an optical drive or other devices such as a fan controller. The fifth one is for a 2.5” device. Also the 5.25” bays are tool less design so you do not need any screws. It’s a simple turn of a knob to unlock and lock the drives in place. The 2.5” bay you will need to have screws for.

Front Panel

Along with the normal power and reset button you have two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports along with audio jacks for headphones and microphone. These are all located on the right side of the case.

Cooling

Out of the box this case comes with a 200mm blue LED fan for the front intake and a 120mm rear fan exhaust. While this is nice of Thermaltake to include these you will most likely need to purchase additional fans to get maximum cooling. The Thermaltake Level 10 GTS has mounts for a 200m side fan, 200mm top fan, and a 120mm bottom fan.  Even though Thermaltake did not include additional fans they did a nice job of giving you multiple options on what and where to mount additional fans.

The above picture is how Thermaltake suggest the air flow would be for air cooling with the installation of addition fans.

The above image is how Thermaltake suggest air flow for doing liquid cooling which this can fit a larger radiator like in the Thermaltake 2.0 or Corsair H100i coolers. They have also included three holes for tubing to set up a custom loop in this case. It may be a tight fit in this case but is definitely doable.

Other Features:

The Thermaltake Level 10 GTS case also has some other features such as it has dust filters in the bottom of the case and in front of the 200mm intake fan in the front.  The motherboard tray sports a huge opening so that you can change motherboard brackets for different coolers and not have to pull out the motherboard itself. The top does not have a filter but does have a mesh. This case can also support bigger power supply units. Thermaltake made sure this could fit its massive 1275W Tough Power PSU into this space. Also and this is a minor feature but depending on where you have your case sitting this can help alot. It has a fold down headphone tray.

Final Thoughts:

Considering the size and features this case is very versatile. While liquid cooling would probably not be ideal in this case it definitely was made with liquid cooling in mind for closed or custom loops. It has enough features to justify the price tag but it comes down to what you want to do with it. I would suggest a full tower but if space is a concern then this case can work  for you. If you want to use this case then my biggest thing would be to make sure you buy extra fans. With just one intake and exhaust the AMD 965 in this case idled about 40-42C. As soon as I put in a top exhaust and a bottom intake then that dropped to about 35C. While the hard drive trays leave enough space between them for air to get though it is not enough to push enough cool air in the case that you need at least another intake from the side or bottom. If you are using a bigger heat sink cooler than the side panel is not a choice. You can purchase this case from Amazon.com for 104.99 at the time of this review.

It’s not anywhere near the perfect case but it does pretty well for the features and size once you add some fans.

Pictures from Thermaltake