Thermaltake View 37
A case to show off your building skills.
Where some manufacturers focus on premium materials or ever-smaller form factors for their latest cases, Thermaltake has decided to pursue a different course. Boasting a windowed, gull-wing side panel that curves around to cover the top of the case, this is a chassis that’s brilliant at showing off the internals of your pride and joy.
The gull-wing side panel is the main selling point of this case, and its design requires some careful considerations, because you’re essentially losing the side brace from the top to make way for the perspex panel. Strip the case down, and there’s obvious flexing due to the shift in structural integrity. It isn’t as noticeable with the side panels present, but it’s there, and has forced Thermaltake to use a corner brace to help keep the panel in place and the flexing to a minimum. It also means that it isn’t the tool-free design that it was originally intended to be — you’ll need a screwdriver for the four screws holding this brace in place.
Given there’s no room for a radiator — or, indeed, any fans — in the top of the case, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this would limit the cooling options available to the View 37, but not so. There’s a large space to the right of the motherboard that can take anything up to a 420mm triple-fan radiator (that’s three 140mm fans), which mimics the options for the front of the chassis. There are mounting holes for a single fan at the back of the case, along with space at the bottom in front of the PSU as well. In the box, you get a pair of Thermaltake Riing 14 LED Blue fans to keep your system cool.
Speaking of fans, you’re spoiled for choice when it comes to keeping the View 37 cool. For instance, you can mount up to three 140mm fans behind the front panel, or elect to go with more standard 120mm fans instead. Thermaltake has also been keen to show off this case with a pair of 200mm RGB fans behind the front panel, which you can clearly see through that front perspex piece to great effect. If you’re looking for a fully pimped-out RGB system, there’s certainly a lot to like here.
The case ships with a bracket to vertically mount your graphics card, although you’ll need a PCIe extender cable, which is sold separately, to actually mount your graphics card this way. If you’re not using this bracket, it’s easy to remove. Given the theme of this case is showing off your machine’s innards, it’s a shame the cable isn’t included with the case.
We found building inside the case a particularly pleasant experience, as it has improved access compared to most other chassis. There are plenty of options for drive mounting: there are four drive mounting brackets in the rear chamber that can hold four 3.5-inch drives or eight 2.5-inch drives; and the removable drive cage in front of the PSU can hold three 3.5-inch drives as well, giving you plenty of scope for hefty storage builds. There are plenty of routing holes for your cabling, too, and even though there’s no PSU shroud, we didn’t have a problem keeping things tidy, due to the healthy amount of clearance in the rear section of the case.
The View 37 is worth considering for anyone who values the aesthetics of a build. It lends itself more to a custom water-cooling loop than anything else, and benefits from a swath of LED lighting, but it can produce a stunning-looking machine. It isn’t perfect, the materials aren’t brilliant, and it’s a big ol’ case, but it has buckets of potential.