Thermaltake Urban T81 Extreme Full Tower Chassis Review

Exterior

The Urban T81 features two side panel doors that open out on hinges, much in the same way as “suicide doors” do on modified cars. The largest door panel features a huge and clear window panel to give us a great view of the chassis interior, while the smaller door is solid metal, covering up all of the front hard drive / cooling mounts. Both doors fasten in the middle and are lockable.

The chassis comes with a set of keys that allow you to secure the internal components, very handy for those who take their systems to LAN events.

Once unlocked you can pop open the side panel by pushing in a button that is hidden on the under the chassis.

At the front edge of the chassis you’ll find plenty of ventilation, this is used to feed the front fans.

The right side panel is a solid metal panel with a deep recess to allow for extra cable routing space, the right side of the chassis also features a lot of ventilation for any front mounted cooling.

The front panel is covered with a sleek-looking door panel, finished in gorgeous black aluminium and it does a great job of giving the chassis a bold and clean look as it covers the front fans and 5.25″ drive bays.

Behind the thick front panel you’ll find two 5.25″ drive bays with flip-out covers are well as two huge clip-in dust filters.

The filters are easy to remove and can be washed, making them very easy to maintain.

The 5.25″ drive bay covers can be removed and re-installed from the front of the chassis and the lower cover comes with another flip out cover inside it, allowing further compatibility for other devices such as card readers.

The top panel is raised up high to allow space for thick radiators above the motherboard.

This is complimented by three grommeted water cooling / cable routing holes. Below that you’ll find a 120/140mm fan or radiator mount.

There are eight expansion slots, each fitted with a good quality ventilated and reusable cover. The mounting screws are on the exterior of the chassis and this allows a little more clearance on the interior, all of the expansion bays are secured with a metal plate over the screws which is held in place by a pair of thumb screws to the right of the mounting screws.

There are two security lock mounts on the back of the chassis, one at the top and another here at the bottom.

The PSU mount is at the bottom with screw holes cut to allow normal or inverted PSU mounting. The bottom dust filter (which we’ll take a closer look at in a moment) can be slid out at the back of the chassis for easy maintenance.

The top panel features a huge air filtered cover which is mounted using two push-click clips.

The main I/O panel is covered with more aluminium to match the front panel and comes packed with features. On the left are the fan speed controls, reset and master power buttons, to the right of that you’ll find HD Audio connections, four USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports.

The underside of the chassis features loads of ventilation and four large feet that give that chassis great ground clearance. The dust filter which can be slid out from the rear of the chassis is full length and covers all the fan / radiator mounts, as well as the PSU air intake.

In the middle you’ll find a small push button, this is used for popping open the side panel doors.

With the filter removed you’ll notice two 120 / 140mm fan / radiator mounts.

One minor issue I have noticed is that the filter is a few millimetres too narrow to cover the air intakes, this could allow dust to enter the chassis as the filter should fully cover the vents.