Armor+ ESA (internally called VH6001BWS by Thermaltake) is a big super tower case, being one of the few cases around featuring 10 slots for expansion cards (most cases have only seven), allowing the installation of four video cards and extended ATX motherboards. It also has seven 5 ¼” bays (although only six can be actually used), a big 190-mm side fan, sliding motherboard tray, ESA technology for monitoring and controlling the fans and the temperature inside the case and several other features that make this case really unique. Let’s take an in-depth trip inside this case.

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Figure 1: Thermaltake Armor+ ESA case.

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Figure 2: Thermaltake Armor+ ESA case.

This case features a big transparent window using a 4-mm thick acrylic plate, being thicker (and thus providing better quality) than the transparent window used on mainstream cases.

On Figure 3 you can see the front panel from this case. As you can see, this case has a total of 11 5 ¼” bays, but since the top bay is used by the ESA circuit and the bottom four bays are used by the hard disk drive cage, we actually have six 5 ¼” bays available for optical devices or liquid cooling solutions.

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Figure 3: Front panel.

In order to install or remove 5 ¼” devices you need to open the two side doors present on the front of the case. These two doors – which are manufactured in aluminum – use a magnetic lock but on the sample we received the magnets used weren’t strong enough to hold the doors closed, making them to swing open when we moved the case around. Since we received this case far before it was released, we hope this defect to be corrected on the final product. You can also remove these two doors if you want, by pressing and sliding the hinges.

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Figure 4: Front panel with the two doors opened.