Thermaltake Chaser A31 Case Review

1. Introduction2. Thermaltake Chaser A31: Packaging & Bundle3. Thermaltake Chaser A31: Exterior4. Thermaltake Chaser A31: Interior5. System Installation6. Testing Methodology and Thermal Performance7. Acoustic Performance8. Closing Thoughts9. View All Pages

Two removals of the front panel and our sample's plastic magnifier for the HDD activity LED had fallen off. We managed to tape it back in position, but this gives an indication that build quality isn't up to the standard of Thermaltake's higher-end cases such as the Level 10 GT.

In fact, even a case that targets a mid-range gaming audience should not have its components falling apart after such a small amount of usage.

3.5″ hard drives are easily installed into the tool-less trays and held securely in position. 2.5″ drives require four screws to hold them in place. The drive trays are made from a strong plastic material and feel up to the task of securing storage devices in place.

Building a mid-range, ATX-sized system into the Chaser A31 can be a tricky procedure at times. The mid-tower interior makes connecting and routing cables a difficult task when the destination is a restricted area, such as the motherboard's upper edge.

Cable management did take longer than usual due to the Chaser A31's mid-tower form factor, but a fairly clean build can be achieved with the correct combination of hardware, namely a modular power supply.

The Chaser A31 features a good amount of cable tie-down points behind the motherboard tray which helps when securing wires in their designated positions. Unfortunately, the measly 12mm of clearance makes routing cables a procedure which has to be carefully planned, even when the side panel's additional 7mm of clearance is added into the equation.

For the most part, we were satisfied by the positioning of the three main cable management grommets, but upon connecting the front panel and audio cables, it became clear than another cut-out was necessary. An additional grommet to hide front panel connectors is one thing, but when Thermaltake makes the Chaser A31's front panel audio cable a needlessly-short length, a direct route almost becomes a requirement.

We just managed to stretch the audio cable to its intended location on the bottom-right edge of our ASRock 990FX Extreme9 motherboard. Given that the majority of motherboards for at least the previous two Intel and AMD generations place front panel audio headers in the bottom-right area, we cannot understand why Thermaltake would decide to use a cable which is barely long enough.

An extra five centimetres on the length and we could have routed the cable neatly along the motherboard's bottom edge, rather than have it sprawled across a number of expansion slots.

Directing the 8-pin cable through its designated hole is a tight squeeze that is barely possible with a motherboard installed. The small cut-out is positioned towards the upper corner of the Chaser A31's interior panel – a position which causes it to run directly past the IO shield and part of the motherboard PCB.

Users with large hands would be wise to remove the top panel to gain access to the 8-pin cable from above. This is a needless but necessary procedure that could be avoided by using a slightly larger 8-pin cut-out in a better position.

Due to the less-than-generous 12-19 millimetres of clearance behind the motherboard tray, we were forced to store some of the cables in unused 5.25″ bays. While this isn't a major inconvenience for single 5.25″ device users, people with more than one piece of equipment will have to re-think their cable routing procedure.

Thermaltake states CPU cooler clearance as 160mm, but our 165mm-tall Frio was able to fit inside the Chaser A31 without problems. Any CPU cooler taller than 165mm however is going to interfere with the left side panel.

There was just enough room to squeeze some roof fans into the chassis while using the Thermaltake Frio CPU cooler. With a wider cooler such as the Thermalright Archon being used, interference with roof fans is highly likely to occur.

Our hefty Seasonic Platinum-1000 power supply managed to fit inside the Chaser A31 without any issues, although the bottom 120mm fan mount was well-and-truly blocked. Routing cables through the adjacent grommet did become trickier due to the fact that Seasonic's large power supply blocked a proportion of the cut-out.

With room for graphics cards up to 285mm in length, our Sapphire 7850 Dual-X had plenty of space to spare. Dual-GPU configurations can easily fit inside the Chaser A31, although it will take a great deal of cable management prowess to effectively route the power leads.

An optical drive in the uppermost 5.25″ bay blends in with the black plastic front panel. Thermaltake's tool-less 5.25″ installation method is very simply, but the drive security is far from the best that we have seen.

Thermaltake doesn't supply the Chaser A31 with power supply screws, forcing users to fasten the unit using the hardware supplied with their PSU.

The large side panel window shows off a significant proportion of the Chaser A31 case's internal area. I feel that it would have been better to reduce the window's size by a small margin as to conceal the messy area near the cable management grommets.

When viewed from an angle, the side panel window gives a fitting peak at the installed hardware. Most of the blue LED rear exhaust fan has its line-of-sight blocked by a large CPU cooler, but the light that it emits helps to illuminate the Chaser A31's internal area by a very modest amount.

Fully built, the Chaser A31 makes for a good-looking gaming chassis. I am especially fond of the blue accents that span the length of the front panel.

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