Thermaltake’s full tower Chaser MK-I takes the heat from QuadFire and Bulldozer

Installing the PSU and Hardware

Let’s look at our options for installing our power supply into the Thermaltake Chaser MK-I

The PSU can be installed fan up or fan down.  Ideally it is installed as shown with the air being sucked through the PSU’s fan through the bottom and out the back of the grille – independent of the case’s air flow.We see there is a removable metal mesh dust filter that is supplied for use with the power supply and built into the bottom of the case. Of course, if you use your PSU with the fan facing up, there is no need for a dust filter. If you install your PSU with the fan facing downward as in this case, the best place for a dust filter is naturally under the power supply, to protect it from clogging with dust as the fan will pull cool air (and dust) in from beneath the case.

Also notice that the case’s feet elevate the case above the floor so that there is good airflow even on a thick carpet.  The feet can swing several directions to enhance the stability of the case.  Unfortunately there is nothing to protect the feet from scratching a hardwood floor or table.

The alternative is to install the power supply unit “upside down” with the fan facing upward. The warm air from inside the case is now exhausted out the PSU’s grille. One of the disadvantages with the fan facing up is that now you have to take extra care so as to not to drop a screw or other tiny object into the now open PSU. As a tip, cover your open PSU with a cloth when you are adding a video card, for example.

Here is the case with the motherboard, RAM, CPU and cooler installed in the case.  Notice how much room there is!

Installing the motherboard is done by using the included spacers and screws. It should become apparent at this point, that full tower cases are very spacious if one is used to mid-towers and that now there is a lot more room to work with.

Many PC builders install the CPU and CPU cooler first along with the RAM on the motherboard and then install it into the case.  We are very glad for the Chaser’s thoughtfully placed cable management cutouts.

You can also see from that the front bottom half of the case is taken up by a non-removable hard drive cage which can accommodate six hard drives. The top area allows for 4 optical drives which are also secured with screws (supplied) or can just be clipped in.

Well, we have our build completed and we decided to test it with our overclocked to 4.6GHz  FX-8150 and HD 69×0 CrossFire-X3 – HD 6990 plus HD 6970 all clocked to 880/1330MHz – notice the external PSU for a total of 1625W!

Let’s see if can keep our components cool with the near-equivalent of a space heater inside our Chaser MK-I.  The inside temperatures actually went way up once the doors were opened compared to closed and the temperature also rose quickly when the power and the cooling fans were turned off.  Our room went from cool to very warm in less than 2 hours just by using our components for testing.  It was actually quite pleasant gaming inside on a cool day.