Gadgetory

goula master is recognized for producing some of the most popular cases available in the chassis market and when the half series debuted in 2008 it became one of the must-haves cases for enthusiasts however in just two years we have come a long way in our expectations of what makes up a great case and while the 9:32 is still a great contender there's no denying it could use a bit of a makeover so here we have the half ex the latest evolution in the half series that promises to deliver the requirements of the modern enthusiast and spice up its looks it is expected to be available in June 2010 and it's not completely out to lunch with a price tag of around $199 so let's take a look the original half design had a very industrial sort of look kind of like a piece of machinery it was there to do a job and the design was fit around its purpose it didn't try to disguise itself by looking pretty and 1/2 X is no different in fact the hard industrial look has been beefed up even a little more now given that it's a full tower it isn't exactly small and actually slightly larger than the original but you'll see why shortly it uses cooler masters typical solid construction of steel and plastic making it weigh in at about 31 pounds we first take a look at the front where we have a removable cover over the front 230 millimeter fan and a welcome sight for many we finally have dust covers there are two removable hot swap bays that are very secure and for external drive bays now here's something I'd love to see a case manufacturer that is adopting all of the popular connections there's USB 3 eSATA firewire regular USB 2 and audio behind this little slide Ecover LED on/off reset and power buttons there at the top of the case there's two spaces to fit cooler masters large 200 millimeter exhaust fans at the side panel yet another 200 millimeter intake fan and that tiny little square window has been expanded but unfortunately it doesn't show off much more of the internals jump into the back there are three water tubing holes the third being a great way to add an external field port to your loop the 40-millimeter exhaust van motherboard io area and unprecedented 9 PCI expansion slots exhaust ports and bottom mounted power supply moving into the case you'll see that the intake fan does have a dust filter and it also includes the shroud in order to direct air onto the video cards we're going to take a quick detour here to the accessories because coolermaster has included a few different items we have a USB 2 replacement cable 8 pin motherboard extension cable wheels that can be attached for the bottom of the case the usual packet of screws and other bits and their latest device a graphics card bracket where you can attach a thin 80 millimeter fan and it's meant to hold up your heavy video cards at first glance something definitely looks off about this interior you'll see two plastic shrouds here the bottom is for the power supply and it slides back and forth to provide covering for all of your cabling the other is a VGA fan duct to help with cooling on the graphics cards then at the front five three and a half inch drive base and the red LED fan at the back the nine expansion slots with thumb screws exhaust fan CPU backplate opening and only a single 200 millimeter top fan is included the front five and a quarter inch bays are reserved for the hot swappable drive bay there are then for additional drive bays with cooler master screwless system this I foresee being a bit of a hassle all of those front connections mean all types of connectors internally that are going to have to go somewhere after we take all of the junk out of the case you'll notice spacing in the motherboard tray with rubber grommets to help hide the wires as well as the hot-swap module as we see one of cooler masters focuses with this case was to make it more water cooling friendly notice at the top the bars underneath the fans you'll now be able to fit up to a 360 millimetre radiator internally which is great news for water coolers the top piece comes off with just a few clips and hey it looks like they've learned their lesson more dust filters as well you're able to easily remove cables upfront connections you won't need in order to reduce some wire clutter and one last look at the motherboard tray for the back cooler master has done a great job here a perfect blend of different features an open top space you don't even notice from the front a CPU backplate open and special not just use with cable ties again the grommet holes and open space at the bottom also the hard drive bays have been set forward to allow for rear mounted cables and cable storage as I got started on the installation this little piece dropped out it's a simple socket adapter to help install motherboard standoffs with a regular screwdriver I gotta say it's pretty simple but a very cool little bit to include we get our components installed and all set to wire up well not only being an incredibly quick and pain-free process the end result doesn't look half bad either with relatively minimal effort you can have a very very clean looking system which is going to help drastically improve air flow here's the reason for those nine PCI slots the half X is one of the few that is able to support many of the new non-standard ATF size motherboards with the advent of Quad SLI and EVGA x' XL 80 X sized 4 Way SLI motherboard more space is going to be required for some of those serious systems radon coolermaster for having the foresight to make a case that would be ready for it speaking of larger hardware our dual GPU HD 5970 at over 11 inches long fits in just fine though it'll have to do without the fan shroud so we finally get to the hot swap trays which are held in by two metal clips on the side of the tray it easily comes out and you'll see it supports both 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch drives unfortunately it doesn't use a screw less retention system the bottom 5 drive bays are a little more familiar the system includes one two and a half inch adapter and the sleds are cooler masters usual to list design and to end off the build we look at the back all of the excess wiring has been bundled underneath the cable cover in the front so all that's left is the straight wiring across the back all right so I know it's been a long one we'll wrap it up quick there really is nothing to pick on with the half ex Coolermaster has kept everything that is great about the original and then made adaptations based on customer feedback and evolved with changes in the pc hardware market it truly is an awesome case you've got to love the black interior the addition of even more air and water cooling options and all of the seemingly gimmicky features that actually have a very practical use and as with most Coolermaster cases the price is exactly spot-on for what you get the only thing I could see going wrong for the half ex is the design may not appeal to those who are more concerned about smooth and sleek lines over functionality the half ex more than deserves our damn good award and it's likely to be the best case in its category that we review all year thanks for checking out the hardware canucks product showcase on the Coolermaster half x and let us know what you think about this case in the comments below also don't forget to subscribe to get all of our video updates and we'll see you next time