Thermaltake Core P5 Open Air Chassis

Don't see a thread on it, so…

Thermaltake Core P5 Open Air Chassis



Looks interesting, except for a few issues…

1 - ZERO thought given to 'external' cables; everything is so neat, but then we are expected to have all of our I/O cabling & the PSU power cable just hanging off the side there…?!?

2 - ZERO thought given to allowing for placing an I/O shield. Come on Tt, this is a standard-sized opening, and makes the I/O area MUCH cleaner looking. Plus, there is the whole "what port is this again?", because the labeling that is also on the I/O shield is not there…

3 - The expansion slot tray is HUGE…! But the chassis is made for miniITX, microATX & regular ATX. Why no adjustable PCI Expansion section? If you have, say, a miniITX board with a single PCI card, then you have said card looking all alone & forlorn on that huge expansion tray…

Those issues aside, I like it…!!!

Thoughts…?

I'm considering this case for a wall-mount build in the future.

Regarding your points:

1. External cables are almost always the responsibility of the buyer. There's very few cases out there that provide much in that arena. I would imagine anyone who buys this will have something planned on that side. It would be really hard for Thermaltake to come up with anything that would work for everyone given the variety of mounting options.

2. I agree on the I/O shield, but it's hard to imagine what they would have done that would look good on an open-air case design.

3. I'm going to try an SLI setup in this build (when Thermaltake makes the PCI extenders available as extra options). So the extra room will be useful in that configuration. In the completed builds they do have pictures of on the review sites, the card doesn't look too "lonely".

I'm curious about radiator mounting myself. I'd like to put a 480 push/pull in this, turned 90 degrees from the stock mounting. Put a nice filter on the "front" and blow the air across the components to help keep them cool. That might actually help keep the dust down too I'd imagine.

Take a closer look at the pics out there of this case…

The areas where cables plug into, the PSU power cable side (NOT the side where all the cables to your components goes) & the I/O on the motherboard, all end at the edge of the case. So when you DO plug your cables in, they are sticking out past the case & basically hanging in space.

The simple solution would have been to budge both the PSU & motherboard over a few inches (maybe make the case a bit wider?) and allow the cables to dive down & into the rather large back CABLE MANAGEMENT AREA that Tt has provided behind the case…!!!

As for the I/O cover, it is a STANDARD SIZE, so why they did not have a bracket to attach & pop the cover in place is just poor design.

Same with the PCIe bracket, they could offer different sizes; the chassis is designed for miniITX thru ATX boards. If I put a miniITX on there, I only have need for 2 PCIe slots on the securing bracket, not 7 or 8…

And another thing I noticed, the cable grommet area for the PSU cables, could they not have made that larger/longer? Seems like a port just a bit shorter than the PSU is wide would have made sense…

As for changing the orientation of the rad, would it not make more sense to pull air thru the chassis & blow it out the 'front'…?!? This way you are pulling cool air across your components rather than pumping hot exhaust from the rad across them…

Coulda sworn I posted in this thread already.

Oh well. Still feeling the "NOPE!" on this one.

Not a big fan of case windows. Even on clean wiring jobs.
And asking me to use an open-air case is asking to get yourself shot in the dick with a bazooka. Too much dust accumulation. I *LIKE* dust filters.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/thermaltake-core-p5-wall-mounted-case,30221.html




Looks fine with 1 video card when its setup like that. Cable management could be an issue, but whatever, LOOK AT THOSE FREAKIN PICS. With wi-fi, wireless mouse & keyboard, and a wireless headset you'd only have to deal with the power and video cable. Yes there are compromises in that but I don't think anyone looks at that case and thinks 100% practical anyways.

ZeqOBpf6 said:

Looks fine with 1 video card when its setup like that. Cable management could be an issue, but whatever, LOOK AT THOSE FREAKIN PICS. With wi-fi, wireless mouse & keyboard, and a wireless headset you'd only have to deal with the power and video cable. Yes there are compromises in that but I don't think anyone looks at that case and thinks 100% practical anyways.

Click to expand...

