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

Final verdict

After months of living with the Thermaltake Chaser MK-I, we like it for its aggressive looks, we appreciate it for its incredible ability to keep our components cool and we love the light show when we are in the mood.  Best of all, we like the doors that swing outward easily and the top hard drive dock.  In addition the two external USB 3.0 ports definitely speeds up transferring data noticeably over using USB 2.0.

Let’s sum up the many positives verses the negatives:

Positive:

• The HDD dock is awesome for its convenience.  We would suggest that Thermaltake adds a second one.
• Good looks. Ideal for a gamer that needs a full-size tower.
• LED light show that is variable and can be switched on/off to suit your mood
• Extra-ordinary cooling performance with 3 stock fans to manage overclocked CPUs and three GPUs.
• Well-managed spacious interior.
• Excellent cable management system with intelligent cutouts for easy CPU removal and installation
• Easy customization for adding additional cooling fans or for watercooling when you want to be extreme
• Tool-free design and user friendly
• The side panels hinge like doors making it easy to access the interior
• Dust filters are included for every space that counts and the case is designed to keep dust out
• Three year warranty!

Negatives:

• The bezels are not tight to the case.  Be careful where you grab!
• The feet are not rubber covered and will scratch hardwood floors.

The negatives are not major and generally are easily remedied. Our conclusion is that the Chaser MK-I is a great enthusiast stock case that allows the flexibility to cool as you choose.  The Thermaltake Chaser MK-I is a quality and relatively inexpensive full tower case for users who want great looks, style and excellent cooling including water, without breaking their bank.

Gamers will particularly like this case. You need not buy any extra fans or do any customization unless you are have extreme needs. Best of all, Thermaltake has designed the Chaser MK-I with plenty of room to spare.  This was an easy and fun build and a pleasure to move hardware into and out of this case.  We would not recommend this case necessarily for LAN parties because of its large size, bulk and the difficulty in moving a fully-loaded full tower as we found it difficult to grab, pick up and carry.

The Thermaltake Chaser MK-I deserves our “Innovation” and “Editor’s Choice” awards.  Innovation because we love their hard drive dock!  It is convenient and it saves a lot of time.  Editor’s Choice because it can keep even the hottest of enthusiast systems running cool and in style. We are as impressed with it in its own way as we were with the Thermaltake Element G.  It’s highly recommended!

Our very special thanks also go out to Thermaltake for working with us and supplying us with their Chaser MK-I case. Now that we have our case set up and a hot FX CPU on watercooling, we have plans to also review Thermaltake’s Frio and Frio OCK CPU coolers.

However, first we will test Noctua’s new near-silent fans as a replacement for the AMD stock liquid CPU cooling radiator fans to see if we can quiet things a bit and we will use a much quieter video card for that evaluation.

Stay tuned, we have plenty more coming.

Mark Poppin

ABT Senior Editor

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