Thermaltake Soprano DX

[Rob Williams]

Thermaltake has a case for everyone and for every price range. The Soprano is one of their less expensive ones, but you wouldn't know it by looking. In addition to it's sleek styling, it has a piano mirror coating and a brushed aluminum front panel.

You can read the full review here and discuss it here!

[Rory Buszka]

That fan in front is 140mm, not 200mm. Another note: that window is made from relatively thin plastic, so it transmits noise to the outside easily. I'm not a fan of Thermaltake's side windows. If I were purchasing this case, I'd take the version without the side panel window. The only things I like about that case are its glossy black finish and nifty front door look. I feel the '7' score is appropriate.

the side panel has room for only a 80mm fan, not a 120mm

[Matt Serrano]

I could have sworn the specs said 200mm on Thermaltake's site. The 120mm was a typo on my part. A las, both Taerworks and the mysterious poster are correct.

The window may feel a bit flimsy if you apply pressure on it, but I don't think the case is unbearably loud by any means.

[MakubeX]

Decent case. I wonder when are they going to stop using the thick, not so efficient, honey comb grills. I know the honey comb design is very efficient, but not when the metal between each hole is that wide and flat!

[Rory Buszka]

Actually, my complaint with the cooling has to do with Thermaltake's use of snap-in fan mounts, instead of mounts that screw straight to the case. Snap-in mounts allow more noise generation than rigid mounting, due to vibration. I could see myself dremeling out the fan grills, too.

[Sapientun]

Sweet! I was waiting for a review of this nice case. Atleast those plastic fan mounts make it easier for lazy people to install fans

My only complaint is about the front bezel.Too bad Thermaltake has decided to go with the same plastic front bezel like the Tsunami, something lots of people complained about

Heya,
Sorry to drag this up from the past again, but this is one of the few reviews I've found on this case.

I've got 3 main priorities for a case:

1) Must fit my GeForce 8800GTS card
2) Must be quiet
3) Must look 'swish'.

To me, the aesthetics of this case are astounding, just what I'm looking for, so it meets number 3, but what would you guys say about the former two points? Would it fit an 8800 if I removed the hard drive rigs, like you said? And how does it compare for noise levels, in comparison to other cases?

Thanks a lot for your help.

[Merlin]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I've got 3 main priorities for a case:

1) Must fit my GeForce 8800GTS card
2) Must be quiet
3) Must look 'swish'.



Thanks a lot for your help.

Check out the Antec NineHundred.....

http://techgage.com/article/antec_nine_hundred/

Read the techgage reviews here


Merlin

Yeh I looked at that, wasn't that keen to be honest. It's not as swanky looking, and I'm not a particularly hardcore gamer, so I'm not sure I really need the massive fans.

Hello all,

I have purchased the aformentioned case and I am pretty pleased with the looks, sound (lack of to be exact), convenience and temperature.

The only thing I cannot figure out is how in the world can the twin fans be connected to the motherboard jacks instead into some plain ol' power from the power supply.

There's one with 4 pins and one with 3 pins (why two different?), but they are quite small. Is a converter needed? Is there a good reason why the correct jacks where not used in the first place?

Reference to relevant reading material will be welcomed.

Thank you in advance,

Tal

[Merlin]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hello all,

I have purchased the aformentioned case and I am pretty pleased with the looks, sound (lack of to be exact), convenience and temperature.

The only thing I cannot figure out is how in the world can the twin fans be connected to the motherboard jacks instead into some plain ol' power from the power supply.

There's one with 4 pins and one with 3 pins (why two different?), but they are quite small. Is a converter needed? Is there a good reason why the correct jacks where not used in the first place?

Reference to relevant reading material will be welcomed.

Thank you in advance,

Tal

It depends on the motherboard for fan connections, the 4 pin fan connection is for speed control, usually for the CPU fan cooler.
Merlin

[Rob Williams]

Hi Tal:

I am not familiar with this chassis to be honest, and can't see all of the power connectors from our review, but in general, there are three kinds of fan connectors out there. The first two are small, and are either 3-pin or 4-pin - the latter has an extra fan so that the motherboard can control the speed if it has the capability to do so. There's also 4-pin Molex connectors, which are the same kind of power connectors that IDE hard drives used to use. Most often, if a fan uses one of these, it will have both a male and a female, so that it won't take one of the connectors from you.

If I understand you correctly, your fans are using those kinds of connectors, and if so, I don't think you have any other option than to plug it right into the power supply. There exist adapters, or convertors, to convert the small 3 or 4-pin power connectors into a large 4-pin Molex, but I've never seen the opposite. From what I recall, you can mod your Molex fans to become 3 or 4-pin connectors, but I wouldn't recommend it as it sounds like a pain in the rear.

Is there a reason you'd rather not use the Molex connectors on the PSU? If your PSU has none left, you might want to be on the lookout for another kind of adapter that will create additional Molex ports, such as a PCI-E to Molex adapter (I am not even positive this exists, but I'm confident it does).