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Cooler Master's Latest High-End Case Reviewed
Hubert writes "Cooler Master, pioneer of the aluminum cases, overhauled one of their most popular models, and released something enthusiasts should consider when shopping for a new case." Cooler Master has also come out with some cases which might meet the often-expressed demand for PC enclosures which would look at home in an A/V rack. Pricey, though.
I ordered a rounded SCSI cable from these guys a few weeks ago. It took about a week and a half to get her, but that's very acceptable considering it was right around the holidays. I think most of that was UPS's fault anyways. These guys are very professional and they answered all my questions promptly and shipped my item the next day. Man I feel like I'm leaving feedback on ebay now.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
getting confused by the way the article has been posted.
Please note that there are *two* cases linked to, one of which is a standard tower, and *one* of which is an AV style case.
Please read the article carefully and follow both links if you expect your comments to make sense.
KFG
If you have a product you cannot sell, ask Slashdot advertising department. We can and do provide high response rates and publish your advertisement hidden as science or hardware news.
They do.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
or you can also make your own case!
I just did that to a computer of mine to plug into the tv and watch DVDs, DIVX and play snes/genesis games. I built a cube out of transparent plexiglass. You can watch it here. This is not something you can easily mix with other AV gear, of course :)
I have the 610 case. It's an early adopter product. It's good construction, and it's worth $200, but they missed a bunch of details.
Getting a micro-atx mainboard is no big deal. I bought an ASUS A7N266-VM board for $70 at newegg. Athlon XP 1700+ is about $55, and a stick of 512mb mushkin was $130, so all in all, getting new components was reasonable compared to the $205 for the case (at trendetronics.com).
Back to the case itself, the things they missed are:
1) Window for IR receiver
2) Removable drive bracket; it'd be nice to mount all my drives in a bracket then screw that down to the chassis
3) Quiet case fan; the 60mm cooler-master fan it came with was a tad loud. i bought a vantec stealth and that was ok, but nothing magical.
4) Cable routing. Finding a way to run the front usb connectors around the entire case to the internal USB jacks was...interesting. right now i think i have them going under the motherboard
I researched HTPC cases for months before buying this one; there was basically this, a case available in germany only, and another case that was $500 (but looked oh-so-cool). All in all it was worth it; it matches my stereo equipment, it's quiet (now), and gives me a PC that doesn't look anything like a PC.
-- Patience is a virtue, but impatience is an art.
Why not build a PC into your stereo? That's exactly the route I'm taking. A Mini-ITX motherboard for 100-200$ (Builtin everything), an old stereo to test it on from the Goodwill, a few other pieces and you have an all in one multi-media box.
In fact, Im setting it up with a wireless NIC and will be able to use my IPAQ to control BrowseAMP to change mp3s anywhere in the house.
Add to that an IR controller and the IR stuff for Winamp and it's an all-in-one solution for a lot less then one of these.
Now, granted, it's not going to handle everything you throw at it, it's only an 800 to 933Mhz Via CPU, but it's all I need.
They had a similar case like this on The Screensavers 2 days ago, and the case alone is 200$.
Thats the price for everything in my setup, including the stereo.
It's nothing special, as it's a test to see if ti works, but hell, I got the idea here at slashdot from another poster.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
I am not a case modder but here are a few comments on that...
The article actually mentions (if you got to it before the slashdotting) that CoolerMaster sells bezels that match. That would be useful for the mid-tower case.
The desktop case (which looks like an AV component) doesn't need it because there is a very attractive door in front of the drive bays, making the whole thing look like a laserdisk player or a 7 disk CD changer or something. You only see the drives when the door is opened.
This bears mentioning though because I helped someone get a computer that ended up coming with an ATC-600 (IIRC). This is a desktop with a transparent door in front of the drive bays. Very attractive case, actually had Mac people ooo-ing and aww-ing (unpromted even). The case is really solid, put a 19" CRT on top of it with no complaints (which ordinarily might be a stupid thing to do). The door is attractive and well built. Unfortunaely the door is also a completely stupid idea if you actually plan on using the computer. There are two optical drives on the front, not surprisingly you often want to get in and out of them fairly often. The door is on some sort of smooth opening device, which means it opens slowly. Frequently you'll eject a CD or DVD and the drive slides right into the stupid little door. You can try to frantically open the door as the drive comes out but it goes way too slowly.
The result is that I tend to just leave the door open all the time when I'm using it, have almost brought myself to remove it (which looks pretty easy). I'm guessing that the new case has a similar problem with the door. If you're planning on using this in an AV system, be aware that this will be an issue (minor as it is, but these are rather expensive cases). The door is a liability and to some extent negates the 'don't need matching face plates' comment that started all this off in the first place.