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My recent review of the Thermaltake A500 chassis highlighted that it was a departure from Thermaltake’s preference of all glass all RGB design choices. Well, the Thermaltake View 71 could be the poster child of Thermaltake’s recent design philosophy.

This isn’t a bad thing though, RGB and tempered glass are massively popular at the moment, and the View 71 has been out for a while now and received almost universal praise.

Features

The View 71 is near the top of the Thermaltake line-up with only the View 91 above it in the View line, and the A500 and Level 20 range being more expensive.

Therefore, as you can expect it has a feature set that should accommodate the most complex and expensive PC builds. At £155.76 you could even argue it is quite affordable for an ultra-premium case.

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The blurb from Thermaltake states:

The View 71 Tempered Glass RGB Plus Edition full-tower chassis features three 120mm Riing Plus 12 RGB front fans and one 120mm Riing Plus 12 RGB rear fan for outstanding ventilation, and its seven drive trays with modular drive racks deliver advanced storage capacity and liquid cooling expansion. This elegantly designed piece utilizes swing-out side panels, and is enclosed in four-side 5mm tempered glass for users to demonstrate their DIY handiwork and enjoy the ultimate internal component visibility. With support for the latest PC hardware, the View 71 TG RGB Plus Edition is not only fascinating in appearance, and when it comes to performance, the only thing that will limit its capabilities is users’ imaginations.

The model I have been sent is the none RGB model so it is a little cheaper but omits the three 140mm RGB LED Riing in favour of two 140mm blue LED Riing fans. The RGB model is £25 more on Amazon and I would be inclined to spend the little bit extra for these excellent fans.

Fan support is a little lower than some of the more expensive models but still extensive. The front can handle two 140mm or three 120mm fans, rather than the 200mm compatibility on the Level 20 GT. In the top you get a bit more flexibility with three 120mm or 140mm. The rear can be either 120mm or 140mm. You then also get two 120mm options on the bottom.

Radiator support is superb, with the front, top and right going all the way up to 420mm, the bottom can handle 120 or 360mm and the back can go up to 240mm. Thermaltake put a lot of thought when designing their cases and this is optimized for providing users a quick way to access the drain valve without having to tilt the entire PC when draining coolant from the loop.

The top and right can handle all the AIO options Thermaltake has on the market, including the 360mm Floe Riing RGB Premium Edition I have previously reviewed.

The case has four 5mm tempered glass panels, with the front and top panels being held in place with thumbscrews but the side panels being on hinges and then closed with thumb screws. The housing around the top panel is plastic and this unclips in a similar manner to the Level 20 series, providing access to the radiator mounts. The glass panels sit raised off the front allowing air to flow freely behind them. With the top panel the plastic housing provided further space for air to move around freely. The top and front panels have a mesh dust filter that clips into place while on the bottom is another that slides out.

Specially designed for dual GPU placement options, the View 71 TG Edition has the support for vertical graphic card layout with dual PCI-E slots design. Integrated riser GPU support bracket not only prevents the graphic card from sagging, but also helps to reduce the weight on the motherboard PCI-E slots. It is worth noting that while the bracket is included there is no PCI-e extension cable, so you should factor that into the cost if you want to mount vertically.

If you have a lot of storage this case should fit your needs, there is a 4 bay drive cage, that is removable, while hidden behind the motherboard tray you can mount three 3.5-inch drives, or six 2.5-inch drives.

As with all of the recent Thermaltake cases this features Dismantlable Modular Design which allows you to strip apart everything from the base frame and customise it how you please. This is perfect for modders, but also simplifies the build process and can allow you to free up space for improved airflow.

Build Quality and First Impressions

This is undeniably an impressive case, and if you are a fan of RGB and tempered glass, it is clearly an excellent choice.

At £155 it is well priced too sitting sort of in the mid-ground of case pricing while having some great premium features such as the vertical GPU mount and superb AIO and custom water-cooling options.

With the glass raised away from the front and top this case should have better ventilation than many other cases.

There are several areas where you can tell this isn’t quite as premium as the Level 20 range. Some of the thumb screws, in particular on the front are very fiddly. While on the top I found that the holes in the tempered glass for the thumb screws were not perfectly drilled in alignment with the mount point. It ends up being an extremely tight fit, and I had to gently hit/firmly push the top panel back into place. However, the 5mm glass is reassuringly thick and feels ultra-premium.

The side panels also have the doors locked in place with thumbscrews, these are much easier to deal with, but I do prefer the latch mechanism on both the A500 and Level 20 GT.

As with other models with a large amount of glass, the see-through nature of this case is somewhat unforgiving on case building skills, so if you want to build a beautiful system you will need to spend quite a bit of extra time planning out your cable routes and tidying everything up. It would have also been nice to see a PSU shroud, just to give you a bit of breathing room for your cable management.

With this model you get one front fan, while the RGB model you get two, so in both cases you are going to end up with a bit of a none symmetrical look. I think it would have been better to sell it with no front fans, and the RGB option a full three fans.

The overall frame of the case is very similar to the Level 20 GT, the lid pops off in just the same manner and exposes a similar mounting system. Looking at pictures of the internals I wouldn’t be surprised if both models use the same design, if not the same frame.

Conclusion

Overall the is a superb case, and at this point, I am not sure if Thermaltake has any actual bad cases. While I did highlight some minor issues, I am mostly nit-picking in comparison to the more expensive Level 20 GT.

Assuming you like RGB and tempered glass, this looks like the perfect case for a full custom loop. You get a huge amount of radiator support, with a design to help with access to the drain valve, good intake vents all in a form factor large enough to fit the most complex system while at the same time not being excessively massive.

If I were building a system around this case I would be inclined to go for the RGB option, so you get 2 RGB fans plus the hub for less than you would pay for them individually. You then only need to buy one for 140mm fan to complete the front panel.

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Thermaltake View 71 Tempered Glass Full Tower Chassis Review
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