Thermaltake H700 TG Review

At 19.5 inches tall and 20.8 pounds, Thermaltake's classically hefty H700 TG midtower PC case starts off with a mid-market value proposal. Toss in a full side panel made out of tempered glass, make room for the very biggest motherboards, and add an attractive ARGB stripe down its front, and Thermaltake might give a few competitors the sweats with this chassis' current $110 asking price. It'll be a winner mainly for PC builders who are smitten with the stoic front panel and overall look, and who aren't fazed by its merely average, at best, thermal and acoustic performance.

Most of the H700 TG's extra height is dedicated to space above the motherboard, or what's typically used as top radiator space. You'll see 2.3 inches of blank steel sheet above the I/O shield hole on back emphasizing that. Other rear-facing features include lift-off hinge pins for both side panels, and a dual-pattern (120mm/140mm) fan mount with slots that allow 1.1 inches of adjustment for the rear exhaust fan's height. Also back here is an open-slot card bracket that allows up to seven expansion cards or a vertical mounting bracket to be installed, a dual-pattern power-supply bay that allows power supplies to be flipped, and a tab for the bottom panel's slide-out dust filter.

The top panel also has dual-pattern (120mm/140mm) mounts for fans (three positions), with a recess that houses a dust filter. The area is only long enough to fit two of the larger 140mm fans, but it will fit three 120mm fans. It's also rated to fit so-called "360mm" radiators, but we’ll discuss that a bit further in our installation notes.

A closeup of the front right corner, where the ports are housed, shows the first of several small concessions that Thermaltake took to keep the H700 TG's price down: The case has no Type-C port, and only a single USB 3.2 Gen 1 port. The other two Type-A ports are USB 2.0...

Surprisingly, though, the case does include an ARGB controller with a mode selector (marked "R" in the photo above), along with a power button with a logo that lights up when the power is on. Also present are a reset button and separate headphone/microphone jacks.

The dust filter that slides out from the back of the H700 TG's bottom panel covers two bottom 120mm fan mounts in addition to the power supply inlet. We were surprised to see that Thermaltake doesn't even document these mounts, but they’re an option for use with power supplies up to around 170mm.

Inside the case is enough space for a full-spec (13-inch-deep) EATX motherboard or up to seven drive trays, though only two of this type of drive tray are included; you can see them installed below. Removable plastic plugs fill the holes for SATA power and data cables, and a single 120mm fan occupies the front panel's triple-position 120mm/140mm mount.

In a nice touch, considering the size and weight of modern high-end video cards, an adjustable single-card support bracket is mounted behind a 60mm gap in the shroud that's designed to provide front-panel radiator space. The lower-front standoff hole for 13-inch-deep motherboards is also seen here.

Two 2.5-inch drive trays are located on the back of the H700 TG's motherboard tray, and a single-tray drive cage is mounted beneath it, in the power supply tunnel. We measured approximately 285mm of space between the power supply mount and the drive cage, though Thermaltake says that only 180mm or smaller units are suitable.

The lower drive cage has screw holes on top to fit a single 2.5-inch or a single 3.5-inch drive, and the tray inside of it can also fit either of those drive sizes. The most important difference is that the cage spreads apart to release side pins from a 3.5-inch drive, making those installations tool-free.

To take off the case's front face, you may be pleasantly surprised. A spring-contact-type connection between the steel shell and the plastic face panel is one of the H700 TG's more unexpected features, as it adds cost to a unit that lacks certain other competitive features (see our USB comments above).

Likewise, the color strip on front is a striking inclusion. A white reflector that widens and softens the front-panel ARGB strip's appearance is perforated to minimize its impact on airflow; the black inserts at the sides of the face plate serve the same function. These types of perforated panels are typically used to filter dust, but the ones in this case aren't designed for easy removal. Money saved here could quickly turn into money lost on canned-air canisters, unless you can run a vacuum over these filters.

The H700 TG build kit includes a pair of plugs for the SATA cable ports located behind the factory-installed pair of drive trays, an old-school PC speaker for beep codes, a pack of screws with a couple of extra standoffs to allow for EATX motherboard support, a motherboard spacer, four additional drive screws and grommets, a cleaning cloth for the glass side panel, and several cable ties. The H700 TG's motherboard tray is perforated for only two out of the three extra standoffs needed for 13-inch motherboards, and the spacer addresses the missing one in the middle, should you decide to install a maximum-size motherboard.

