MasterCase 5 by Cooler Master - Modular inside and out!
MasterCase 5 by Cooler Master - Modular inside and out!
2015-08-18
hey what's up guys Jays $0.02 here and
today we're gonna talk about a product
that was making a splash at Computex
while some companies are out there doing
the best they can to try and imitate
others other companies were out there
actually innovating and today we're
gonna be talking about the Coolermaster
mastercase 5 and some of the upgrades
available for this because this is
actually a modular case in the sense
that it's not just modular on the inside
it's also modular on the outside I'm
going to spare you guys the actual
unboxing part of this because I'm really
terrible at unboxing things it's a good
thing I'm not an unboxing channel
because I would starve to death the new
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here's the way that the master case
looks and it's kind of a native naked
format you've got massive grill on the
front here giving you plenty of airflow
you've got two five and a quarter bay
expandable drives on the front power
switch a USB 3.0 headphone jack mic jack
or two USB 3.0 and then of course your
reset button on the top here you have
two handles that are mounted directly to
the frame of the case so as you can see
you can carry your system by these you
can see they are not flimsy otherwise I
wouldn't be picking up the case like
that so you can transport your case that
way
speaking of lifting it up like that on
the top you can see you have two 120
millimeter or two 140 millimeter exhaust
fans on the top or expandability I
should say there's no fans in there and
then on the back I'm gonna probably
break an arm during this review it the
way I'm twisting everything around at
the back you have a pre-installed 140
millimeter exhaust fan you also have
right here your power supply
installation bracket if you can't tell
we're just kind of getting right into
the specs on this guide so you install
the power supply to this thing then you
slide it in and screw that to the back
of the case I'm not entirely sure I
guess why they went that route but they
did I'm just trying to
of why they couldn't have just made it
so you mounted on there the normal way I
guess they want to stick with the slide
in method I'm not I'm not sure I don't
they give you a condom with it though
but it is raised up off the ground quite
a bit almost an inch actually so if you
were going to be putting this on carpet
or something like that you could still
install the power supply the traditional
method of the fan pointing down you're
not going to worry about your carpet
clogging up the intake vent on the
bottom keeping air flow from making it
into the power supply so you could still
install the traditional method taking
off the side panel here of course
captive thumb screws so that you don't
lose those and then of course you know
thumb screws that let's see if I can do
this well some manufacturers seem to
think thumb screws should be installed
with tools so it is pretty much a
mid-tower case but it's mid-tower case
that makes really good use of the space
available to it so you can get really
good efficiency of use of that space in
the mid tower so all the cables inside
are black which is nice but then again
it doesn't really matter if you're not
going to be upgrading the modular
aspects of the case to a side panel with
a window in it you're not going to see
anything on the inside anyway but it is
nice that they do give you you know all
black cables you can see here too that
you have separation of the main
component area of the case as well as
the power supply on the bottom so the
power supply is going to be its own
little environment where the heat is not
going to cross contaminate where if
you've got load going with the machine
power supply heat is not going to make
its way into the case and vice versa
heat in the case is not going to make
its way into the power supply area
causing you know cost contamination of
heat I say cross contamination I just
don't know what other word to use
honestly the five and a quarter locks
could not be any easier to use you
literally slide in the expansion
whatever it's going to be fan
controllers DVD blu-ray drive whatever
and slide that to locked and it's not
going anywhere so there's no tools
needed there's no parts to lose there's
none of that mess now you do have a box
of parts right here which is going to be
radiator mounts and fan splitters and
motherboard standoffs
nice nice black box there you're not
gonna normally they'll give you
something that looks you know cardboard
II is black and then here's your
flexible hard drive cage which you
simply or sled you just slide it on in
there now the hard drive cages
themselves are also modular and you've
got many different mounting points of
where you could put those and I'm just
gonna once again
thumbscrews that apparently are not
meant to be used with your phone so it's
actually got these little rubber tabs on
the back right here that just line up in
these holes so you can literally just
put it wherever you want so right now
we'll just stick it right here pop that
in like that and then you tighten down
the screws and then your hard drive cage
is moved and of course you can expand
the amount of hard drive cages that go
in here we'll talk about that when we
upgrade this to the master case five pro
which we're going to do in just a few
minutes in this video in fact to prepare
for that I'm going to go ahead and
remove this thing out of here entirely
alright so you have two SSD mounts right
here on the floorboard of the main
compartment they once again or just one
captive thumb screw you mount your SSD
to it you've got pass-through holes
right here so that your SATA power and
SATA cable can pass through to behind
the motherboard tray and couldn't once
again ask for anything easier I think
ease-of-use is obviously a huge theme on
this this is my first time seeing this I
wasn't at Computex so I didn't get to
see any of this on the front you do have
a 2 140 millimeter or two 120 millimeter
fan expansions you also have a cutout
right here on the floorboard of the
motherboard tray that's going to give
you enough room to mount a radiator on
the front if you want to go to the front
mounted radiator now one thing to note
on the top here at least in the standard
mastercase 5 is there's not going to be
enough room for a radiator and fans at
least on the inside of the case because
you don't have enough clearance to the
top of the motherboard so natively the
mastercase 5 in its standard format it's
not really going to be all-in-one or
custom water cooling loop very at least
very friendly
you could probably somehow mod it and
put the radiator on top
and then have the tubes come around the
back or something but that wouldn't be
very pretty not to mention they do give
you an option to upgrade that once again
we'll talk about that in a minute let's
go and take a look at the backside see
how much room we have in here for cable
management because that's one of the
things I think really matter with cases
these days especially with first time
