Cooler Master Cosmos
PrintConsider this month’s batch of case reviews to be a second chance of sorts, as both companies highlighted this month have previously built total clunkers. Cooler Master threw down the iTower 930 in February, which was the functional equivalent of bringing a wiffle bat to a gunfight. And NZXT troubled us with the Adamas—which sported a relatively mediocre design when stacked up against its competitors.
We tipped our reviewing hand when we chose this case to house last month’s Dream Machine. But that’s just how sweet the Cosmos is. This case looks as good as it functions, and there’s nary a blemish in either area. More important, the case retains enough of a unique look and feel to distance itself from the bevy of generic models we frequently see.
You don’t need to grab a screwdriver to make major changes to any parts in the Cosmos case (aside from the motherboard). The five front 5.25-inch bays use an awesome push-button locking mechanism that, to date, is the best we’ve come across. Tiny thumbscrews hold the six hard-drive trays in place—an elegant improvement over standard drive bays.
The Cosmos caters to the water-cooling crowd with its ready-for-a-radiator ceiling grills, but lovers of the air won’t be left out. A detachable 12cm fan bunker pulls in air from the bottom of the case, and a plastic bar running horizontally across the case draws cool air right into the videocard area. Strangely, there’s no airflow across the hard drives in this case, one of the very few oversights we were able to find with the Cosmos.
A lack of functioning drive-activity lights on the case’s front panel is another stinger, but it’s not enough to destroy the taste of this sweet, sweet chassis.
Galactus
Perfect for both air cooling and water cooling; almost all parts are easy to access.
Abraxas
Where's the connection for a front-panel hard-drive activity light?
9
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ntwkadm1n
January 29, 2008 at 9:39am
This case is definitely worthy of having been the Dream Machine 2007 case. Based on that (and the $90 rebate), I bought it and definitely do not regret it.
I run a Core2 Duo, 750 Watt Thermaltake power supply along with an EVGA 8600 Superclocked card, no heat issues at all.
DePat
October 30, 2007 at 6:49am
I purchased the Comos 1000 after reading the review by maximumpc. The case is spacious and has all the bells and Whistles the review mentioned. However, that baby heats up. I had an intel quad-core FX6700 cpu and 6 hard drives in it. The cpu and the motherboard temperatures were both around 50 degrees celsius. Too hot for my taste. I rma the case and purchased a cooler master stacker 830. I do not use water cooling. I do not want to deal with the maintenance involved with a water cooling. For cooling, I replaced all the cooler master fans, and added some, with a combination scythe s-flex 1200 and 1600 rpm fans (total of six).
The noise is minimal and the cpu and motherboard temperature are now around 36 degrees celsius.Note to maximumpc: When testing for heat, please load up the case to the max so that we will know what to expect in the extreme scenario.
stupidongpinoy
October 29, 2007 at 12:01pm
is there any case that has the resemblance/features like the cosmos case?
eouzts
October 24, 2007 at 7:19pm
I have one of these cases and there is a hard drive activity light on the top panel. Either you guys didn't hook it up right or you reviewed a pre-production case and Cooler Master added it later... My drive light flickers away just as it should!
gamerfreak
October 27, 2007 at 8:31pm
I have one of these. My drive light is right on the top, flickering away.
- Gamer
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