Computex 2016 - Day 1

Computex 2016 - Thermaltake

Thermaltake had one of the biggest stands with plenty going on and heaps of new products. First up is the Core P3, a smaller version of the Core P5 designed to accommodate all-in-one liquid cooling as well as custom loops. It supports both horizontal and vertical arrangements as well as wall-mounting and is really all about showing off your rig. Mini-ITX users can install the PSU sideways, while ATX users need to reposition the PSU brackets to have it fit beneath the motherboard. Radiators up to 360mm or 420mm are supported. It supports up to four 3.5in or five 2.5in drives with modular trays. Pricing wasn't disclosed but Thermaltake is looking to launh in a couple of months or so.


The next case was the Core G3. With a full-sized window this is again about showing off your rig, but it is a properly sealed case this time. Again horizontal and vertical arranegments are supported, and despite supporting ATX motherboards, Thermaltake keeps the case relatively slim by having the GPU fitted to a riser card and limiting support to SFX PSUs. Available in about three months or so, the Core G3 should retail for between $80 and $90 or so. This isn't fixed, but it's clearly a mid-range case.


We also saw the new RGB ring fans. These Riing 12 LED RGB fans will be sold as TT Premium Edition models, and there are 140mm versions to come too, we believe. The LED ring supports up to 256 colours and supports the new Digital Fan Hub and Riing RGB software, allowing users to customise the speed and colour of up to 48 fans divided into a maximum of six groups. These new fans use more blades than before (11 to be precise) to generate more airflow rather than static pressure.


Thermaltake also produces its own equipment for custom water-cooling loops, and much of this was on display as well. New to the family are some full hardline tube kits including fans, reservoir, radiator, fittings, coolant and tubes, as well as the GTX 1080 Founders Edition waterblock. With regards to the latter, however, Thermaltake said it's looking to work closely with Asus to produce waterblocks for its Strix custom PCB cards in the near future.


Continuing the theme of RGB, Thermaltake showed off its RGB ring power supplies, the Toughpower DPS G RGB Titanium Series (850W/1000W/1500W) and Tughpower DPS G RGB Gold Series (650W/750W/850W). They all feature 140mm ring RGB LED fans and are fully modular, sporting 100 percent Japanese capacitors and a single 12V rail. The colour of the RGB ring can be controlled via software, though you can't sync this with the standard Riing fans – this has been raised with the software developers, however. Full pricing wasn't revealed but the 650W should retail for around £90 including VAT when it launches soon, so they're fairly high-end and the prices will reflect that we expect. Alongside these were the SFX 450W and 600W Toughpower PSUs, rated at 80 PLUS Gold.


The Core P1 is an interesting chassis – it is fully 3D printable. Designed for mini-ITX systems, Thermaltake said it is composed of four separate parts and takes about 7 days to print in total and costs about £40 in materials. That said, the company is still working out how to achieve a financially viable means of distributing the plans.


Last but not least, we saw The Tower. This is a working title for now, but it is essentially a design born of a collaboration between Thermaltake and modder Mathieu Heredia. It is very much a high-end chassis, and the one on display is currently the only one in the world for now, so it may very well change by the time it's released. Approximately $250 is what we were told with regards to pricing.


Thermaltake is very much involved in the modding scene these days – it even hosted a competition on our very website, and had a few of the completed builds from that on display. These were sat in with a bunch of other very impressive case mods too – if you enjoy PC eye-candy, the Thermaltake booth was the place to be.