At CES 2023 we saw a wide range of new Thermaltake products including their range of CTE cases and goodness, they looked impressive. Tempered glass, mesh panels as far as the eye could see and a natural showcase for ARGB lighting. Here we are a few months later and we have the largest member of the CTE range on review so sit back and enjoy the Thermaltake CTE C750 Air.
Main features
- Centralized Thermal Efficiency Form Factor
- 4mm Tempered Glass Side Panel
- Perforated panels on the top, bottom, front, rear and right
- Pre-installed three CT140 PWM fans
- Supports up to 420mm radiators on the motherboard side, front and rear of the chassis
- Supports up to an 12″ x 13″ E-ATX motherboard
- Maximum support up to 7x 3.5-inch HDD or 12x 2.5-inch SSD
- Rotational PCI-E slots
Specification:
- Motherboard support: E-ATX up to 280mm, ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX.
- Power supply support: ATX.
- Expansion slots: 7.
- Included fans: 3x 140mm CT140 fans 500-1,500rpm.
- Fan mounts: 3x 120mm/140mm or 2x 200mm front, 2x 120/140mm roof, 3x 120mm/140mm or 2x 200mm rear, 3x 120mm/140mm, 3x 120mm/140mm floor.
- Radiator mounts: 360mm/280mm front, 240mm/140mm roof, 360mm/280mm rear, 360mm/280mm side, 360mm/280mm floor.
- 5.25-inch optical drive bays: None.
- Internal drive bays: 7x 3.5-inch or 12x 2.5-inch.
- Front I/O ports: 4x USB 3.0 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 (Gen 2) Type-C, audio.
- Dimensions: 565mm H x 599mm D x 327mm W.
Testing
To put this case through its cooling paces we will be using a test system consisting of an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, RTX 4080 graphics and an SSD. This system allows us to produce a substantial amount of heat and effectively test the Thermaltake CTE C750 Air's cooling capabilities.
Test System:
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16 Cores/32 Threads
- Motherboard: Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero
- Memory: 32GB G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-6000
- Graphics card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080 Gaming OC 16GB
- Case fans: 6x Thermaltake Toughfan 12RGB
- Power supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 1200W Gold
- SSD: Sabrent Rocket 4.0 M.2 NVMe
- OS: Windows 11
Custom Loop Cooling:
- Pump/Reservoir: EK Quantum Kinetic TBE 300 D5
- CPU Block: EK Quantum Magnitude
- Thermal Compound: Arctic MX-4
- Radiator: EK CoolStream SE 240
- Radiator fans: 2x be quiet! Light Wings 120mm PWM
- Fittings: Phanteks 16/10mm Soft Tube Fitting
- Coolant: EK Cryofuel Solid Cloud White
Cooling Performance
Cooling Performance Overview
The chart for the Thermaltake CTE C750 Air looks bizarre as it shows that fan speed had no effect on the temperature of our CPU and GPU, and that is despite dramatic differences in noises levels as the speed was cranked higher. Furthermore our AMD Ryzen 9 7950X remained pegged at 95 degrees C under full load while pulling 200W-205W. Balanced against that our Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080 Gaming OC 16GB graphics card was lovely and cool so there is no doubt in our mind the CTE C750 Air has superb air flow.
Closing Thoughts
The Thermaltake CTE C750 Air is defined by its Centralized Thermal Efficiency layout. In other words ,the motherboard has been rotated with the result that you can install large radiators in the front, back, bottom or side but only a 240mm in the roof.
This is a dramatic contrast to pretty much every other case on the market and should immediately pique the interest of modders and lovers of extreme cooling and ARGB lighting.
The downside to the Thermaltake CTE C750 Air is that this novel design means you have a very large main chamber and a fairly large second chamber for the power supply. This inevitably results in a case that is very large and rather heavy with a price tag to match. While we are fairly impressed by this new case we can see it is likely to appeal to a fairly select group of PC builders.
You will be able to buy the Thermaltake CTE C750 Air for £169 in Black and £189 in White. It is currently up for pre-order at Scan.
Pros:
- Massive air flow.
- Loads of options for liquid cooling.
- Fan/radiator racks in the front, back and bottom..
- Fully filtered panels.
- Loads of USB ports on the top I/O panel.
Cons:
- The CTE C750 is very large and the built PC is heavy.
- CT140 case fans get rather noisy.
- Vertical air flow makes external cable connections slightly awkward.
- Logos on components will be rotated 90 degrees.
KitGuru says: The Thermaltake CTE C750 Air is impressive but also rather large and heavy.