Thermaltake Spedo Case

SPECIFICATION & FEATURES

Specifications

The Thermaltake Spedo comes in 3 flavors, which would inevitably lead to a highly convoluted hard to read table, so we decided to go it a little different with the Spedo.

The Spedo model is non-windowed, the Spedo Advance Package is what we have for review and it has a side window, and the Spedo LCS Advance Package is windowed and it includes a water cooling system.

Features

Again, with the features of the Spedo it's not enough to just list them in a table. It often happens with items of great beauty and functionality that words fall short of properly describing it (this is one of those cases, pun intended). If we throw up a table or a list you'll skim over it and miss a lot of the beauty and functionality of the chassis. If you'd prefer to see the list instead let us know in the forum thread.

Out of the box with no modifications the Thermaltake Spedo is dual Radiator ready; no modifications, no drilling, just bolt it in and run. For those wanting to go with water cooling that's a really nice feature.

You can install 5 1/4 inch drives easily by gently lifting on the drive release handle and sliding it in the bay. This particular design is superior to most we've seen and holds the drive quite securely. Then it just looks really wicked; most are some kind of knob you turn and lack flair and style. Thermaltake managed to merge functionality with flair and style in this tool free design.

The removable Hard Drive bay system in the Spedo is really elegant. Lift the handle and the whole drive tray comes out for easy access, one drive tray at a time.

Lift the big handle you see on top and the whole bay comes out for easy access. Relocating the bay is a little more involved.

To relocate the HD Bay you have to remove the front of the chassis, then slide the bay out and move it to the desired location.

The side fan is 230mm and provides excellent cooling across the motherboard and those ever hotter GPU's the major manufacturers are cranking out. That's not the most unusual part of the door and fan design though.

You know how you always have that fan cord to hide coming off of the side panel? On the Thermaltake Spedo you don't have that hassle anymore. On the front corner of the chassis you have contact points for the fan's electrical connector. You can leave the system running and open the door and there is no trailing cord and the fan shuts down automatically. That's not evolutionary, that's revolutionary! Kudos, Thermaltake!

The Spedo has tool free expansion ports and on some chassis we've seen that this makes for problems with larger GPU's. We didn't have any problem installing a dual slot ATI 4870 video card in the Spedo and the expansion port clips held it firmly in place. It's removable for those that prefer old school methods.

One of the features in the Spedo we'll be looking at later is thermal chambers. One of the thermal chamber components has a parts drawer for those pesky left over screws and assorted parts we always seem to have left over. If you're storing anything else in there away from prying eyes we'd rather not know.

Part of the elegant design of the Spedo is Cable Routing Management 3. Thermaltake implemented more cable management features into the Spedo than we've ever seen on any one chassis.

The hard drive cables can be routed behind the motherboard to the side mounted Hard Drive Bays and the cabling is almost entirely out of sight. They also included a feature you don't see often on the motherboard tray side, room for a 120mm fan to fit in between the chassis side and the motherboard tray to keep the motherboard temps down. Part of the CRM3 (Cable Routing Management 3) are the plastic covers you see pictured. Run the wiring through the motherboard tray and behind the plastic trays and the door will close easily and keep those unsightly wires neatly tucked away.

Inside the Spedo you can see the 120mm rear tray mounted fan but there's a host of things going on in here. The bottom mounted PSU in a chassis often poses wiring problems. On the Spedo they left the bottom edge of the motherboard tray open so wires can be routed under the tray and through the slots you see on the tray itself, leaving your wiring out of sight and a professional clean looking layout inside the chassis.

From the side angle of the chassis you get a glimpse of the two included 120mm fans which operate whisper quiet. That's also the space provided for a dual radiator if you go that route.

On the interior top on the Spedo you'll find a 200mm fan. Between the side mounted 230mm and the top 200mm we're looking at 430mm of cooling power. Add to that the two rear mounted 120mm fans and we're looking at 670mm of fans pushing air. Then, there's the fan they threw into the bundle box (we'll look at it later) and the drive cage fan so we're seeing 910mm of combined fan space.

Wait a minute there, do our eyes deceive us? There is room for one more 120mm fan on the bottom (the one closest to the PSU is for the PSU fan). So we're seeing 1030mm for fan acreage. Wait another minute, what's that inside the chassis?

Behind the drive bays there's one last fan slot. It's an adjustable fan bracket that slides up and down to anywhere you want to position it, and the fan can be tilted to direct the air at any component you desire. That's a feature we've been waiting to see for far too long. The last fan brings us to a massive total of 1150mm of fan space. That would make the Spedo "King of the Hill" for air flow and cable routing management enthusiasts.

Lets move on to the Packaging, Pictures, and Bundle section before we spend the rest of the day marveling at the Spedo's plethora of mouth watering features.