Thermaltake Overseer RX-I Case Review

OverSeer Exterior Thoughts

These first few images are just me giving a quick overview of the overseer RX-1 chassis, and then I will go more into detail.

The entire front outer portion of the front bezel uses a metal mesh to keep large objects from entering the front fan/chassis during our use of this chassis.

Looking at the left side of the computer (looking from front of the chassis), Thermaltake uses a small window right above the optional side panel 200mm fan.

Like most other chassis, the Overseer RX-1 follows a pretty standard ATX layout.

Looking at the right side panel of the Overseer RX-1 chassis you can see that this is a solid panel with no holes for fans and no window.

Since I covered the other 5 sides of the Overseer chassis, I am going to give you a glimpse of the bottom of the Overseer RX-1 Chassis.

The feet that are on the bottom of the Overseer RX-1 chassis are tall enough to allow plenty of fresh air to enter the chassis from the bottom side. Each foot is made out of plastic with a foam rubber placed at the very bottom to keep the chassis from marring various surface types.

Now it is time for me to see exactly what makes the Overseer RX-1 Chassis different from all of the other chassis that are out there today. In order for me to find out, is for me to start tearing it apart. The front chassis bezel is very easy to remove; just place your hands up under the front bezel and carefully (gently) pull toward you (or away from the main chassis) and it comes right off.

The entire front outer portion of the front bezel uses a metal mesh to keep large objects from entering the front fan/chassis during our use of this chassis.

After we remove the front bezel we get a glimpse of the large 200mm fan that Thermaltake uses on Overseer RX-1 chassis.

Looking into the inner portion of the front bezel of the Overseer RX-1 chassis, Thermaltake also uses an even smaller mesh material to help reduce the size of the debris that enters our computers to micro sized dust particles.

This inner mesh filter is easy to remove for when we may need to clean out the filter to keep our front 200mm fan moving air freely.

The front 5.25 drive bay covers use both a metal mesh on the front portion, then on the backside of these covers Thermaltake places a foam style filter.

This was the one area that could use some improvement; Thermaltake used rather small snap locks to hold the drive bay covers on, and the drive bay covers can only be removed once the front bezel has been removed. When I tried removing the bay covers I had to try and unlock both sides at the same time. Otherwise, if I tried unlocking one side then move to the opposite side to unlock it, the drive bay cover would relock itself back into place. I will have to mention that these small clips are fairly stiff, so be careful when trying to remove the bay covers; otherwise, you might break the small clips. (Thankfully, I didnt break one.)

Time to turn our attention over to the 200 mm fan mount that is on the left side panel. (Left side if you are looking directly at the front of the Overseer RX-1 chassis.) Thermaltake uses a hexagonal grill opening so that if we do place a 200mm fan here, it wont restrict the air flow too much. The 200mm side panel fan is optional. If you wish to put a 200mm fan onto this chassis you will have to remove the small button style snaps in order to mount the fan. This side panel will only handle/mount a 200mm sized fan.

Thermaltake also uses the same type of mesh on the side panel fan as they did on the front bezel. But to remove the mesh, we have to remove the button style clips that hold this filter in place. And, if a 200mm fan is placed here, you would have to remove the fan in order to clean the filter.

As we can see, the back side of the Overseer RX-1 uses a standard ATX motherboard layout. Things that I feel are worth mentioning are: that the Overseer RX-1 chassis has 8 PCI expansion ports vs. the standard 7 that are on typical chassis, and this chassis has round ports cut into it to allow the use of an external water cooling setup.

Looking at the PSU (Power Supply Unit) mount, Thermaltake makes sure there are multiple mounting holes so that we may be able to mount different types of PSUs, or give us the ability to mount the PSU how we see fit. If we look down just below the PSU mounting, we see a small handle; this handle is so we can remove the lower PSU/bottom 120mm chassis fan filter.

To remove the lower PSU/120mm fan filter, all we need to do is gently push down and slide it back. This filter uses a really fine mesh to keep our fans from picking up lint, and hair from entering the PSU/ lower 120mm chassis fan.

The Overseer RX-1 chassis utilizes 8 PCI expansion ports, so those who run with 3+ video cards, this chassis should be more than capable to handle these types of computer systems. The PCI expansion port covers are vented to allow airflow in case we are not using that particular PCI expansion port.

The upper on/off buttons seem like a good spot to start off with on the I/O panel, so I will start there. The button
to the left is the reset button; the far right button is the on/off
button. The emblem in the center pulsates blue when the computer is
turned on.

The Overseer RX-1 chassis uses both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 front IO headers on the very top front of the chassis. There is also an E-SATA header located directly in the center of the top bezel. Now if you look toward the rear (or behind) the USB headers we see a rather strange looking trap door. This is here so we can plug in a bare HDD/SSD directly into this chassis without the need of an external drive enclosure (I will get more into detail a bit later).

Since the Overseer RX-1 chassis is not exactly small, I had to lay it on its side to give you a better glimpse of how Thermaltake incorporated the upper 200mm fan(s). Similarly to how to remove the front bezel, we just need to put our fingers in the small opening towards the backside of the bezel and gently lift it up and away from the main body of the chassis.

Thermaltake uses the same style of metal mesh on the exterior of the top bezel, as they did on the exterior front bezel. I have mixed feelings about using a small opening mesh on the top of the chassis. Using such small holes will keep screws and other tiny debris from entering the chassis from the top, but at the same time, it will restrict airflow from the upper fan(s) a little bit. I would like to have seen a larger opening mesh up here, but this is more of a personal preference than it is a problem.

Sometimes it is the little things that makes or breaks a chassis. Thermaltake uses a small front IO header connector, so if and when we do need to remove the top bezel, it wont get in our way when we need to install/clean the chassis upper fan(s).

Upon removing the upper bezel, we get a good look at the large 200mm fan that Thermaltake is using to help exhaust the hot air our computer components will produce during our daily usage.

Just in front of the rear upper 200mm fan that Thermaltake includes with the Overseer RX-1 chassis is where the optional 120/140/200mm fan mounts are located. The only problem I see here is that if we do plan on using a 120/140mm fan it may be restricted by the cross member brace.

Since we have the top bezel removed we can get a better look at the front IO headers, and the HDD/SSD docking header that allows us to use any bare HDD/SSD with this chassis.

To finish off the external overview of this review, we take a quick glance at how Thermaltake designed the right side panel (looking at the Overseer RX-1 from the front). Unlike typical side panels, Thermaltake has a slight bow to both of the side panels of the Overseer RX-1 chassis. This bow will play a large part on this chassis, more specifically the installation. So stay tuned.

Even after removing all of the bezels of the Overseer RX-1 chassis, the main metal portion of this chassis had no sharp edges; all of the edges of the chassis were rounded off (including the corners) to keep us from slicing our hands and arms to shreds when we are installing our components into this chassis.