Can anyone explain why this case is better than an Antec P182? I feel like this CM would be louder, though I have no data to prove that. However, given all those fans I could guess it is. I have a P182 that I put some fancy and slightly undervolted fans in and you can not hear it at all with the HDs suspended with bungy cord. (My CPU cooler is super quiet and my GPU is cooled by an undervolted fan on a "fanless" designed heatsink.) But back to the point, why spend more on this CM when the P182 is likely quieter and is certainly cheaper?

I like it when you guys do case reviews I wish there where more. I guess you could say I'm a case fan. :)

Thank you TR for posting another review, but why didn't you guys put hardware in and take pictures like every other site? I was expecting to read and see how easy the process would be and look. Just taking pictures of an empty case isn't enough. I could go to coolermaster website or newegg for those type of pictures.

Does anyone else agree?

I read some of the comments, Dissonance (TR staff) said they had no other case to compare results. Well maybe this would have been a good opportunity to test another case... Or just submit pictures and explain how easy it is to install hardware in this case.

There are so many unanswered questions and you don't even need another case to test them:

-How does it look with all the hardware installed?
-Does the "wind tunnel" actually work? Test with it on and off.
-Does the "wind tunnel" even come off?
-How easy is it to put in hardware?
-How easy is it to put in hard drive cables from the other side? Is that the only way?
-Do sata cables reach from the far bottom right of the case to the motherboard?
-Do the hard drive clips actually work to prevent rattling of the handle or was it a poor design choice?
-Does the retention system actually work or is it a clumsy toolless setup?
-You mention the PSU cables can run along the back "requiring a tight fit." How long of a cable would you need for it to work and can it actually be done?

Please respond TR, thank you.

Nice looking case. I really like the design of it. I would really like to get it side by side with one of the p180 series cases to compare them. Quiet is my goal above all else and the p180 makes that easy to do. The one thing that I dont like about the case is the hard drive trays. From the looks of it you have to remove both sides of the case if you want to swap a hard drive out which sucks. The p180 isnt much better though. I pulled the lower drive cage out with out watching close one day and heard something snap. When I got looking the SATA cable had snagged the fan when I pulled the cage out. The snap I heard was the SATA connector breaking off my Raptor. The plastic part of the connector snapped off clean leaving it inside of the cable. The four little brass/gold/whatever contacts were still attached to the drive. I slid the cable back over the contacts on the drive and it worked fine. I am still using it like that almost a year later. I am way more careful when i work on SATA now though.

Heavy and no MB tray :-(

Not that either of those stop me from wanting one.

Very nice solid looking case.

see my post on top cases:
http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/13448

its the best for a good reason.

I WANT! Now taking donations via check or money order! I can't justify the cost but good god i like how it looks, and i like the psu on the bottom.

My wife's blocking newegg with parental controls again :( And she changed my admin passwords ! Mean wife! And so I can't buyt his case.call me sad. and drunk.

Gorgeous case, I just wish it didn't cost 200$.

Great review, as always, and as others have said, it is a nice break from graph city (not that gobs of graphs are bad.)

What happened to the digg link?

I'm still fine with my generation-one CM Stacker. I don't plan to buy another case at any point in the future, though one of my hare-brained projects may give it a premature death. If that does happen, the Cosmos would make the short list of possible replacements.

Not a bad case, but I have doubts about the cooling the drives will receive.. I prefer to have at least *some* air flowing over them (I have a very quiet 92mm in the front of my Solo)

Good review, although I'd like to see how it looks with a motherboard installed.. just a nitpick really

Right now I'm loving my NZXT Zero full tower. It came with 7 slow-spinning, ultra-quiet 120mm fans, it's all aluminum with a great shiny finish (I was amazed at how light it was compared to my old steel Chieftech-style tower), and has plenty of room for everything. Cool lights on the front, too.

Does TR intend to install hardware in this case and report results?

