Gadgetory

hey guys this is Dimitri with her rock knocks and welcome back to another review cool master recently released the half stacker the latest addition to the high airflow series the concept is very simple and surprisingly functional for many purposes but it's the execution in design process that could potentially render it useless so let's check out this cool master half stacker 935 which incorporates the mid Tower 925 for the main chassis and an attachable smaller chassis the 9:15 R that carries a few tricks up its sleeve as well this combo will set you back $170 which is very comparable to pricing of full towers the actual process of stacking is very simple Coolermaster has designed the rail system that works really well you basically align the bottom rails of one chassis with the top of the other and there you have it a couple of screws on each side will secure the stack and the whole assembly seems pretty solid the main tower portion comes with removable case feet that allows easy swap between chassis the smaller portion here comes with the top cover that must be removed if you want to stack anything on top and it also features a built-in dust filter that is always appreciated now you can either go with the default configuration with a smaller chassis on top or swap the set for a different configuration the bottom of the mid tower features a removable dust filter plus two large rubber grommets which would be useful for this type of setup while the smaller portion has a few cutouts as well and the large opening with the rubber grommet again would be useful to pass cables or water cooling tubes between chambers now this is very much a cooler master chassis with rigid corners and even the window sticks out which i think looks really good especially because it is tinted at the front we have three plus one optical drive base plus all the connections including power button audio jacks and four USB ports two of which are USB 3 now notice the 915 hour doesn't have any connectors at the front that's because it's all really intended to be used on its own but in conjunction with another stacker taking a look at the back we have a bottom mounted power supply 8 plus 1 PCI expansion slots and an exam last fan and a smaller 915 are stacker at the top includes a mini ITX slot with 2 PCI Express slots and a top mounted power supply and taking off all the side panels starting from the top we have a single optical slot a drive cage for three drives to list mounting for three additional optical drives and another drive gauge that is fully modular so you can remove both and install in the top chamber for better front intake or water cooling capabilities now what I really like on all of the new cooler master cases are the drive caddies they are sturdy and feature this widening a mechanism for installation of mechanical drives this way you don't need to bend anything for assembly and it's also SSD ready the front panel is easily removable and features a built in dust filter behind which we can install dual 120 millimeter fans or a single 140 millimeter on the inside the drive cage platform is removable to make room for radiator but I was disappointed to not see any optional mounts for the platform which does limit your setup also another thing I noticed when the rather small ventilation cutout for the power supply but it is dust proof so that leaves me happy the front panel on the 915 R is also removable with a built-in dust filter and features a very tiny 80 millimeter intake fan that is very much blocked by the cage behind the frame so don't be expecting much air delivery there and checking out at the back a very common feature these days is an extra SSD mount behind the motherboard tray very good utilization of the space plus large rubber grommets for all the cables and quite limiting space with not even an inch for all your cable work now it's the top portion of the stacker that's the most interesting so let's see exactly what we can do with it and we get a large grommet opening leading into the next chassis that will be useful for water cooling tubing but maybe also cables as the optional power supply mount installs right above the power supply is only held by four screws in the back so it's not the most stable mount which may be concerning but installing the second drive cage in there and we have plenty of room for cables so that's not really an issue we also get a rear i/o cover if you decide to not install a second system there and this is one of the options you can actually go with that basically allows you to install a mini ITX system above your main system obviously this is not ideal because of the limited GPU space availability due to that drive cage which if removed allows long GPU compatibility but also CPU coolers will be limited to extremely low profile due to the power supply and while installing a system at the top is an option it is still not recommended because well first you don't have dedicated power switch for the system on top and the 90 15 R is really intended to be used either for extra storage or for water cooling and this is where the side panels really come and play as they can house triple 120 or dual 140 millimeter fans with a removable dust filter meaning you can install two three sixty millimeter rats for your build and tubing would be passed down through this cut out into the bottom chamber and because the width of the chassis is around 225 millimeters this means portion pool on both side panels shouldn't be an issue and looking at our setup here if you decide to go with a 240 movement of RAD you still have a drive cage that could be utilized the only hiccup I could see is routing all the SATA cables from the bottom of the build that might become a little challenging but we do have a few cutouts for that exact purpose so you'll still be able to wire everything just fine and finally starting with the build putting in our motherboard and getting down with cable management it really is a piece of cake the top chamber leaves much to be desired for water cooling enthusiasts who want to go to the extreme path and it's exactly what the stacker is designed to do the internals clean up well bust the rear despite a relatively small distance to the panel it's pretty straightforward to work with and I'm going to conclude by stating that the concept is certainly innovative with the ability to stack one on top of the other has the benefits of user specific configurations with a very simple stacking module this means two very different uses either for water cooling or extra dry storage or even a system and I like them the chassis is expandable vertically as cube cases are still quite awkward placement the overall build quality despite all the plastics is robust and the tinted window is seriously awesome however while the top portion has its functions it's not utilized for its full potential for example the Mini ITX motherboard mount is quite useless since we don't have any dedicated power buttons plus the power supply mount above will seriously limit your CPU cooler to something extremely low-profile the 80 millimeter front intake fan is placed right against the drive cage wall that will limit air flow delivery and giving this as part of the half series the entire airflow seems to be a little disappointing but I am glad coolermaster is heading into this direction with such a user flexibility and that is one thing that the stacker 935 does really well and we're giving it the Harwick Knox dam innovative award now coolermaster has also released a second version of the smaller chassis and the 915 F head on over to that video to see what the differences are and how extreme you can take the stacker now we'd like to hear your thoughts on the stacker concept and do you think this will get picked up I certainly hope we'll see something similar from the competition in the near future well thanks for watching guys and we'll see you in the next one