Xaser III Aluminum: ThermalTake drops Chenming

Rheobus

The Xaser II had a rudimentary fan controller with an LCD temperature gauge.  We had some problems with the original design including a short CPU fan molex wire, but we think ThermalTake went the extra mile with this new rheobus.  For those of your not familiar with the terminology, allow us to briefly go over the technology.

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Essentially, rheobus is a fancy way of saying fan controller.  Most simply offer a turn dial that varies the voltage of the attached device between 7V and 12V.  The market has literally exploded with these units since COMDEX.  Vantec put out one of the first fan controllers with the Nexus 101 and 201 series controllers, but dozens have also popped up.  For a long time, people have associated ThermalTake with fan controllers with their HardCano line. 

Until now, most rheobuses offer turn dials to increase and decrease fan voltage, but do not offer LCD readouts of the temperature.  On the opposite side, others offer LCD readouts but use dipswitches to control fan voltage.  Surprisingly, the best thermal control device we have seen was the Ahanix dBox front panel control from several months ago.

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The ThermalTake rheobus comes close, but cannot quite match the dBox front panel display/control.  Even though the fan controls are turn dials, they are placed one atop another, in pairs.  Furthermore, the rheobus bay is inset about one half of an inch inside the front panel.  It prevents one from accidentally turning one of the dials, but at the same time poses somewhat of a challenge to just turn the dials normally.  We found that the dials have to be turned about a quarter of a rotation each time in order to freely spin the knob without any obstruction from the case or other knobs.

Also we found the placement slightly unusual.  The USB and microphone jacks clearly intended for the user to sit above the case and look down on the unit.  However, since there the rheobus on the Xaser III faces forward with a half inch overhang above the display, it becomes impossible to read unless you keep the LCD readout at eye level.  Since the dBox has a backlit LCD that can be read from very extreme angles, we think ThermalTake has some work to do if they want to become the leader in LCD case readouts.