Gadgetory

last year Thermaltake unveiled its new suppressor case series with a pair of mid towers notice the f50 one and the f30 one and both received glowing reviews from professional tech reviewers and consumers the highlights included the great looks excellent clearance performance wide range of configuration possibilities and of course the client operating volume thanks to the use of effective sound deadening material Thermaltake is now expanded the suppressor series to support additional form factors for introducing the suppressor f1 a boxy little case designed to accommodate mini ITX builds measuring just 276 millimeters tall 260 millimeters wide and 319 millimeters deep the f1 boasts a twenty 2.8 litre capacity and weighs just three point two kilos despite its mostly steel construction externally the f1 shares many of the design attributes of its larger siblings that's solid brush front panel is on display while all the i/o gear can be found at the left side of the facade then one-take says the i/o panel has been designed with the convenience and a clean look in mind the panel features dual USB 3 ports and HD audio connectors together with the power and reset buttons the convenience of the i/o panels placement really depend on where you sit the case for ultimate convenience you want to see the f1 on your desk and ideally on your right hand side along with the front panel the interchangeable side panels are also well ventilated these symmetrical panels allow users to build the system with personality you can play around with the panels and configure for either the best viewing presentation or cooling performance to magnetic side filters found on the ventilated panels can be easily removed for cleaning also a removable PSU dust filter and adjustable shockproof rubbers can be found on the removable bottom panel around the back we find an interesting layout the ATX power supply bracket is located centrally in the bottom of the case and a horizontal orientation directly above it is the motherboards IO panel followed by the 280 millimeter fan grills there are also two expansion slots to the right which allow the f1 to support dual slot graphics cards inside the suppressor f1 has been divided into two main chambers the upper chamber which has all the core system components focus on cooling performance while the lower chamber is designed for the PSU cable management and which devices speaking of storage def one can accommodate a pair of three and a half inch drives and two two and a half inch drives all of which are hidden in the lower chamber drives are mounted on a pair of custom drive racks which slide into the f1 once the drives are attached even with a large ATX power supply installed there's plenty of room to tuck away access cabling the lower chamber which helps create a neat looking build I should also note the f1 will accept power supplies as long as 200 millimeters up top there's enough room for 140 millimeter tall CPU cooler while a dual slow graphics card as long as 255 millimeters will fit it's possibly go as long as 285 millimeters for the graphics card but the back side of the car will end up being the front panel now that we've seen in and around the suppressor f1 it's time to stock it with some hardware and conduct some thermal testing at the moment one of my older home theater pcs is built in a sleek little Silverstone RV zero one and for this review I thought it might be interesting to move the hardware from that build into the f1 of course before doing so I'll grab some temperatures for the CPU and GPU installed in the RVs that I won and then compare them to the f1 the hardware in question is an Intel Core i5 46 70 K running on an A drugs dead 87 EIT X it's an odd motherboard now I know but it still works so well plugged in a 16 GB ddr3 memory and a gigabyte Radeon r9 290x the biggest cooler I can fit inside the Raven RVs that are one was the Silverstone nitrogen series nto 6 pro someone takes f1 will support much taller coolers and low profile models like the mt o 6 pro aren't required however an effort to keep the thermal results comparable we're stuck with the nitrogen series cooler coming from the RBS that r1 it has to be said that the installation process for the suppressor f1 is considerably more user-friendly where half the system needs to be disassembled in order to change a hard drive or the power supply on the Raven this isn't the case at all with the f1 all the panels are removable and this makes installation extremely quick and easy sliding off the bottom panel to install the power supply made life easy and helped to create a neat and tidy build speaking of which there aren't really any innovative cable management features offered by the f1 rather the design lends itself to good cable management the only part of a design I didn't love with the drive cages a little too crude in my opinion as I found removing them and reattaching them very cumbersome the drive brackets don't clip in a place really well and I found myself having to squeeze slash force them back in other than that for such a tiny computer case the installation process was surprisingly straightforward and I appreciate the fact that you can install or remove virtually all the components without first having to remove something else performance-wise the thermal tech suppressor f1 is extremely quiet and although I don't have any scientific data to show you it is quieter than the Raven RVs that are one unfortunately the temperatures weren't quite as good as the I visitor one is the system on a hole around a few degrees warmer nothing alarming but certainly not an improvement either had the front mounted 200 millimeter fan being able to spin a little faster than 800 RPM we feel the temperatures could have been greatly improved some users have suggested that the suppressor f1 is very similar to coarse as obsidian 250 D while there are a number of similarities the cases are still quite different perhaps the biggest difference however is the price well the 250 D is currently selling for $80 the f1 cost is $50 or 78 UD so it quickly becomes apparent that the f1 is very competitively priced throughout the review I had to keep reminding myself that this is just a $50 case and this helps to excuse a few of the areas where the build quality was a bit suspect the magnetic dust filters on each of the side panels for example kept falling apart when removed now to reattach the magnetic strips all the time the perspex window is pretty poor as well mine had some brown flakes that looked a lot like cardboard and grained in it which was odd perspex also scratched and scuffed very easily which was a shame still keeping that $50 price tag in mind the suppressor f1 has a lot to offer budget mini-itx builders for a case that can handle large tower style CPU coolers full length graphics cards large ATX power supplies the f1 is shockingly small as mentioned it's very easy to work with and once complete it's easy to go back and change components the thermal performance is respectable too particularly given how quiet the cases the slightly larger size of the suppressor f1 gives it an advantage over most mini ITX cases in this price range when it comes to hardware support and ease of installation while I really like the silverstone Sugo SG 13 cooler Master Elite 120 advanced & fractal design no 304 for example the more compact design of these cases makes them how to live with if you update Hardware on a regular basis part of the reason why I hadn't upgraded my IV 0-1 system is so long was down to the fact that it's a real job to change anything in that case thanks for joining me for another hardware unbox product review I'm your host Matt and I'd love to hear what you guys think in the comments or in our forum at our brown box com see you next time