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Outstanding Case for the Money

Customer Rating:
Long and the short: Great case, good workmanship, great value, easy to use and looks great. The more I use it and the longer I have it, the more I like it.

I've built all types of computers over the last ten years from super basic boxes to watercooled monster bling gaming rigs. If you are looking for something to put a mid-high end or better rig in, this case is a great choice. Whether you are air cooling or watercooling, this case has you covered. You can mount a fan just about anywhere you might like in just about any size you like. Want to use water? You can mount up to two standard dual rads inside the case, no drilling required. If you mount a dual rad on the inside bottom front, you will lose 5 HD bays (leaving you 2) but there is enough room to mount a thick dual rad and still have two sets of fans in push/pull configuration.

Everything is blacked out on the inside and there are holes and tie spots everywhere there should be to route cables neatly behind the motherboard. The 140mm fan in the front is surprisingly quiet and the switch to turn the LEDs on the front fan are a nice touch. (For those of you who like to mod, that switch plus a relay could make for some interesting possibilities for turning other lighting on & off as well.)

I was unsure about the the front panel controls being on the top front edge of the case. It's all up there: USB, audio, eSATA, power, reset, the fan lighting switch, and power and HD activity lights. It was my one concern when I bought the case. Since I keep my rig on the floor, I now like it much better than my old front mounted panel. It's much easier to get to. The X-dock up top is very handy as well. My only gripe with it is that it doesn't seem to be hot swappable, which is minor for me since I only have to use it occasionally.

One word of caution for those looking for a silent case. This case is by no means a loud case, but the fact there is mesh everywhere means if you have something loud in your case, you're going to hear it. (Think high end video cards with stock cooling.) For those concerned about dust, every mesh opening has a smaller mesh screen behind it to capture dust. The screen could be finer, but thus far has done a sufficient job of capturing dust before in gets into the case.

Personally, I've used watercooling with two radiators and a fan bus to control the fans to keep the noise under control. If I have things set on low, I'm not even sure it's on sometimes.

Best Mid Tower Available

Customer Rating:
I bought this case about 4 weeks ago and it's been pretty much awesome from day one. The one gripe I have with it, and its very minor, is that they could have had just a tiny bit more space behind the motherboard tray for cable management. I got all of my cables to fit no problem but since my psu has the rounded cables they were a little closer to the back panel than I had expected so it took me an additional 10 seconds to get the back panel back on. So yea really it's a very small gripe but if you want to nit pick for something that's about all I can come up with. Other than that they used screws for the side panels instead of latches. Being able to remove the bottom half of the hdd trays is a really n1ice feature, it allows more airflow from the front of the case. I currently only have the three stock fans installed but I don't do any overclocking or anything like that so its plenty sufficient. If you're using a psu with a fan located on the bottom of it you will most definitely want to install the optional mesh filter, hell I would install it regardless, couldn't hurt any. The pure simplicity of putting this case together was so nice, no sharp edges or small working areas to deal with. I honestly do not believe there is a mid size case out there that can compete with this one and especially at this price. I highly recommend it.

Every detail has been updated!

Customer Rating:
There's been a lot of speculation in forums that this revision of the very popular CM 690 is just a minor update with some black paint inside. Nothing could be further from the truth. I upgraded my wife's PC a year ago, and used the CM 690. It was perfectly nice, for a mid-tower. My own PC is in the Cooler Master ATCS 840 -- the best case I've ever seen -- but my wife's PC is in a location where a huge full tower case just won't go. The single feature that caught my eye in the initial announcements of this new version was full dust filters. We have a cat, and cat hair is the most evil thing that can happen to a PC. A co-worker was about to try his first PC build, so I offered him the CM 690 case and used that as an excuse to get the new model. With both cases side-by-side and opened up, I was amazed at the differences. Every piece, and every detail, has been rethought and upgraded. Some of the improvements are too little for the ads to even mention, but show Cooler Master's attention to detail. As one tiny example, two of the motherboard standoffs have a little protrusion. You use them for the back corners of the motherboard. When you fit the motherboard in place, the protrusions go up into the mounting holes and hold the motherboard exactly in position with all the mounting holes exactly lined up over their standoffs. You don't have to hold the motherboard in position with one hand while getting the initial screws in. A minor little enhancement, but really neat and something I've never seen before and never heard of. The tool-less harddrive carriers have been changed from the previous version, and are now just like the ones in the ATCS 840. There's a special carrier for 2.5" drives (e.g. SSDs) in one of them. Another minor tweak is a switch to turn the blue leds on the front fan on or off. Have it whichever way you prefer. With the previous version, a little surgery would have been necessary to turn it off. The built-in dock on the top is another very nice little feature. The CM 690 was a nice mid-tower case that's proven very popular. The CM 690 II Advanced is far better. I recommend it highly.