by Vasily Melnik
06/03/2007 | 10:23 AM
Restyling is a basic means of making a product’s market life longer. This word is known mostly from the car industry. It’s simple: if you’ve got a good product that has been selling for over a year, you can make a few changes to add new functionality or design features to it and maintain stable demand for some time more.
<%BANNER[article]%>As opposed to the car industry where deep restyling is usually forced upon the manufacturer, makers of PC system cases can take it easy. Considering the situation with form-factors, the lifecycle of a good ATX case is far longer than that of an ordinary car. Moreover, the changes are usually limited to adding this or that function to improve usability or to altering the exterior design, which is not so difficult or expensive to implement when it comes to a system case. This is a reason why there are so many similar models in product ranges of leading PC case manufacturers.
Some year and a half ago we wrote about a Soprano system case in our roundup of Thermaltake’s then-new products (for details see our article called Roundup: Six System Cases from Thermaltake). A market life of over 1 year is quite a long one even for such a good model as the Soprano was. Interesting alternatives have appeared since then, the Soprano losing its ground step by step.
A chassis modernization was needed to pull the system case up to the level of the best of the class. The exterior design could be left as it was because it is top notch in the whole Soprano-Tsunami series – the classic style never is never outdated. Thermaltake didn’t limit itself to trivial chassis modifications. They also improved the ventilation, replacing the front fan.
Let’s check out all of these changes now.
The exterior design has been left intact:
Black color, glossy surfaces, and a beautifully shaped decorative door. As I’ve said above, it was wise on the developer’s part not to change such a good-looking façade. Like in the previous version of the case, the front panel is the focal point of the whole composition:
The door itself has been borrowed from the Tsunami Dream with certain modifications. It is not plastic anymore as it used to be on the original Soprano we tested before. The milled wave-shaped plate made from 2mm aluminum looks superb while the chrome insert is in contrast with the dark color scheme and divides the door in two parts visually. Notwithstanding its pretty appearance…
…this insert is made of plastic as you can easily feel with your fingers – it lacks the coolness of metal. Not that it matters much considering that the rest of the front panel is made of ordinary lacquered plastic. As opposed to the decorative door, the front panel design is somewhat different now.
The bays and the Power and Reset buttons haven’t changed:
The buttons might have been altered, however. They are far from perfect. The main change is the air intake that has become far more functional.
The total intake area is larger now and the new square-shaped design looks much better than two rows of horizontal slits as in the original versions of the Soprano and Tsunami.
When the case is open, the power cable leading to the lamp that highlights the “wave” spoils the impression somewhat:
This cable seems to have been laid in haste and it’s not clear why the cord is so thick. The lamp can’t consume much power, consisting of only two blue LEDs and a disperser.
A very simple but reliable and inexpensive thing (as opposed to neon lamps), the thin plastic cylinder is highlighted at the ends with super-bright LEDs, providing soft diffused light.
The air bubbles in the cylinder have a purpose, too:
These bubbles make up the characteristic light streaks you can see in the photo.
The decorative door is fastened to the case with two clamps:
This didn’t look quite good to me at first. The “wings” of the Thermaltake Armor are fastened in the same way. It is like an ordinary metallic door hinge, but the surfaces were not fitted together well in the Armor. Its door was somewhat skewed and was creaking loud when being opened. Afterwards another unpleasant thing was found out: when the subwoofer of a speaker system was placed near the system case, the “wings” would resonate and rattle.
The new Soprano DX is free from this drawback, fortunately. The clamps are fixed with steel pins. Combined with the metallic inserts on the front panel, this works like a well-fitted slide bearing.
The door doesn’t screech on your opening it and is aligned just perfectly. When closed, the door is fixed with a magnet (for everyday use) or with a lock (if you want to prevent other people’s access to your PC).
The key has three positions: everything’s locked, the decorative door is open, and the front panel is open.
You need to open the front panel to install your optical drives and external 3.5” devices, but it is not convenient because the panel opens up by 90 degrees only.
The developer saw to this, however. The front panel hinges are designed in such a way that you can just pull the panel up when it is open to take it off its hinges altogether.
You can use the lock frequently only if you modify it. The mechanism is primitive and manufactured rather shabbily. It is a cylinder with a lock and a ring that has notches for fixing the teeth on the case and on the door.
The problem is in the fastening of the ring to the casing of the lock. Its screw is not fastened properly and if it gets completely loose when the door or front panel is closed, you’ll find it difficult to open them. The cylinder will be turning around while the fixing ring remains in place. There is a simple solution. The screw just must be fixed with joint sealant.
There are a lot of changes in the design of the main front panel of the case. The intake fan has been equipped with a coarse dust filter.
This mesh won’t stop tiny dust speckles, but will help against bigger ones. The grid in front of the fan is obviously unnecessary – the mesh is too small for that.
This is no good for the noise and performance of the fan, so if you’ve got the tools and skills necessary you may want to remove the grid right after the purchase. Nothing can get into the fan anyway when the front panel is closed.
The single-use 3.5” bay brackets have to be torn off if you want to install a card-reader, for example.
The brackets of the 5.25” bays are now fastened with screws, which are much handier:
Unfortunately, the block of external interface connectors is still where it was:
The connectors are on the top panel of the case, hidden with a simple plastic cap. If the system case stands on the desk – quite a normal thing for system cases of this class – it won’t be convenient to use the connectors. Another drawback, the FireWire port has been replaced with an eSATA. I don’t think it’s reasonable.
