Although there may not be the same amount as rivalry and as much riding on the competition between case manufacturers as that between AMD and Intel and ATI and Nvidia it never the less is what your average user sees 100% of the time of their PC and what they interact with daily. And for an enthusiast, a poor case can be a major pain to work in, overheat easily, and also be loud. A case may not speed up your computer but it definitely isn't something to overlook either. Today we'll be looking at one of the higher-end cases from one of the top-tier names on the market, Thermaltake, as we take a look at their case focused on gamers the V9 Black Edition.

Taking the case out of the box the first thing one notices is that this case is all jet black which is the trend these days in cases. Thermaltake this says this is black powdered coating and the side panels do feel quite smooth. The front is a plastic grill to allow for ventilation and the top is made of plastic.

One one side there is quite a bit of ventilation from a number of holes both on the top right and bottom side. We haven't tested this case for months obviously but hopefully this also doesn't let in much dust, we don't believe so and if so it shouldn't get into the main part of the case with the motherboard blocking it.

230x230x20mm silent fan for VGA cooling which takes up a large portion of this side panel. This provides a substantial amount of airflow.

Here on the front bottom we see the Thermaltake logo proudly displayed on the front of the case.

Front panel connectors include the standard mic and headphone connectors in addition to two USB ports.

Here are the power and re-set buttons on top in chrome finish.

On top is another massive fan this time for the CPU and whole system also a 230x230x20mm fan.