Thermaltake Spedo (notice that it isn’t called Speedo to not cause trouble with the sportswear manufacturer) is a new series of full-tower cases from Thermaltake. We reviewed the most complete model within this series, called “Advance Package”, which comes with seven 5 ¼” bays, six internal 3 ½” bays, six fans and a very interesting system to separate the case into different compartments in order to improve the internal airflow. Our initial impression was that this is one of the most complete cases in the market today. Let’s see if Spedo Advance Package lives up to our initial impression.

Below we listed the features present on the top-of-the-line “Advance Package” model that are not available on the plain (and less expensive) Spedo model:

• Internal parts are painted in black.
• Side panel comes with a 230-mm fan (with 190-mm blades), a transparent window and a small mesh with medium holes. The side panel of the plain is solid with three meshes supporting the installation of two 140-mm fans that don’t come with the case.
• Plastic panels to divide the interior of the case into several different thermal chambers.
• Cable management system below the motherboard tray.

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Figure 1: Thermaltake Spedo Advance Package case.

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Figure 2: Thermaltake Spedo Advance Package case.

Externally Spedo has a very serious look, which is a good thing, in our opinion. We prefer cases with a more sober looks than cases that look like a parade float, as we think that they will please more users than the second option. But don’t let its sober external looks fool you; internally this case is very different, as we will discuss later.

The left side panel comes with a big 230-mm fan. The problem is that the blades from this fan “only” measure 190-mm, making it hard to compare to other products. For example, Antec Twelve Hundred uses a “smaller” 200-mm fan which isn’t smaller: both use 190-mm blades so both fans have the same size, even though by just reading the specs you would think that Spedo’s fan is bigger. We really wished that manufacturers started at least disclaiming the length of the fan blades in order to fix this kind of problem. This fan rotates at 800 rpm and has no speed control and uses a standard four-pin peripheral power connector, not allowing you to monitor its speed thru your motherboard.

On the right panel you can see mesh where you can install an optional 120-mm fan behind the motherboard tray, below the CPU socket. We will discuss this unusual option later.

You can rotate the feet from this case, if you want to. On Figures 1 and 2 you can see them on their default position, but you can “open” them if you’d like, see Figure 3.

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Figure 3: Moving one of the feet to a different position.