Two thoughts:
1) Wish I could buy one.
2) Too bad its hernia inducing with a full build inside it (I move my computers around from my apartment to my parent's place every so often)

This case will be available in an all Aluminum version in December or January. Think I'd wait....'cept love my modded Lian-Li V1100 too much.
Looks like the Cosmos (at least lighter aluminum version) would be a nice case for H20 set up!
Good review, like that your doing PSUs, cases, and other items. Coolers next? Also, excellent photos!!

Thank you for this review. All too often we only see the latest reviews of the fastest $600 graphics card or newest $1000 CPU. It's nice to see something different.

Nice quality case, but, HELL NO. I'll take a slim mATX, thank you. I'm done with cases so big they need their own street address.

Nice case. I really like the looks of it, and it's something that I wouldn't be embarrassed to show off.

Nice article Geoff, and much appreciated. I very much like reading about computer stuff that isn't "mainstream" (ie, CPU's, GPU's and such).

Wow, I'm impressed. It's like a modern SC-750A. :)

I like the idea of the 12v aux extension because I know from owning an Antec P180 that this is a huge problem; routing the cable to that one stupid connector is a pain in the ass and in some cases just plain does not work. I had to do some massive cable finagling to get it to work on my Gigabyte 965P-DS3.

But one issue I see is that the connector looks like it's an 8 pin connector that can't be broken apart into two 4 pin connectors, and in some cases, motherboards have the extra 4 pin connector "blocked" off by a plug, or by heatpipes from heatsinks around the socket and surface mounted VRMs.

It'd be nice to get two separate 4 pin extenders which gives you the option of running just one of them to the appropriate plug.

Wow! 6-HDD drive bays is really got me.

But why eSTAT/USB/Firewire ports on top with no cover ???
Can't imagine if I spilled my soft drink on it.

BTW, to Enclosure/Chassis manufacturers
it's time to add more USB ports.
New mobo has 2 or 3 USB headers on the board already.

The hard drive mounts are neat and all, with the nice looking handles, and routing the cables behind other stuff, but why in the world would they design it so that in order to touch the drive cables at all, you have to either open the other side of the case, or pull the drive entirely out of it? And unless you unplug it beforehand, you risk ripping a cable out and possibly causing damage. SATA cables aren't hard to route, and you're only saving a tiny bit of exposed cabling with them laid out like this. If they'd put in a backplane style board that you could just leave power and data cables plugged into, and not have to worry about them when you move a drive, that would have been awesome.

The Antec Sonata III's bays would have been a good fit in this case. They're not sideways for one thing (mounting that way doesn't affect the drive, but it leaves the data and power cables hanging on their long axis, possibly making them more likely to fall out or break I think). And you can remove the drive cables without touching the drives, they just slide out by squeezing spring clips like all Antec rails and most others I've seen.

Where does the optional drive fan go? Is it a special shape for mounting only in that case, which it sounds like with the "Cooler Master also offers an optional hard drive fan".

Another reason for having the PSU at the bottom would be those drive cages; a PSU at the top might not be able to get its SATA power cables quite that far down and forward.

I think my Fortron 400W PSU's 24-pin power cable wouldn't manage to reach from the bottom to a top-mounted mainboard plug. Seems silly that they'd make PSUs where the main cable could stretch the entire height of a full ATX tower, but the 4/8-pin auxiliary cable is only 8 inches long.

Peel off that foam insulation, see how it affects the noise levels.

200 bucks is a lot of money for a case with no PSU though, and one that's so heavy. It's even relatively low on flashiness which usually is an excuse for high prices. A hundred bucks for a nice heavy steel case would be more reasonable. It's not like the plastic is expensive.

I was considering this case just today. Then I saw the price tag. With the Antec P180 under $100, I can't find a reason to justify the extra $100. Especially with all the cheap-looking plastic.

I'd dig the vertically-mounted hard drives if they ran along the length of the case. Running across it seems like they'd stop airflow dead.

In the end, what is the motivation for buying this case? It can hold a ridiculous amount of drives, if you use 5.25 to 3.5 adapters. Then you'd really need all the fans it can handle. With 500 GB & 1 TB models, how many people need 12 drives? Lately I prefer a few drives internally, with an eSATA/USB multi-bay enclosure.