Thermaltake CTE T500 Air Snow Full Tower Case Review

A Closer Look – Exterior

Just taking the CTE T500 Air Snow out of the box, it certainly makes a striking impression right away. It’s big, standing fairly tall but a little shorter from front to back, but don’t think it’s going to be a space saver if you’re limited on floor space, it’s still quite large in every dimension. It looks stunning in the snow edition too, with crystal clear glass on the left side, so you’ll really be able to show off your hardware. There’s a PSU shroud built-in too, and the tempered glass terminates about 80% of the way down the side at the start of the shroud.

The right side panel is made from a single piece of thick steel, and as you can see, it has a large vent cut into the upper section, has a fan mount on the interior, and seems to be located directly behind the motherboard CPU cooler mount.

At the front, there’s a huge air intake, with massive and plentiful holes cut into the already quite large panel. You likely won’t be surprised to know that the front panel can handle a 420mm radiator!

At the rear of the case, there’s even more ventilation, with room for another 360/280 radiator here, as well as the ATX PSU mount located just below the PSU shroud. There are two thumbscrews for the left panel, two for the right, two more for the top panel, and a final two for the PSU shroud side panel too, allowing you to easily open the case up for building, cleaning, and maintenance.

The top of the case has even more ventilation, but this is important, as this is largely where the heat will exhaust, not the rear of the case. It’s largely a passive exhaust too, but there is room for a couple of fans in the top to help with that too; more on that later.

Finally, the underside of the case, which has, you guessed it, even more ventilation. There’s a full-size slide-out dust filter too, which is always good to see, and those huge full-width feet ensure both good ground clearance and stability for the tall case design.