Thermaltake Urban T81 Full Tower Case Review

Once we started working inside the chassis, we experienced a strange sense of deja vu.  After ruling out that it wasn't caused by a change in the Matrix code, and that our reality was unchanged, we explored deeper.  It was almost as if we had seen this layout before...

Oh yes, that's right, from the Level 10 GT. 

Sure there were obvious differences like, the reduction of the external drive bays that were replaced with additional internal drive bays, and the easy swap trays replaced with standard tension clip trays.  Pretty much everything else though, down to the spacing and position of the rubber grommet covered cutouts was pretty much spot-on.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is not a bad thing, as we gave a lot of praise to the Level 10 GT chassis, especially when it came to the internal allowances and the spaciousness the chassis provided.  To me this seems like an ideal mix, taking what worked well from the previous generation, and adding a completely modular front end to create something unique.  

Just like with the L10 GT, the T81 is very generous with motherboard allowances, accepting everything from a 9.6" x 9.6" Micro ATX all the way up to a 12" x 13" E-ATX motherboard.

The area behind the motherboard is pretty spacious, and as mentioned most of the cutouts are covered with rubber grommets.  You won't find many tie down spots, and actual clamping locations are pretty spaced out though.  If you include the panel embossing you get nearly an inch of clearance now between the case door, and the backside of the frame.

As the case continues to get stripped down, we want to look at all the pieces individually.  There are three seperate removable drive cages, for either 3.5" SATA drives or 2.5" SSDs.  The cages are constructed out of steel, and the trays are plastic.  The trays are pretty thick, held in place to the cage with a pair of tension clips, and equipped with shock bumpers along the side rails to protect those HD platters from shaking themselves to an early grave. 

One thing that was noticed is that the walls of the drive cages are pretty, well... solid.  With the bays stuffed with hard drives and the few holes that we can see in the cages, airflow coming from the front intake fans may as well be non-existent.  One workaround is to potentially pull any of the unused cages to clear space for air to flow through.

So you might be asking yourself, "If this thing can mount up to all these fans internally, where am I going to plug them all in, and how can I control that much noise?"  Worry not, the Urban T81 has a fan controller on the backside behind the motherboard mounting wall, with room to install up to 10 fans.  All of the fans hooked up to the controller can be switched from low to high speed by the front fan speed buttons. 

The end result is you can adjust your fans and noise accordingly to the job at hand, whether it be an evening of catching up with friends on social media, or firing up the latest gaming title.

With all the drive bays removed, you can see exactly how much room you have to play with up front, not counting the removal of the 5.25" external bays, if needed.