This is a great case and can be a bit hard to find, congrats! I have a very similar case from Zalman but in silver/titanium color. The aluminium is indeed really thick and parts of the case are cool to the touch, even when under load 😀 But mine has a plexi window, are you sure you have actual glass in there? I was thinking about replacing the plexi with glass at some point, if I decide to keep it for the long run. It was not very common to use glass for side panels back then.
Mine is currently housing EVGA P55 mobo with Intel 875k, Geforce 960, Geforce 7, Voodoo 5500, X-Fi Titanium and Aureal Vortex 2. Previously housed EVGA 790i (Ultra SLI) with Intel QX9770 and two Geforce 7900gx2.
I would say the sweet spot for hardware for this particular case is 2006, +/- 5 years or so. 2006 is the year it was released and visually corresponds to the trends during that period in time. But it was a high-end case so there was not many competing cases we could compare it to. There are better cases on the market today so this is more just for fun, at least for me.
I would also recommend stocking up on the original Zalman case fans, as the new old stock will soon be depleted. But they are louder than lets say new Noctuas so it is a question of style vs sanity 😀