Thermaltake Spedo Advance Package Case Review

Exterior Impressions


There is no doubt about it—the Spedo is one monster of a case. Standing exactly 24 inches tall, it definitely falls perfectly into the “Full Tower” category. Although looks are definitely in the eye of the beholder, we’d say that the Spedo exudes an aggressive appearance without being overly flamboyant and colourful. At first glance, it looks quite a bit like the Cooler Master Stacker with its front panel filled with removable bay covers from top to bottom.

The case’s finish has a nice and durable black paint coating, and its plastic exterior highlights appear to be nice and thick, and solidly constructed.


The Thermaltake Spedo Advance Package’s side panels are far from the everyday norm. A uniquely shaped window is almost completely obstructed by a massive 230mm fan that we’ll get into a bit more later on. Ventilation openings can also be found toward the front of the case for the hard drive cages. Although there is no fan to provide side-to-side ventilation for the hard drives, we believe that Thermaltake opted for this feature to allow some improved passive cooling to the drives.

On the other side of the case, we see an interesting location for a 120mm fan. This is actually a stamped grill for a fan that can be attached to the rear of the motherboard tray for additional CPU cooling. We’ll be exploring this feature in greater detail in the “Installation” and “Cooling Performance” sections.


The rear of the case is well ventilated with two 120mm exhaust fans, ventilated slot covers and a stamped grille that covers most of the unused parts of the rear panel. Keeping the rear of the case breathing, especially the expansion slot area is very important as toasty video cards do not always exhaust air directly out of the case very well. Front-to-back airflow helps to get this warm air out of the case.


Two watercooling tube grommets can also be found for external watercooling gear. The grommets enter the case above the motherboard, which may be a pro or a con depending on your watercooling setup. At any rate, the case is essentially empty above the motherboard so tubing would enter in a location free of obstructions. Water cooling grommets are becoming more and more of a staple feature found on enthusiast grade cases today so it only makes sense that Thermaltake would follow the crowd. We’ll speak a bit more about the Spedo’s watercooling potential in the “Interior Impressions” section.


The Spedo is yet another bottom mounted PSU case, which is becoming ever more popular these days. It should be noted that there are some thermal advantages to having the PSU at the bottom of the case, but some serious cable management challenges go along with it. Thankfully case manufacturers are starting to implement some more innovative ways to manage cabling in this sort of orientation, and PSU makers are providing longer power leads to ensure they’ll reach. We’ll see how the Spedo manages in this regard but with the extension cables for the CPU and 24-pin power connectors, things are looking good in this area.

The mounting holes exist to allow the PSU to be mounted right-side-up or upside-down. Some PSUs with a 120mm or larger fan at the bottom of the casing may benefit from an upside down orientation as they can draw in air with less restriction from the case. On the flip side, mounting it right side up allows the PSU to draw in cooler air from underneath the case. If the air temperature within the case is high, this orientation may be preferred. At any rate, it’s good to be able to choose between the two mounting possibilities.