Overview

The Thermaltake Tsunami Dream is just pure eye candy. One look at the case and you'll never want to go back to a beige tower case again.

Let's spend some time looking and staring at the Tsunami Dream shall we?

Front of the Case:

The front of the case has that familiar wave design that we mentioned earlier. Here is a picture of the front of the case:

The front panel is actually constructed of heavier aluminum than the rest of the case. There is a dull matte like finish to the front door panel. The upper left corner has the Tsunami Dream text and the lower right corner has the Thermaltake logo.

The lower half of the door also has a small vent for air intake. We'll discuss this in further detail shortly.

The front panel opens from the right side but you'll need to unlock the door before opening. The lock actually has three positions. Rotate the lock 90 degrees to open the front door. Rotate the lock 180 degrees to also unlock the front panel beneath the door.

Here are some pictures with the front door opened. The door itself is fairly unremarkable. There is a cable running from the case to the front door which is used to power the two front LEDs.

The front panel behind the door is shown here.

There are four 5.25" drive bays that are externally accessible as well as two 3.5" drive bays. There is also room for more 3.5" inch drives internally. Here is a picture of the power button, the reset button and the power and hard drive LEDs.

Think we're done with the front panel? Not so fast. As we alluded to earlier, the front panel can be unlocked by rotating the lock 180 degrees. Once the lock is in this position, the front panel swings open to reveal the actual chassis framework.

The lower half of the front reveals more vents for the front intake fan. Although there is plenty of vent space here on the front panel, the amount of air that actually gets through the door is limited to the smaller vents on the door itself.

Why the additional swinging panel? There is a mesh filter covering the lower vents on the front panel. This mesh filters out dust particles from the air coming in from the outside.

When you install externally accessible drives, you need to push out the panels on both the front panel and the inner framework itself.

One thing that we wanted to point out was the immense 120mm intake fan that Thermaltake employs for this case. There's a similar fan on the backside of the case. Thermaltake should be commended for placing large and quiet fans inside the system. One 120 mm fan easily replaces the duty of two smaller 90mm case fans.

Sides

The left side of the case has a transparent window in the shape of an 'X'. Well.. it's close enough to being an 'X' if you ask us. Is there any particular meaning for the X? Sure doesn't look like it but hey - it's still a cool looking pre-modded case.

In any event, the first thing to notice about the sides (and really the rest of the case) is the aluminum finish and paint. Thermaltake uses a thinner layer of aluminum for the side panels as opposed to the front door. This thinner layer is noticeable when you press down on the sides. The aluminum panels actually have some give in them which will make you think you're working with plastic. As nice as the panels look, we do wish that Thermaltake used thicker sheets of aluminum here.

On the plus side, the sides and top of the case have an amazing mirror like paint finish. Yes - you can nearly see your reflection on the surface! The quality of the paint finish nearly makes us overlook the fact that the aluminum isn't as thick as we'd like it to be.

Thermaltake places a 90 mm intake fan at the center of the left panel. The left panel also has a lock along the upper left hand corner. This lock prevents individuals from gaining access into the case thereby protecting your drives and peripherals.

To remove the left panel, you need to first unlock the lock, unscrew the two thumbscrews on the rear of the case and then press in on the two notches on the panel itself.

The right side is rather unremarkable but we'll show a picture of it here anyhow.

Top

Normally, we never mention anything about the top panel of the case since there's nothing usually there. However the Thermaltake Tsunami Dream bucks that trend. There is a small door on the top panel which hides a set of ports that individuals can use. You can open the top panel by pressing down on one end.

There is one Firewire port, two USB ports, and two audio jacks. Since users generally place tower systems on the floor, the placement of these ports make perfect sense to us.

Back

Here is a shot of the back of the case:

And here is a close up of the power supply opening:

The Tsunami Dream doesn't come bundled with a power supply unit so make sure you have one handy for your new system. The one imposing feature on the back side is the massive 120mm exhaust fan vent.

Remember that there's a 120 mm case fan at the front of the case bringing air in. The case fan here at the rear blows air out of the case.Here is a picture of the expansion slots.

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