The front panel cables include leads for the reset button, the power button, the power LED, front-panel audio, USB 2.0, and USB 3.2 Gen 1.

And so, onward to building. Our test hardware includes Corsair's H100i RGB Pro XT CPU cooler and FSP's Dagger Pro 850W; these two devices serve our performance needs well while also fitting most of the cases we test. Here's the rest of the test configuration...

Our AIO liquid cooler raised a special concern. Mounting our AIO liquid CPU cooler to the top panel of a tested chassis generally results in cooler voltage-regulator temperatures. But doing that on the H700 TG revealed a small problem: Our fans hit the motherboard's I/O cover before we could slide the cooler all the way back. This left an approximate half-inch (13mm) gap between the end of our radiator and the back of the case.

Radiators have end caps, and since one of those end caps needs to be long enough for tube fittings, about 394mm is the most common actual length we’ve seen for a so-called "360mm" radiator. We only measured 405mm of radiator space in the H700 TG, and deducting 13mm from that would leave 2mm too little space to fit such a radiator. In some cases, builders might be forced to mount their big radiators to the front panel instead. Be warned if you are considering a big 360mm-class model here.

As we pictured in a photo earlier on, the top panel's fan/radiator mount is recessed by around 5mm, which is around 3mm more than it needs to be to house its stick-on dust filter flush with the case top. Had this recess been 2mm shallower (or our radiator 2mm thinner), our cooling fan wouldn't have collided with our motherboard's I/O cover, and we would have been able to slide our top-panel radiator all the way to the back of the case.

Of course, if you're spending the max on a roaring-hot performance CPU, a huge motherboard, and a top-flight cooler, you'll likely have the funds to shop for a higher-end case. But putting aside the question of support for mounting the biggest radiators to its top panel, the H700 TG adds a far cleaner appearance to our components than we’d have expected at this price point.

Because higher temperatures and noise levels mean lower performance, the lowest numbers in our charts win. That the H700 TG ties for fourth out of six contenders in our CPU cooling test isn't a deal breaker, when the results are close and the losing case has so many additional fan mounts that a fussy buyer could just fill more of them with fans. But it's definitely not going to end up on the plus side of this model's Pros and Cons list. Competing cases here include the NZXT H7 Flow, the Fractal Design Pop XL Silent, and the Cooler Master HAF 500.

Fans are usually cheaper when bundled with a case, and we believe that buyers in the over-$100 market would likely spend a few dollars more for a case that had more fans. Such an upgrade probably would have helped the H700 TG in our voltage-regulator temperature measurement, where it drops to fifth place out of six cases.

Jumping up to third place in our GPU temperature reading secures a place in performance mediocrity for the H700 TG's single intake fan, and this is the point where we admit that moving the fan to a higher position on the front panel would have likely caused the voltage regulator to go down slightly while allowing the GPU temperature to go up.

The glass panel on the left side does a better job of blocking in our component fan noises, compared to the sheet of steel on the right side. But we should also note that the perforated RGB reflector on the front panel also likely lets some noise out. Even though it had only a single intake and a single exhaust fan of its own, the H700 TG's noise level was second-worst out of our group of six cases.

The H700 TG is a nicely designed EATX case that's well-constructed, in the typical-quality steel for its price class. It's even equipped with a few advanced features that could give its competitors some sleepless nights.

Still, looking at the basics, the case lacks Type-C USB connectors; its stylishly recessed top-panel radiator mount might place our CPU cooler's radiator too close to our motherboard; and its two included fans didn't provide the cooling we’d expect at this noise level. Also, keeping its front-panel air inlets clean will require canned air or a vacuum.

Motivated, advanced PC builders who simply love the H700 TG's design may be able to make it perform competitively and reduce the dust issue by filling its three top and two bottom fan mounts with intake fans and using the front and rear as exhausts. But experiments such as these are not for users who seek a simple, straightforward path to completion, and they'll also tack on the extra cost of the additional fans.

Thermaltake's well-constructed H700 TG is a spiffy-looking, so-so-performing midtower case that's best for PC builders who prioritize aesthetics.

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