When searching for the quietest, nicest case for your rig, there are certain features you must look for. Some of these are Size, Air Flow, and Expandability. Thermaltake has been making cases along with their other equipment, targeting the computer enthusiast and hardware modder. Thermaltake’s Aguila case looks to be a well-built and expandable case that’s sure to impress at the next LAN party!
The Thermaltake Aquila is an ATX/BTX midtower that appears quite well designed. With the side window and the modders screen door, it is very visually appealing, and is one of those cases that you could display and be proud of. Manufacturers have to keep up with today’s hardware, as cooling and flexible installation is almost essential in today’s market. Extreme air coolers, water-cooling, and phase change coolers are getting better and smaller, and are being made to be compatible with most PC cases. The Agila is advertised to hold Thermaltake’s Bigwater 735 system (but more on that later) but for now let’s see what this thing has to offer…
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All of these options and features make for a very nice desktop midtower. The front of the case houses five (5) 5-¼ bays on top and one on the bottom. Also right beside the front fan there is another that is vertical on the left. The power/reset panel can be switched out for another external 3-½ bay. The entire mesh screen is backed with a foam dust filter, which is one of the better features I have seen in a case in a while.
The swinging door on the front is very thick and sturdy, and protrudes from the actual front of the case by about 4 inches on the bottom, allowing for plenty of air to be drawn through the case front. Both the door and the Face of the case are removable, making the bay covers easily accessable. Thermaltake redesigned the screw-less snap in hardware where they actually snap on to your drives instead of you having to hold them on while being installed.
Looking at the case side side, the window is attached with the usual plastic rivets, along with the mesh screen in the fan cutout in the side. The bottom of the inside is riddled with holes, which are used to mount the water pump from the Bigwater kits.
There are alot of hardware features, and Thermaltake still manages to make them screw-less and allow easy access mounts for CD/DVD drives. The internal HDD mount is a screw type with dampeners in the mounts to reduce vibration. The position of the HDD mount is perfect, being right behind the front 120mm intake fan. This will be enough to keep the HDDs cool, which should prolong drive life.
This particular HDD mounts the hard drives in reverse fasion with the cables on the opposite side of the case (where they cannot be seen). This is not a case to cram 4000 bucks worth of parts in and expect it to look neat.
The bay on the bottom front is an excellent place to hide extra cables and excess cables, and the space between the ROM cage and the motherboard tray is wide enough to place wires and cables out of site also. The motherboard tray is offset from the ROM tray by about ¾ of an inch.
On the top of the case you have the usual flip open USB, firewire, and headphone/mic connections. The connection cables are almost three (3) feet long allowing for a little more mobility in the installation of all the connectors. I still believe that these would be best placed at the bottom side or in the front across the bottom, instead of in the way of all activity that will be going on with the power supply in that area already. A cooling fan would be better suitable in this area.
The cooling fans used on this case are suitable for positive airflow thought the case. One blowing across the hard drives, and the other pushing air out the back. This extra airflow should keep new air flowing across the motherboard, which should help users with air cooling. The fans used are the normal Thermaltake fans pushing about 40 CFM each. The front fan is clear blue LEDs fan, and the rear is the non-LED version.
The option that makes this a box case also is the back panels. Both of which are removable so you can rearrange them to support the BTX style. This does however make it easier to install the motherboard components with them removed just remember to put in the motherboard I/O plate before you reinstall the panels.
There is plainly not enough room for the extra cards, and any of the Bigwater setups. The positioning of the pump and the reservoir will interfere with your expansion cards. On the DFI SLI-DR the video card is about ½ inch above the top of the reservoir — and that is with a 7800gt! Tthe bigger cards like the 7900gtx will not have that much room at all (and just forget about SLI). Another of my pet peeves with a case this size it is so much easier to deal with if the motherboard tray is removable, which instantly gives a case points.
This case would also be better if it was a little lighter. All aluminium is the way to go now, especially if you’re going to haul it around to multiple LAN parties. After everything was installed I was pushing 45 pounds (and just over 50 pounds with the Bigwater installed). Aluminum construction would have shed 10 pounds off this gorilla! The front door also needs a way to latch it closed, as it will swing during transport, possibly breaking or bending the hinges.
This case is nice and all, but you will not be able to run an SLI setup, large soundcard (like the X-fi with watercooling installed as advertised), or any of the other things that modders are going to have in their systems. Overall this case is very efficient, if you don’t need lots of space for your components.
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