Well, adjusting the components over to the right by an inch or so, like stated before, would allow them to be hidden behind the chassis, where Tt intends the cable management to be…

Using wireless mouse, keyboard. etc. allows for only two cables; power & video. I would think if one is wall-mounting this beast, one could have an electrical outlet BEHIND the chase, PSU cable hidden! And one could run the video cable thru the wall as well (as is done on many a flat-panel wall-mount for televisions), and wall mount the monitor (new ASUS ROG Swift curved display?) as well; then ALL the cables would be hidden from view…

The dude doing the video on the Tt website says in the video that it is okay that the I/O cover is not there, because it is an Open Chassis anyway…

But then Tt takes the time to mount their I/O panel on the right side of the chassis in the cable management area, nice & neat. Contradictory…!

If you do wall mount this, you're going to have at least an inch or three of clearance between the wall and the back of the case itself. Plenty of room to run cables out of sight. I'd probably either go in-wall with them, or just get a cable cover and go straight down to the underside of the desk.

I don't get the complaints about the mATX/ITX support. Pretty much every big tower case out there will technically support those sizes, and they all look ridiculous with a mini-ITX in there.

I wouldn't worry too much about taking air in the front and blowing across the components. The temperature rise across a radiator like that would probably be <2C, so you're not really blowing "hot" air.

any thoughts of how to mount fans at the front to blow air across the board?

I was thinking of something like this Phyoba Stand:



I'm not sure if the mounting points on the base would line up with the backplate of the case though. Might require some custom braces or plates so you'd have something solid to put the bolts through.

i'm not averse to drilling into the case, but this is exactly what i was looking for, thanks Bandalo!

I'm still not sure if there's enough clearance to mount them sideways. It looks like it in the few end-on pictures I can find, but I haven't seen any actual measurements.

I'm considering ordering the case and the plate you listed above. that'll be one way to find out

Even thought component placement is different, this reminds me of Thermaltake's Level 10 case, stripped down into a test bench. I actually liked the Level 10 even though it got a lot of hate, but this is much cooler and the support for such a massive radiator is both nuts and totally fucking cool!

edit: whoa, that thing is only a $150? Nice! I expected Tt to charge some obscene amount, but that's very reasonable considering it's a highly niche product that won't do massive volume. Heck, I'd even go as far as to say it's close to a bargain considering what's on offer.

Chas said:

And asking me to use an open-air case is asking to get yourself shot in the dick with a bazooka. Too much dust accumulation. I *LIKE* dust filters.

Click to expand...

Unlike a system stuffed into a case, open-air systems are super easy to keep clean. It's just like watering a plant or any other form of housekeeping. Once or twice a week, take a few minutes and clean it. Simple and easy.

My current case has excellent dust filtering with very quick and easy to clean filters; I also keep it on top of my desk. End result is I'll sometimes get lazy and go a month or two w/o cleaning the filters (rare, but it happens). Even when I'm on point, it still accumulates enough that every year or so, I'll clean out the inside. By comparison, cleaning open-air cases is typically pretty quick and painless. Just do it every (other?) Sunday or whatever.

I'd never own one if I had to worry about pets/roomates/kids being near it tho. Accidents like someone tripping and sending a cup of water flying are instant death.

Yeah, I have 2 kids and a cat. The only reason I think this case is a winner is because it's wall-mountable. That keeps it much safer than sitting on the desk or the ground, and probably will keep the dust down too.

Boil said:

Don't see a thread on it, so…

Thermaltake Core P1 Open Air Chassis

View attachment 59385

Looks interesting, except for a few issues

2 - ZERO thought given to allowing for placing an I/O shield. Come on Tt, this is a standard-sized opening, and makes the I/O area MUCH cleaner looking. Plus, there is the whole "what port is this again?", because the labeling that is also on the I/O shield is not there

Click to expand...

I got the same chasis but the P1 model for a mini ITX build. This is my first build but I could see a bunch of easy different ways that Tt could have made a bracket or something to support the IO shield.

I just ended up hammering down the top flange of the IO shield a bit and lucky for the P1 case the metal rod is close enough to push the IO shield against it, I would assume it might be the same on other cases. Holds pretty sturdy (see image).


This is my first build and I just started, we'll see how things pan out. So far so good.

I'm pretty happy with mine.

Someone is feeling like Michael Bay. I do like it though.