Thermaltake Element G Mid Tower PC Case
The Thermaltake Element G is a great mid Tower sized case that has plenty of fancy features inside and out of the stylish looking case.
Ease of Use, Performance: 23/25
Look & Feel: 25/25
Features 23/25
How much I enjoy 24/25
Total: 95/100
Thermaltake has a wide range of PC cases and the Element G is definitely a gamers case but works equally well for any system regardless of typical use. The Element G is a mid tower case that is about 19 inches deep, 9 inches wide and 20.5 inches tall with 140 to 230mm fans included.
The Element G is a mostly steel with plastic case that has four fans standard with two 200mm, one 140mm fan and one 230mm fan and room for more front and rear. The fans are nicely positioned for cooling but one very nice feature you recognize off the bat is the side fan and panel.
The side panel easily removes and has a touch plate with contacts that work when the panel is in place and connects the fan electrically. When the panel is removed the contacts are separated and the fan no longer runs so you don’t have to mess or worry about unplugging the side panels fan.
The side panels also have a rubber seal to reduce vibration and noise along with the very quiet fans that also help reduce the noise of the Element G. I found the system very quiet and only noisy when hard drives or optical drives were running as long as you use a quiet PSU.
The classic black look is not marred but enhanced by a red stripe around the side panels and the fans can change colors with the press of the fan speed knob. The fans are all controlled from one knob/switch that also changes the colors from off to steady blue, green or red than rotating each color around each fan or changing through each color continuously.
The front of the Element G also has the controls for power on and reset, four USB connections and the two audio connections for microphone and headphones. The Element G has room for 7 3.5 inch drives along the front bottom, 2 2.5 inch drives and three 5.25 inch optical drives.
The case can hold a regular ATX or micro ATX motherboard and has the regular space for a PSU at the bottom of the case along with a bracket right above it. This bracket can hold the two 2.5 inch drives above the PSU and behind the front drive cages which are a kind of tool free cage for the 7 3.5 inch slots.
The drive bays for the 3.5 inch drives has a pull tab that holds and releases the drives but you do have to put special screws on each drive that fit in the drive slots. The three 5.25 inch bays are regular screw in slots so you do have to use tools with this case for most of the compnents.
Installation of my system with a Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 motherboard and other parts went well and my system was up and running without any problems. There is enough room to install components but not as much as larger full tower cases inside as you would expect.
The quickly removable hard drive slots make for easy installation of drives and the unique bracket for the two 2.5 inch drives make it nice if you use smaller drives in your system. The fans are nicely positioned in front, rear, side and top to allow airflow through the case and across components that require more cooling.
There are slots for more fans, one 120 mm in front and two smaller 60mm on the rear of the case if you need more cooling as well as pass through holes for water cooling tubing. Cooling will not be an issue if you have a more normal system but you can add more if you need it, I found the fans are quite sufficient to keep a good powered system cool.
After assembling the system I found both noise and cooling to be no problem with the Element G as the fans even running at their lowest speed keeps my system cool unless I’m gaming or stress testing. The fans running at full speed using the fan controller kept my system cool even during the most intense gaming or during those warmer days of late summer here in Minnesota.
The case has enough room with a full sized ATX motherboard for some larger CPU heat sink fan assemblies like the Scythe Ninja Copper or the Thermaltake Spin Q. Another really nice feature is the slots along the back of the motherboard that might allow access to the mounting screws of some motherboards.
The cable management is helped with slots from the main area to the right side for cables to pass through as they go toward the front panel. You can route drive cables and power cables to the drives through here if you position the drive cage with its openings toward the side.
The lower drive cage is removable and can be facing the front or the side for easier access depending on your system but the upper three 5.25 inch cage is fixed in place. You can also remove the bracket above the PSU that holds the two smaller hard drives if you don’t want it installed for a very fully featured case.
The case only has the three optical drive bays but it does have plenty of room for hard drives like many gaming cases with RAID systems need. The lack of optical bays is not that much of a problem and I really do not see most systems needing more than the three.
The Element G does start out as a great looking case and moves along with great performance and even a great protective bag when you first open the box to unpack your new purchase. Once you have your system installed you can move on to the great looks and even the fancy lighted fans according to your style.
The Thermaltake Element G is really a great case and one I highly recommend as a fantastic looking and performing case for your computer system.