Level 10 GT Internal Design
Getting inside the Level 10 GT is extremely easy as you simply need unlock the "System Security Lock" and then press in the button underneath the case and pull the door at the same time. Thermaltake has used their clever case door fan connector which allows the door to open with the fan connected.
The opposite case door opens in a more traditional manner as it is secured using a pair of thumb screws at the back of the case before you can slide it off. We had a lot more trouble here as it was almost like the door was glued on. It was impossible to remove by hand as there is nowhere to gain leverage. Therefore I was forced to jimmy it off with a screwdriver, I felt like I was trying to steal someone's car.
Anyway, with both doors open I was able to get a good look at how the Level 10 GT works inside. The motherboard tray which is not removable provides plenty of room to work and the tray itself has undergone quite a lot of work. The tray features eight rubber grommets along with a massive hole that provides rear access to the motherboard's CPU mounting bracket. Thermaltake has ensured that the hole is large enough to cater for all kinds of AMD and Intel motherboards.
There is enough room to support graphics cards as long as 360mm which is considerably longer than even the Radeon HD 6990. The maximum CPU cooler height supported is 190mm and given that some of the taller heatsinks that we have worked with such as the Prolimatech Armageddon only measure 160mm tall there is plenty of headroom left in the Level 10 GT.
We noticed how Thermaltake has made strides to not only provide excellent cable management in the Level 10 GT, but the cables that come pre-installed have also been neatly routed through the case. The fact that Thermaltake has also used black cables for everything is awesome, there are no ugly beige USB cables in this case.
Another thing that really impressed us was the 3.5" hot-swappable bay setup. The five bays are powered via a single SATA power cable, and not just any SATA power cable. This is a custom made cable that is designed to fit the Level 10 GT like a glove. The user simply needs to connect the data cable to their motherboard and slide in some hard drives.
The 5.25" drive bays are almost as impressive, as the right side door hides the tool-less design that allows users to snap up to four 5.25" devices into place in just seconds. Securing the 5.25" drives from the opposite side of the case is not really an option unless you take half of the case apart.
Then there are the 3.5" drive bays which are not accessible from the inside of the case, so this is not an area that we need to concern ourselves with right now. The power supply is meant to be installed in the bottom of the case and in front of that is a mount for an optional 120mm fan. Both the optical 120mm fan and the fan that will be featured in the PSU are provided a removable dust filter which is accessible on the underside on the case.
Thermaltake has pre-installed four case fans which include three massive 200mm fans. The intake fans consist of a front mounted 200mm fan and a side door 200mm fan. The exhaust fans include a top mounted 200mm fan and a smaller 140mm rear fan. The 200mm fans are designed to operate at ~ 600 - 800 RPM generating 13 - 15 dBA of noise. The smaller rear fan spins at 1000 RPM and makes 16 dBA of noise.
The internals of the Level 10 GT are constructed from SECC (Steel, Electrogalvanized, Cold-rolled, Coil) which brings the total weight up to 28 lbs (12.7kg), which is considerably less than the 47 lbs that the original Level 10 weighed. In fact, the Level 10 GT weighs exactly the same as the Silverstone Raven RV02-E which is very reasonable for a full tower case. As you can appreciate from the pictures, the internal workings of the GT have been given a nice matte black paint job to match the rest of the case.