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!
Build Log and Design Notes
The first thing I noticed about this case is the shear size and weight. As a budget full tower case I expected Rosewill to cut some corners like using lighter aluminum, thinner walls, and lots of plastic. Weighing in at just over 30 pounds empty, thin and lighter material is the last thing you will find here.
The overall look of the case is generic. This is not helped by the basic design for this case being the same as the Akasa Toxic. These cases share a core build, but the accents on the Rosewill Thor V2 are more understated. While the Thor V2 is not visually appealing to me, it makes up for this shortcoming in spades in the functionality and features department.
Working with Thor V2 was a breeze. I started the build as I always do by placing the motherboard standoffs in place. While normally labeled in the case on the tray, this time I found numbers 1 through 16. You find the numbers you need to place a standoff for your motherboard size listed in the instructions. Not the best solution, but it works just fine probably saved a few nickels in production time.
Once the standoffs were in place I installed the PSU in its lower mounting slot. The PSU slot has foam padding on the back of the case and four rubber stands over a very large vent. This should easily accommodate any size PSU with a vent that will work with any size fan or fan location. Some Extremely large PSU’s like those in the 1500 Watt range will fit but will obstruct the bottom fan slot. After the PSU was in place and all the cables I needed were attached to my modular Antec HCP Series PSU, I threaded them through to the back via the wire cut outs.
At this point I did several things including installing the motherboard, back I/O shield, and removed the top HDD tray. To install a HDD/SSD, you simply use the provided screws to attach the drive to the HDD tray. This can be done with the SATA connectors facing either direction. Once this is done the drive can be installed or removed without tools.
At this point in the build I recommend you follow my lead and do your wire management and connect your fans to the channel you want. You will notice channel A has 2 wires and channel B has 3 wires as it provides more power to the fans. I recommend you use “B” for the intake to create some positive pressure to reduce dust at the intake point.
You will notice the wires from the front I/O are not all black. This does not clash with the completely black case since I managed to hide all of the wires behind the motherboard tray. After all, the wires are routed and connected and now you are ready to install the finishing touches.
I installed the CPU, cooler, and GPU into the motherboard at this point. The very large cutout allows you to install the CPU cooler using the case to help with some of the more awkward installation methods. The expansion slots on Thor V2 all have thumb screws so you only need your screw driver to loosen them because they are close together. The PCI slot covers are also vented and replaceable.
Once everything was in place I installed the optical disk drive. This is done by removing a plastic side panel, sliding the ODD into the case and then locking it with tool-less latches on both sides.
Now that I had everything in place I put both doors back in place and secured the four external thumb screws. There is nothing to complain about here. Even though there is no removable mobo tray, the case is so large working with the tray is easy. Cable management was easy since there is plenty of wire cut outs and space behind the motherboard tray.
Design Shortcomings
While I do like the Rosewill Thor V2, there are some weakness to the design I need to address. There are filters in place for the entire front panel including the removable 5.25″ covers. The issue is these are just filter screens cut out and held in place with the most rudimentary method. While functional, they will be a chore to clean on a regular basis.
The front fan has red LEDs that can be turned on and off with the press of a button. A button that is well hidden in the plastic side rails. Reaching down to press this button is just irritating enough to not want to bother. As I expect a case this large to be place below the desk, you can’t really see the red LED anyway. It would have been better to have the button on the front I/O plate, especially since the wire from the fan is more than long enough to reach as you can see above.
More Holes Are Sometimes Not Good
The only other issue I have with the Rosewill Thor V2 is that there is a little too much ventilation. Since this can affect both acoustics and temperature, it’s fitting that we include this part right before we get down to the testign of both.
The side panel has ventilation cut outs that are 75% larger than the 230 mm fan. This includes the additional vents near the top of the panel. The extra ventilation makes controlling the airflow hard, increases noise, and can potentially reduce cooling efficiency. One could tape them off, but covers would actually be better to give back some control. But I’d reason that having less to begin with would have been a better idea, and suggest that they optimize around the most common fan configurations. But let’s see if we’re right about this in the tests.
