Set Jaw To Drop
Computer cases are supposed to be big metal boxes. We’ve practically had this belief hard-coded into our DNA. So, when a case comes along that defies this notion, we take notice. Whether we see them at an expo or a LAN party, cases with unique designs are seared into our brains.
Prepare your prefrontal cortex, because Deepcool has a new case that will permanently etch itself into your memory. The Tristellar is the first of the company’s cases to take conventional chassis design and throw it out of the window, into the stratosphere, and on to the next galaxy. In fact, the only aspect of the Tristellar that might rival its stunning aesthetics is the sheer amount of hardrware it can hold. From front to back, there are accommodations for a raft of enthusiast-caliber components.
The Tristellar is unlike any other case we’ve seen, and that’s quite an achievement. This month, we’re performing extensive reconnaissance and exposing all the skunkworks within. Let’s find out what happens when Deepcool puts the traditional case blueprint in the shredder.
Deepcool R & D
As you might guess, a case as innovative as the Tristellar doesn’t come together overnight. According to Lei Liu, product director at Deepcool, the design team turned to one of sci-fi’s most cherished franchises for inspiration.
“Our goal was to create a PC chassis that is ‘outside the box,’” Liu says. “The original design is based on ‘Star Wars,’ and of course, we wanted to make it stellar.”
With its objective established, Deepcool embarked on an adventure that would last nearly an entire year. The company solicited the opinions of its customers, as well as other PC enthusiasts, gamers, and consumers to find out what makes a truly exciting case. “We learned that people want a unique, creative design and excellent cooling performance, rather than a box.”
Easier said than done, as Deepcool’s engineers found out. Liu says that the most daunting task was taking the Tristellar’s original design and appearance and making it a functional PC chassis. Over the course of the year, the design team constantly tested and upgraded the case in order to make room for more components, increase the case’s cooling capabilities, and arrange the internal layout to simplify hardware installation.
As far as a creative, original design goes, you can see the results for yourself. That said, the Tristellar is more than just a pretty face. Pull off the individual compartment shrouds and you’ll see that it has plenty of smarts, too.
Cabin Fever
The Tristellar’s claim to fame is its system of independent component compartments, which Deepcool calls cabins. Each cabin is connected to a central “spine” that runs the length of the chassis. Thanks to the Tristellar’s steel construction, the whole case feels remarkably sturdy, despite the fact that the “case” is essentially a trio of chambers linked together.
There’s a practical benefit to this structure. By using what Liu calls an “individual air duct system,” the Tristellar is able to isolate the hottest components into separate compartments. “Most of the chassis now available only have a whole air duct system,” Liu says. “The individual ones we designed provide better cooling performance for the whole build.”
The top compartment can house some very big guns. First and foremost is a cutting-edge flagship graphics card, because the Tristellar provides enough room to install a single card up 12.5 inches long. Whether you choose AMD or NVIDIA silicon, you should have all the room you need to fit it into the case’s top compartment. And with three expansion slots to mount the card, the Tristellar is compatible with an aftermarket card fitted with a massive, three-slot GPU cooler. In order to deliver extra cooling to the graphics card, Deepcool preinstalls a 90mm case fan at the front of the chamber.
In the graphics card compartment, we also get our first taste of Deepcool’s design genius. The PCIe x16 slot connects to a riser card and cable combination that snakes through the chassis to the lower right compartment, where the opposite end connects to your motherboard’s PCIe x16 slot. In doing so, Deepcool is able to separate the graphics card and motherboard in their own compartments.
After you install the graphics card, you can give it a few roommates, because the top cabin also houses three 2.5-inch drive bays. All of the bays support hot-swapping, too, so you can pop SSDs in and out, if desired. With the combination of a high-end graphics card and a series of lightning-fast SSDs, the top compartment is capable of holding a lot of firepower.
The lower right compartment is where the motherboard tray resides, as we’ve suggested. The Tristellar’s requires a Mini-ITX board, but you can build a surprisingly potent system around this form factor. Based on the dimensions of the chamber, the Tristellar’s CPU height limit is 3.3 inches, which should be enough clearance for a low-profile CPU cooler or a closed-loop liquid-cooler’s pump-waterblock unit.
Now, a closed-loop liquid-cooler naturally has a radiator, and that radiator has to go somewhere. In addition to the motherboard tray, the Tristellar’s lower right chamber also has a 120mm fan mount, which also includes room for a 120mm radiator.
Moving to the final cabin, you’ll find space for the power supply and even more drive bays. Starting at the back, the PSU bay supports standard ATX power supplies up to 6.3 inches long. In truth, there’s about 8 inches between the back of the compartment and the internal 3.5-inch drive bays, but the 6.3-inch limit that Deepcool imposes is very sensible, since it takes the power supply’s cable bend into account. Based on our hands-on with the case, we think Deepcool may be slightly on the conservative side; we suspect PSUs up to 7 inches long will fit inside the Tristellar. Regardless of the PSU’s length, we highly recommend using a modular unit in order to make cable management as easy as possible. The Tristellar has enough room to hold a lot of components, but internal space is still a premium.
Because Deepcool recognizes that lots of users still have 3.5-inch hard drives, and some still rely on the services of an optical drive, the rest of the Tristellar’s lower left cabin consists of bays for these components. You can install a pair of 3.5-inch HDDs, and like the Tristellar’s 2.5-inch drive bays, these two bays are also hot-swappable. The external 5.25-inch bay requires a slim optical drive.
Beautifully Bold
So much of the power user lifestyle is about making a statement, and one of the easiest ways to do that is with an eye-catching build. Deepcool’s Tristellar case basically takes care of that for you right out of the box, with a one-of-a-kind look that doesn’t force you to make very many compromises with the rest of your hardware. That sounds . . . what’s the word? Right — stellar.
Specifications
Dimensions 15.3 x 17.1 x 15.6 inches (HxWxD)
Weight 35.3lbs.
Material SPCC steel
Bays:
1 x 5.25-inch slim
2 x 3.5-inch hot-swap
3 x 2.5-inch hot-swap
Fan (included) 1 x 90mm (VGA cabin)
Fan (optional) 1 x 120mm (motherboard cabin)
PSU support ATX (6.3-inch length limit)
CPU cooler height limit 3.3 inches
GPU length limit 12.5 inches
Front panel 2 x USB 3.0, audio I/O