Wow. Thermal Take's replacement for the Lanfire is awesome.

From the moment I saw the Tsunami come in the door, I was intrigued with it. It's just so, so pretty. And light. And pretty. It takes a little getting used to, but the more I looked at it, the more I was swayed to it's side. I'm normally pretty big on the Thermal Take cases, but lately they're been getting sort of extravagant and weird looking, not to mention having flimsy little plastic doors. (More on the moosey fate of the door on my TT Skull case soon.)

The empty case. So, so cold and empty.

I'd been wanting to build myself a new system for a while, and with my Windows XP install well over a year old and starting to slow down and acting a little bit odd, and Doom 3 just released, I figured it was about time to start working on it. And so, for starters I disassembled the Tsunami and inspected it closely to see if it would become the basis of my latest gaming rig. Fit and finish is of course flawless, as I've come to expect from Thermal Take. I've sold dozens upon dozens of their cases, and I've never seen one come in that had any problems. Sure you pay a little extra, but the quality and engineering is generally outstanding. These guys really know their stuff.

Hey! I think it's time to eat the little bag.

One of the first things I made note of, other than the aforementioned dead sexiness of the case is that the front door is a massive chunk of aluminum, and that all of the door hardware is steel. Even the hinges mount into steel pins that are sunk into the front bezel of the case. (Regrettably that's plastic, but after looking at it I don't think it should ever cause any problems.) One of the interesting things about building a system for me is seeing how it stands the test of time. I bring my computer to work with me every morning, and take it home darned near every night, so my computer cases tend to get about 50 years of LAN attendee wear and tear in very short order. My previous case was the Thermal Take Skull, a very nice little case that I enjoyed very much. Except for the fact that the front door is plastic with an aluminum middle. And the hinges are plastic. And so are the little retainers that keep the door closed. The retainers were the first thing to break, and not just on my case. They're a weak design, and have broken eventually on most of the Skull cases I know of, just from normal usage. The second thing to break was one of the hinges, which by the time I accidentally bounced it off of my car, (before I realized that the little retention pins were no longer keeping the door from flopping open) was showing wear marks from being opened and closed quite a bit. When the door met the car, it shattered the tiny, tiny little plastic pin that supports the hinge. Car door -1, case door - 0.

An actual metal hinge! Yay!

This horrible fate isn't likely to happen to the Tsunami. It's pretty solidly constructed, and you can feel it when you open the front door on this case. It just feels very tight, a nice change from both the Skull and Lanfire Xaser series cases. I have a feeling if this door bounces off my car again, it'll be a close call as to who wins. The front door also has two super bright blue LEDs under the grab handle that put neat little light beams out onto the door.

Pretty no?

It's interesting to note that the fans on the Tsunami are arranged differently than those in other TT cases. Rather than the usual huge number of low RPM 8cm fans on all sides of the case, the engineers on this one used only 3. Two large 12cm fans, the front intaking right over the lower 3.5" hard drive bays, and the rear exhaust sitting just behind the CPU. The rear fan also lights up a very pretty, sort of erie light blue when powered up. There's also a single intake fan on the side of the case, mounted into the large X shaped window (The case is available without a window kit if you so choose.) that blows roughly where the CPU is mounted on most motherboards. The front fan has a filter on it. It looks pretty wide open, I'll pull it out in a few weeks and see how much dust has accumulated on it, rather than on my fan blades and my shiny new aluminum interior. Excellent cooling ensues, as the case is moving a rather impressive amount of air constantly. The downside to this approach is the fact that it's quite a bit louder than previous cases. I don't have any equipment to tell me exactly how loud this case is, but just going by the ol' ear test it's definitely putting out more sound than a Xaser III, Skull or Lanfire.

Warning: May suck in small animals and children. Keep clear at all times!

No problems were encountered during the installation of the parts into the system, everything slipping in just as it was intended to, and firing up right away. It's interesting that the hard drive mounts are actually padded with rubber grommets, most likely to protect your precious data from vibration and bumpies on the way to and from your favorite gaming establishment. I'm not sure why, but these cases have mounting rails for the 5.25" bays, but none for the 3.5"ers. (Just use screws for them.) The bottom 3.5" bays slide out the side of the case, and the top ones slide out to the rear over the motherboard. There's lots of room there, unless you're like me and used one of the Thermal Take Silent Tower coolers. Then again, how many gamers are still using floppy drives in their gaming rigs? The only reason I needed one was for some of the work I do. Also, you might want to install your power supply before your motherboard in this case. The power supply has to be installed from the inside of the case, and slides up into position. Again, big heatsink... No room for the PSU to slip past in some cases. I liked the fact that there's a TON of room at the front of the case behind the drive bays to shove all of your spare cables. If you take some time, you can do an extremely neat job on the wiring in this case quite easily.

The clasps over the cards to secure them without tools worked very well, much better than some previous incarnations of them, most notably those in the Xaser III super tower, which don't like tall cards like SB Audigies and most video cards. The exception was the lower one. This one was used to secure the extra USB port and diagnostic LEDS that come with MSI motherboards. When a USB cable is pushed into the slot, it pushes the latch open, and pops the D-bracket into your computer. Most annoying, but I'm going to see if I can wedge a screw into there to alleviate the problem.

As an interesting side note, the Silent Tower Heat Pipe that we used for this little project is absolutely awe inspiring to look at, and under load it maintains the CPU at 3-5 degrees over ambient case temperature. We stopped the fan on it for a few minutes by accident, and only realized that the fan wasn't turning when the heatsink was hot enough to feel from a few inches away. Once the fan started spinning again, the heatsink was just slightly warm to the touch in less than a minute. Now THAT's impressive cooling. It was quite simple to install, if a little intimidating. It actually mounts through the mounting holes on the motherboard, due to it's enormous size, and will not work on all motherboards. Make sure you check your board for the mounting holes before buying one. But we do highly recommend them.

Wow. It's like the Borg set down on my motherboard.

Uh boss.. I think we need a bigger case....

Additional features on this case include the typical Thermal Take useless fold-out feet for stability, and top mounted USB, Firewire and audio outs. They'd be very handy, but since I haul my computer around with me and use a Gear Grip, I can't use them. You also get your very own polishing cloth. The shiny surface of the case has a bad habit of attracting large numbers of finger prints and dust, so you'll need it. Personally I was hoping to be able to get myself a flat black Tsunami, but the glossy finish is quite attractive as well.

So, so very sexy.

And it even looks good in the dark.

Overall this is one heck of a nice enclosure and it's highly recommended to anyone who wants a high quality, sharp looking case. It's one of the best products I've seen so far in the way of an high end computer casing, and it'll certainly turn a lot of heads at the next LAN party you attend. :)