Thermaltake S500 Steel TG Case Review

Ditch those plastics and go for raw steel. That seems to be the main goal for Thermaltake with their latest premium line case, the S500 Steel TG. Rather than go for lightweight aluminium, they’ve opted for thick steel panels for that rugged look. Rather than dash the case full of RGB, which is the current market trend, they’ve opted to black things out this time. Sure, you could add RGB if you wanted, but we’re not going to.

Thermaltake S500 Steel TG

Featuring support for large 200mm fans and with plenty of ventilation, it’s built for performance. For those who want a rig that looks as serious as the jobs your PC will be given. Of course, with tempered glass and that matte black steel finish, it’s hardly bland to look at, but there’s definitely a more mature approach to design here than some of their more outlandish models.

Features

• Sleek Steel Design – S Series Steel Tempered Glass Edition Chassis is built to be sleek and minimalistic. The clean steel front and top panels of S500 Steel TG hide the ample air intakes, and the removable power supply cover gives you plenty of space to route cables and clean up the build. S300 Steel TG also comes with a power supply cover that you can utilize to manage cables conveniently.    
• Patented Rotational PCI-E 8 Slots Design – Our brand new patented rotational PCI-E system allows you to stack multiple GPUs either vertically or horizontally, depending on how you want to build your system on the S500 Steel Tempered Glass Edition Chassis.
• Handy I/O Ports – The top-front panel of S500 Steel Tempered Glass Edition Chassis features two USB 3.0 ports two standard USB 2.0 ports to provide easy direct access points when needed.
• DMD: Dismantlable Modular Design – Enables users to freely build the system from the ground up with given modular panels, racks, brackets, and pre-design mounting arrays. No more unreachable screw corners or gaps, making installation a breeze with the Dismantlable Modular Design.

Specifications

For in-depth specifications, please visit the official Thermaltake product page here.

What Thermaltake Had to Say

“S Series Steel Tempered Glass Edition Chassis is built to be sleek and minimalistic. The clean steel front and top panels of S500 Steel TG hide the ample air intakes, and the removable power supply cover gives you plenty of space to route cables and clean up the build. S300 Steel TG also comes with a power supply cover that you can utilize to manage cables conveniently.” – Thermaltake

Review Note

Please be aware that since the courier opted to drop what I can only assume was an Anvil from a great height on the parcel, I will temporarily be using stock images for this review. However, I do have the case here for reference and will update the images in the very near future. Despite what appears to be a massive accident, the damage is amazingly minor, but enough to ruin my lovely pictures. However, if this case wasn’t made from thick steel, it would have been a fine pile of dust. It’s bloody strong.

Exterior

The Thermaltake S500 is an absolute beast. Which is funny, as I’ve said the same thing about a few Thermaltake cases in recent months. However, at 15KG out of the box, a diet of Steel and Tempered Glass has not made it particularly nimble to move around. It’s technically a mid-tower, but it has quite a tall design putting it quite close to a full tower in terms of ergonomics.

Ventilation

Pictures don’t really do the finish much justice either. It has a soft texture to the steel that gives it a more matte finish. It’s quite monolithic really and manages to look elegant and understated in one swift move. There’s plenty of ventilation too, despite the closed up front panel. With ventilation running all down the left and right sides.

While there’s no ventilation at the bottom edge, the panel does have a pattern to match the front vents, just giving it a bit more of a unified look, which I love. The glass sits just in front of the vents, so raised a touch, however, it’s otherwise flush with the outer steel panels, so it doesn’t look bloated.

Durable Steel Panels

On the right-hand side, a massive slab of steel forms the right-side panel. It’s very robust, and would likely take a tank shell to burst through. There’s more ventilation at the front edge, as well as loads at the top too for any radiators or fans you may have. You can clearly see the ground clearance here too, allowing airflow to the bottom ventilation. Just like the tempered glass panel, this is mounted with two thumbscrews, so it’s easily accessed when required.

Monolithic Front Panel

The front panel features a super clean design. Thermaltake has given it a rolled top and bottom edge, so it flows into the case rather nicely. There’s a small Thermaltake logo at the bottom, but otherwise, branding is kept to a minimum to keep the design looking smart. Again, don’t worry about ventilation, as it’s plentiful on the sides. Plus, indirect airflow is great for reducing unwanted fan noise.

Rotatable Expansion Slots

Around the back, you’ll find all the usual fixtures and fittings. There’s a 120mm fan mount at the top, with a 120mm fan pre-installed. The fan mount has elongated screw mounts too, allowing for a good range of height adjustment here. Below that, there are eight expansion slots with reusable metal covers. What’s really neat is that the whole panel is removable too, allowing you to set all the expansion slots at 90-degree should you want to show off your GPU.

Front I/O

The top panel has the same slick finish as the front panel. The only thing breaking up the design is that neat and tidy I/O panel. You’ll find the usual audio jacks here, as well as four USB ports and a central power button. Nothing too crazy, but certainly ticking all the right boxes.

Dust Filters

Finally, we have the bottom of the case. There are four wide feet to provide plenty of stability and they feature tough rubber grips. Not that it’s going to slide around at 15KG. However, they’ll prevent the case from scratching up harder surfaces. There’s a full-length dust filter too, which slides out from the rear. This allows clean airflow to both the PSU and the bottom ventilation for the case.