Acoustic Testing
As with all the acoustic testing, I used a sound pressure meter approximately 1 meter away from the case. As this case has a fan controller, I did all tests twice. Once with the fans at minimum and once at maximum. The results of Thor V2 are highlighted in orange to distinguish them.
The minimum speed of the fans is very mellow since most of the sound is from air movement. Rosewill did a good job with vibration controls where needed and for providing solid fans. On high, the fans produce enough noise to be noticeable during video playback, so you want to use the low for this. You will not notice it during intense gaming sessions since your attention will be otherwise occupied or you may have a headset on.
The primary source of noise for all three tested cases is the stock CPU cooler. The Sentey GS-6000 chokes the stock cooler enough to be the loudest at idle due to the increased RPMs. This is reversed at full load with the Sentey providing a more controlled air flow and few places for noise to be generated. The BitFenix came in last at full load as the case is very open and only had the one fan to assist in cooling. The case did provide reasonable noise reduction compared to open air.
Cooling Efficiency
In these test, I ran OCCT to stress the CPU, and Furmark to stress the GPU as I have before. After 15 minutes I took temperature readings from AIDA64 Extreme. While I cannot guarantee 100% accuracy, the GPU temperatures in Furmark and AIDA64 were the same.
The Thor V2 easily out does everything when it comes to cooling the CPU and motherboard. While the high fan settings do bring down temperatures in every category, it only does so when at full load and only by a few degrees. The only issues seem to be the GPU cooling. Even though the side 230 mm fan is blowing directly on the graphics card, it is struggling to get cool air.
I believe this is due to the excessive ventilation letting air escape before the card can pull in the cool air it needs as we alluded to earlier. It could also be due to the fact the card is drawing air in from the bottom and the air is being blown across its natural flow from two directions. If the latter is the case, this could be corrected by adding a fan to the bottom fan slot. I may retest this case in future just to ensure this is not human error on my part so stay tuned for that in a future case review.
Final Thoughts
The Rosewill Thor V2 is the basic full sized SUV of the computer chassis world. It will not be the most stylish or have all the cool features its luxury brother’s have, but makes up for it by being built like a tank. I have had the Rosewill Thor V2 for a while now and it has been kicked, dropped, and hit with toys by small children; however, there is still not a single mark on it. It’s solid!
I did cut my arm with the case while carrying it from my desk to my bed when I was swapping out CPU coolers. Anyone who is moving this case around once it is full and pushing the 50 pound mark, should be very careful of sharp corners. This is something that is normally addressed at the higher price point cases, so it starts to show its low end nature with some of these quirks and issues.
In addition to the sturdy construction, the case is designed to house any components on the market today from the largest desktop motherboards to full sized GPU’s. Overall it provided good air flow and cooling with little noise though I would like to have seen better results for the GPU and we think that the excessive venting to make the case side panel more aggressive may be the culprit.
If fancy features come a distant second to durability and value, then the Rosewill Thor V2 at $129.99US may be the full tower case for you. If you don’t like the all black color and want something a bit more hip and trendy, Rosewill just introduced the white Thor V2 at CES 2012 for an extra $10US. Either way, the Thor V2 will likely outlast all the components that you started with and truly gives cases like Antec’s Twelve Hundred a run for its money in the same price point. The case market has just become a bit more interesting.
Pros
- Very Solid Construction
- Any CPU Cooler and/or Current GPU will Fit
- Up to XL-ATX Motherboard size
- Comes with 4 Fans (3 of which are 230 mm)
- Well Spaced Front I/O
- Easy Wire Management
Cons
- Some filters are Very Cheap
- USB 3.0 connected via Back Panel
- Fan Channels Different Voltages
- Reset button Impossible to Press
- Too Much Ventilation
- Sharp Corners
Overall Result: 8.0 / 10.0
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