Yes, eSATA is a progressive interface, but have you seen many eSATA drives selling? Well, I wouldn’t have any gripes at all if they had left the FireWire port, too. Its place is just sealed. This looks like paltry economy to me.
The side panel design has been left untouched, too:
It’s a familiar shape with ordinary latches, one of which comes with a primitive lock:
It can be easily opened by any schoolboy who’s got some basic knowledge of mechanics. This negates somewhat the purpose of the lock on the front panel as a means to prevent unauthorized access to the internals of the PC. If the “home malefactor” can crack the lock on the side panel, the starting-up of the open system case will be a simple matter for him.
There is a rudiment left from the previous Soprano – a seat for a side fan:
This is a redundant thing. Thermaltake’s system cases of this class come with preinstalled intake and exhaust fans and there is no need for additional fans. You may only want to add a side fan to blow at your graphics card, but that’s a different story.
Besides the latches, the side panel is secured with two large thumbscrews:
Like the side panel, the rear one hasn’t been changed, either:
I’ve got only one complaint here. Like with the intake fan, there is a small-mesh grid design here, which is not good:
They have replaced the fan. It is now a 120mm translucent fan with LED highlighting.
If you want to minimize noise, the decorative grid has to be removed (just like from the front fan) and replaced with a wire grill.
The internal layout is standard:
The Soprano DX chassis is almost the same as the original Soprano except for the mechanism of locking the drives. This is made now with plastic levers, not only for 5.25” but also for 3.5” devices (like in the Armor system case):
This makes it much easier to assemble the system. The HDD cage is still oriented lengthwise, which is not always convenient. The cage is removable.
A new 140mm fan is responsible now for driving fresh air into the case and cooling your hard disk drives:
The Soprano DX is the first serial product from Thermaltake we’ve had in our labs to come with this fan. Theoretically, its performance should be higher than that of an ordinary 120mm fan working at the same speed. The accessories aren’t gorgeous at all: a box with fasteners and a package with a user manual and a napkin to clean the glossy panels.
The napkin is going to work well on the lacquered surfaces, but you should better use a wet one for the aluminum door. A dry napkin won’t remove your fingerprints from it. The box with fasteners contains a pack of screws and poles for the mainboard, one fifth the size of the box itself.
Well, it’s all right since you don’t need rails for the drives anymore. I’m just a little surprised at the incongruity between the packaging and the contents.
Like in the Thermaltake Lanbox we have tested recently on our site, there is a special support to help you align your mainboard properly (for edtails see our article called Original Barebone with Great Functionality: Thermaltake LANBOX Review).
There were no problems installing the mainboard and the power supply. The system case is large and a full-size ATX mainboard comes into it easily. You should only remember to mount the PSU first if you are going to put the mainboard in together with the CPU and the CPU cooler.
The expansion card locks aren’t quite appropriate:
They can lock single-slot card all right, but I couldn’t fix a dual-slot graphics card because of the partition between the locks.
The card would press against it. As a result, I had to remove the locking panel and fastened the card in a traditional way:
You use special screws to install hard disk drives into the cage:
The drive is fastened through rubber vibration-absorbing spacers:
…and then the cage is moved back into the case:
It’s somewhat more complicated with optical drives. The problem with the plastic faceplate of the top 5.25” bay has not been solved:
It is still blocked by the top hinge clamp of the front panel and you have to unfasten the clamp to remove the faceplate. There are no problems with the installation of the drive proper. It is just inserted into the bay and fixed with a side lock.
You do the same for every other 5.25” device you’ve got.
When done, close the front panel:
But the front door cannot be closed now. Even though the controls of the Scythe KamaMeter are small, they get in the way. This is something the developer should have seen to. You can’t install a simple rheobus into this system case.
The assembled system looks rather neat:
Thanks to the large interior, I had no problems laying the cables out.
Before testing the system case, I want to show you its specification
Thermaltake Soprano DX (VE7000BWS)
You can also watch a Soprano DX clip at the Thermaltake website.
The tests were performed on a closed and fully assembled system case and at a constant ambient temperature maintained by an air conditioner. I took care to lay out the cables and wires in such a way that they didn’t hinder free circulation of air. I didn’t change the default speed of the preinstalled system fans and of the CPU fan.
The following system was assembled in the tested PC case:
There were four test modes:
The temperatures of the CPU and mainboard were read with ASUS PC Probe which was supplied with the mainboard. The GPU and graphics card temperatures were read with RivaTuner 2.0. The temperatures of the VRM transistors and of the heatsinks on the chipset’s North and South Bridges were read with the universal controller Scythe KamaMeter. The HDD temperature was reported by HDD Thermometer. The temperatures were read only after they had fully stabilized. The ambient temperature remained constant at 25°C throughout the tests.
The noisiness of the preinstalled system fans is evaluated below. I disabled the CPU and graphics card coolers when checking out the noise of the system case fans.
The results are presented in the diagrams below and do not actually need much commenting upon. These are normal results of a modern midrange system case:
Summing it up, Thermaltake’s restyling is definitely a success. The system case is worth every cent of its price and offers opportunities for users who like to finish their PC off with their own hands – the grids on both fans seem to be redundant. Anyway, the level of noise is acceptable even without that modification. The new front 140mm fan is obviously better than the classic 120mm fan on the rear panel, by the way.
This system case has only two drawbacks: you can’t install dual-slot expansion cards with the default fastening mechanism and there is no external FireWire port. The first problem can be solved easily while the second one isn’t critical for a majority of users. As a result, we’ve got a perfect medium-format system case for a top-end configuration. You should surely take a look at the new Soprano when you go shopping next time.