Interior

The side panel is easily removed using the two thumbscrews at the rear. It’s a close-fitting panel too, which will prevent dust being pulled in through any panel gaps. This will also help keep the noise isolation in check; plus it looks smarter when things fit tightly on the case.

Huge Interior

The space inside this case is impressive, especially for a mid-tower. Not that Thermaltake has worked any magic here, it’s simply a pretty big PC case for a mid-tower. There are perks to that, of course, as it means you’ll have little trouble fitting high-end hardware in here. There’s a huge cut-out for the CPU cooler mounting behind the motherboard. There are some massive rubber grommets for routing cables too, as well as a small PSU shroud to help keep things looking neat and tidy.

There are some modular HDD bays in the bottom, although these can be removed of height-adjusted as required. That’s a handy feature for those fitting huge radiators in the front panel, but that’s really up to you. The shroud for the PSU also acts as a vertical GPU mounting bracket if you rotate the rear panel covers. Albeit, you’ll need to provide your own riser cable to take full advantage of this.

Fans or Radiators?

The cooling support in the S500 Steel TG is impressive. There are only two fans pre-installed, just standard black Thermaltake 120mm models for a basic airflow design. However, you can fit up to 3 x 120mm, 3 x 140mm or 2 x 200mm in the front, and the same again in the top. Of course, that includes up to 360mm and 420mm radiators in the front, or 280mm and 360mm radiators in the top. Furthermore, an extra 120mm radiator can be mounted in the rear, and if you remove the HDD bay, a 360mm radiator on the right-side panel mount.

Cable Routing and More

The Thermaltake S500 Steel TG comes with plenty of cable routing space behind the motherboard. Plus, with built-in cable ties, you can route the bulk of your cables neatly enough. However, there are a few additional cable tie points should you require them. My favourite features though is the HDD mounting plate behind the motherboard, so you’re not left short of extra storage should you remove the front bays.

Complete System

There are a lot of possible configurations possible with the Thermaltake S500 Steel TG. For air cooling, you could install massive 200mm fans for huge airflow at low RPM; which may be perfect for those who want a quiet office workhorse. For enthusiast gamers, it’s likely you’ll be looking at liquid cooling though. Sure, it’ll support custom-loop hardware and plenty of it. However, something like a 360mm AIO from Thermaltake will be more than enough for most consumer demands. Mounted in the top, you can keep that front panel clear for bringing in cool air to cool your GPU and other hardware too. Albeit, you could mount the radiator on the front panel if you so desired.

Cable Management

It’s not hard to get a clean build with so much space on the interior. Some wider motherboards do tend to cover the grommets to the right of the motherboard though, which is a shame. However, the space provided for the right panel radiator mount quickly doubles up for that purpose too. Plus, with a vertical pass-through on that mini PSU shroud means that GPU cables can be routed cleanly to the graphics card, rather than from behind the motherboard.

Performance

As I said, the case only comes with 120mm fans as standard. However, for a premium case like this, it’s likely you’ll want to be flexible with how you customise the design. For this build, you can see 2 x 200mm fans in the front. What’s neat is that they sit in front of the case, but behind the front panel; so they don’t eat up interior space. You can see the same with the top radiator, which is sitting under the top panel but above the case; the fans are inside the case though, but this still frees up a lot of space.

Big graphics cards and a huge PSU? That’s really not going to be an issue here. The length of the chassis means you could have the biggest GPU on the market, and still have a fan-radiator-fan combo in the front panel with room to spare. Again, it’s a pretty big mid-tower.

Mounting the GPU on its side looks superb though, and as you can see, the expansion slots turned 90-degree means you have the full bank of PCIe slots available; with enough riser cables.

Tempered Glass

While the case is basically all matte black, with a slightly tinted window, it doesn’t have to be hidden away. Because it’s all black, when you do throw colour in there, it provides a really strong contrast to show off your hardware. That being said, I’m sure it’d be pretty sweet to have it with a solid steel panel on both sides for a quick stealthy build.

Overall, big, bold, and stylish. If that’s not your thing, then I don’t know what to say!

How Much Does it Cost?

The Thermaltake S500 Steel TG is a premium case with premium construction. So, you would expect it to cost £250, right? OK, maybe just £150? Sounds pretty reasonable to me. However, at just £99.90 I thought Thermaltake was pulling my leg, but nope, it’s a sniff under £100, and that makes it extremely appealing.

Overview

Thermaltake is one of the biggest names in the PC market. Not just for their cases, but also their PSUs, RAM, peripherals, and so much more. They’ve got a huge fan base and a lot of years experience, and it shows. What I love about the S500 Steel TG is just how clean and bold it looks. If you want something completely bonkers, Thermaltake has you covered though. Just look at their beastly Level 20 series for example. However, if you want something that’s going to make you the king of the office, or even just something clean, tidy, and durable at home, the S500 Steel TG is the way to go.

Competition

The Thermaltake S500 Steel TG is an impressive solution. At this price point, it makes it phenomenally competitive with what else is on the market. Sure, Corsair, Antec, Lian Li and a bunch of others have impressive products around this price point. However, as subjective as it can be, I think the S500 Steel TG can hold its head up high against anything the competition has.

Should I Buy One?

Durable steel construction, that slick matte black finish, and style that is simply hard to beat at this price point. It looks like it’s worth way more than it is, and it’s built to a standard worth of a higher price point too. With impressive cooling support, great cable routing, and a unique PCIe mounting system, it’s easily one of the coolest cases around right now. Highly recommended!