builders is giving users real intuitive
ways to deal with cable management in
the old days cases just we're kind of
like you're on your own buddy you got to
figure out what to do with the cables
but manufacturers of obviously over the
years learn that cable management really
isn't that hard to integrate into your
case so you can see right here we have a
nice deep channel right behind where the
motherboard or right behind where the
hard drive cages go so you can route
cables down here velcro strap already in
place and then you've got grommet hair
grommet here grommet here you've got
grommets on the bottom of the
motherboard floor you got holes right
here on the cutout for the fans holes
here for fans and then of course as you
can see here the entire bottom of the
case is just wide open so having a place
to put your extra cables and things
you're not using you're going to be
entirely out of view so this is a case
where you have really no excuse to have
a jumbled mess of wires all right so
let's go ahead and do this now that
we've kind of run through the basics why
don't we go ahead and upgrade this thing
to a master case five Pro and let's go
ahead and compare transition
so as you can see clearly we've got a
massive side window on here but what's
also kind of neat is it's got this sort
of a smoked acrylic plate on the bottom
that makes the where the power supply is
you know a little bit harder to see
through I mean you can still sort of see
through that not sure how well see you
can still kind of see through that on
the bottom but anyway it's nice because
it brings the focus of your attention up
in here to the top of the case where it
matters so the other pieces that come
with the mastercase 5 upgrade kit is a
more Drive cages in fact I even have an
extra one right here because I could
take out the five and a quarter base
also with the captive thumb screws and
put more hard drives up there another
hard drive cage up there if I don't need
the five and a quarter now the upgrade
kit is also not just about you know the
side panel and these hard drive cage is
you do get additional SSD mounting as
well as water cooling support for the
top now simply all you have to do on the
top is add this mesh piece which you can
see covers up the new radiator mounted
bracket which gives us about 25
millimetres extra height so you can fit
either to 120 s or to 140 s up here as
well as a 30 millimeter radiator at the
bottom and still have plenty of
clearance so you could run to 280
millimeter radiators in this if you
wanted to one on the top one on the
front if you remove these hard drive
cages so it really depends on what your
needs are but installing that the kit
was actually really really easy it only
took me a couple of minutes the only
complaint I really have though about
this is that the top mesh piece doesn't
really stay in place as well as I think
it should you can see it slides in and
out pretty easily and comes up so I wish
that snapped in a little better or even
maybe had a captive thumb screw in the
back to keep it from sliding off so if I
had any sort of not really a complaint
but just more of a an improvement to the
design I think that would have been it
but other than that the case is pretty
solid you still retain your you know
your handles here on the top as you can
see with the side panels and everything
on we're still holding that with no
problems no flexing no Creek
and I think that Coolermaster has done a
really fantastic design with this case
of a lot of companies have really
focused on interior modularity but not
really anything to do with the exterior
ok now giving you a demo of you know how
it comes out of the out of the box of
giving you a demo of how you could
upgrade it to the pro kit there's even
another upgrade level to this that still
to be determined it's not ready yet
but even replaces like the front and
starts to look really cool with lots of
aluminum and stuff in there now let's go
and talk about why I think this case
exists and why I think it's a good thing
now I can't tell you how many times I
have seen messages both comments and
Twitter and Instagram and emails and
Facebook asking me hey you know what I'm
ready to try water cooling but my case
doesn't support water cooling what do
you recommend that upgrade to now a lot
of times when people build a PC
especially if it's their first time
they'll think to themselves you know I
don't really want to try that water
cooling stuff that's kind of scary we'll
deal with that later so they'll buy a
case that's a small mid tower case that
maybe doesn't support very much water
cooling out of the box and then they're
stuck with having to swap everything
over into a new chassis once they're
ready to try it out so what this allows
someone to do is buy the base kit which
looks fantastic it's all like ninja
black you can put some lighting in there
you can go with any color scheme you
want black blue black red black white
black yellow black black I guess
whatever and over time if you decide
well I want to try water cooling for
just the price of the upgrade kit you
can do that and you don't have to swap
out all of your internals into another
case meaning now you have a case that
you got to stick in the garage or try
and sell or give away or just throw in
the garbage or hopefully recycle now you
can keep your chassis because so let's
hope you liked it to begin with that's
why you bought it and now you can
upgrade it as your needs and your
desires and your wants and your
enthusiasm for PC building evolve as
well so I really like seeing not only
the interior modularity but the exterior
modularity as well so being able to fit
to 280 millimeter radiators in this is
more than enough for most people that
could cool an SL I'd water-cooled system
with two graphics cards and a CPU for
from most graphics cards that's not
going to be an issue even to AMD
graphics cards like three and ninety
exes could be cooled with that type of
configuration so there you go guys the
master five and the master five pro from
cooler master I understand now why they
had some awards at Computex for this
case design and I'm actually pretty
excited to do something with this I'll
be building as a project I'll be
building in this later on probably in
September and we'll see what we can come
up with but that's all for today guys
tell me what you think of the modular
design do you think cooler master is
going in the right direction or do you
think that they are just kind of out in
left-field and have no idea what they're
really trying to do with this I know
what they're trying to do with this but
you guys are the customers so speak up
they like to read these comments and if
you've got something constructive to say
do it constructively that that's how we
get things done around here
alright guys I'm gonna get out of here
thanks for watching heading to blogger
faire in a couple of days you guys going
to be there come say hi otherwise just
check out the blogs while I'm there
vlogging at vlogger fair is kind of a
kind of a prereq anyway alright guys
I'll see you in the next one
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