Thermaltake s100 TG

A fine choice for the builder on a budget.

While Thermaltake continues to push various iterations of its hyper-designed Level 20 series, the case-maker is still keeping a watchful eye on on the budget end of the market, and the S100 Tempered Glass is a great little sub-$100 case for the frugal builder. Thermaltake calls it a ‘micro chassis’, but it is a nonetheless squat and broad case that still makes quite a physical statement.

If you do have 2.5in SSDs installed, things are going to be particularly cramped.

The case’s big selling point is right there in the name; one side panel is a single piece of smoked tempered glass, and this sits in a drop hinge. It’s secured closed by a pair of magnets, so it can easily swing open at any time, making upgrades and case cleaning relatively painless. The drop hinge also makes it a cinch to completely remove the panel, which you’ll almost certainly want to do while building a system into the s100 TG.

The other panel is a more prosaic metal one, secured by a pair of plastic-coated thumb screws.

Power and IO options sit on the forward upper surface, in front of a removable mesh panel, again secured by magnets. IO is pretty generous for this price point, with a pair of USB 2 ports and a single USB 3, plus headphones and mic jacks. The rear panel houses the case’s single 120mm fan, and four expansion slots. It’s a touch on the miserly side, but at this price point it’s not likely you’ll be building a system that needs more.

Inside, the case is pretty bare bones, however, which at least means there’s lots of room for the case’s small size. The PSU has its own shroud to keep it and its cables clear of the rest of the build, and front of it is a small, single-bay HDD drive caddy. Because of the shroud, though, this can only be accessed by removing the metal side panel. Similarly, the SSD mounts are behind the motherboard tray, again requiring the removal of thumb screws and the metal panel. Thermaltake boasts that the hinged glass panel makes for easy switching of storage drives, but that really only counts for drives mounted on the motherboard itself.

Room for clever cable management is pretty limited, and while the cable runs lack rubber grommets for protection, their edges are at least rolled to remove any harsh edges. If you do have 2.5in SSDs installed, things are going to be particularly cramped.

As we said, the out of the box cooling is pretty barebones, but there’s room for a range of radiators and fans to be added. You won’t be able to fit large 420mm rads, but there’s room for everything else, and can even manage up to 200mm fans (though only in the top panel). DAVID HOLLINGWORTH