The one thing that is always true for every market is that there is always room for variety and products that create value. There are some companies dedicated to those two things alone and do little more than provide alternative products to more mainstream items. There are some rare occasions where this simple, “Mine is just as good, but cheaper” approach does yield some products to be admired. This is such a case (pun intended) with the Rosewill Thor V2 Full Tower case which we’ll be having a look at today.
Features and Specifications
The Rosewill Thor V2 is designed to be an alternative to more expensive Full Tower cases, especial those that can handle larger than standard ATX motherboards. Thor V2 mobo tray will take anything from Micro-ATX to XL-ATX to ensure any PC motherboard will fit this case. This is great for those looking to buy one of the premium boards that use XL-ATX format like the original GIGABYTE G1.Killer Assassin.
The general theme of the case seems to be “more than enough” as every standard feature has a little extra to give. There are 5/6 front 5.25″ bays (one being convertible to 3.5″), 6 internal 3.5″ bays, 10 expansion slots, a front panel with 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 eSATA, audio, power, reset, and twin fan control knobs. These two knobs are connected to a channel A and channel B fan system for up to six total fans. Included with the case are three 230 mm fans (1 red LED 230 mm fan in front, 1 on the side, and 1 in the top) and one 140 mm fan in the rear. The red LED light on the front fan can be turned off independently of the fan.
The Rosewill Thor V2 has dust filters throughout the entire front face and an easily removable filter for the PSU slot. The top of the case has several fins that can be opened and closed to reduce dust intake when your PC is idle for long periods of time.
Thor V2 itself is 30+ pounds of thick SECC steal with a plastic top and plastic on the sides of the face. The internal 3.5″ bays will take either a 3.5″ drive complete with silicone grommets to minimize vibration noise or 2.5″ drives. The Rosewill Thor V2 is also highlighted with a red LED name and HDD activity indicators on the front I/O panel. If you need a lot of space for your system and are on a budget, the $129.99 Thor V2 is something to consider and I we will show you why.
What’s in the Box
The absolutely massive box for Thor V2 actually contains another box. It would seen the case and the box must have been made in two different locations and married together later. This is fine as I always welcome additional protection of a case during shipping. Once you have removed the brown box and opened it you will find the case itself with thick foam on the top and bottom.
You will find a twist-tie holding a small black box that contains the case accessories within the case. This box has your bounty of screws, zip-ties, instructions and motherboard standoffs. Nothing all that unique here, but Rosewill packaged Thor V2 well.
Test System Specs
Since the focus is on the case, the internal components are mainly just to generate the heat of an average PC system. To ensure I get worst case and to match the results to past case reviews I will continue to use the Radeon HD 6850 reference card and Stock AMD cooler.
Hardware
- CPU: AMD FX-8150
- CPU Cooler: AMD Stock Cooler
- Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA990FX-UD5
- RAM: 8 GB (4 x 4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws 2133 MHz RAM @ 1866 MHz 9-10-9-27
- PSU: Antec HCP 850W
- GPU: Radeon HD 6850 1GB @ Stock
Software
The software here is your standard fair. I use some common overclocking stability tools to generate as much stress as possible and a third party tool to document the temperatures. Please note that the temperatures may vary for you based on the season and temperature in your home. Also keep in mind the temperatures are taken from AIDA64 Extreme Edition and may be different for other programs, but should follow the same trends.
- Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate Edition
- FurMark Burn-in
- OCCT
- AIDA64 Extreme Edition 1.85.1600
With all the software and hardware needed to build a reasonable test system, let’s get started!