Cooler Master Cosmos II Extreme Gaming Case Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Cooler Master Cosmos II Extreme Gaming Case Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
2012-01-03
cosmos - from coolermaster is here it
was very very difficult for me to get up
onto the table because this excel etx
monstrosity weighs almost 50 pounds so
it's very large it's actually probably
the biggest case I've yet encountered in
terms of the size of the box so make
sure if you're going to take one of
these home you know happen to have any
other stuff in your car that could
interfere with it taking up probably
most of if not the entire trunk of your
vehicle very very big you know why don't
we have a brief rundown of the
specifications and features on the
outside of the box before we open it up
and I'll take a break off-camera to get
it out of the box and then we'll have a
look at the inside so we've got rich i/o
support will cover that once it's open
supports 200 millimeter fan times 1 140
milton's 2 + 120 mil times 3 and that is
in the top so it's either triple 120 s -
140 s or a single 200 removable up upper
fan filter actually has removable fan
filters in a couple places 11 tooless
hard drive and SSD base supports
four-way SLI crossfire yeah with ten
plus one expansion slots at better
individual airflow chamber so it is a
compartmentalized style case um here we
go there that's the summary brushed
aluminum and steel for strength and
elegance stylish and streamlined race
car inspired design ok airflow optimized
design we'll see about that once we open
it up it supports a dual water cooling
loops and I'll show you guys that later
advanced system panel of fan speed and
fan LED control in a rich i'll panel
with 2 USB 3 ports here we've got the
general specifications of what I'm going
to do is I'm just going to get my camera
to kind of look at this and then you
guys can pause the video if you really
want to read it I'm just going to talk
about the case I've extracted it from
the box now and you can see that even in
the thinnest parts the phone which is
not an a closed cell foam it's a riddle
phone so it's not as ideal as as a
softer phone would be that you can see
that my case
arrived in one piece which is always a
good sign and at its thinnest points
it's about an inch and a half and at the
corners which is where most of the
impact is going to happen that's going
to be at least three inches from the
corner to the corner of the case right
there giving it adequate protection in
the event of a fall oh there's a cat in
the box he seems to be okay a little bit
traumatized but otherwise fine so case
is covered in plastic to prevent
scratches and then you can see there's a
fair bit of other little miscellaneous
bits here so I'm going to remove these
off-camera and then we're going to have
a closer look at the cosmos too
it comes with a user manual which is in
a variety of languages and let's have a
look at the exterior of the cosmos - to
start with so you're going to see right
here up at the top we've got these
stylish carrying bars and you will need
them you will have to hold onto these
when you are moving this around
especially once you've fully loaded the
case with all of your system components
we've also got a sliding cover for the
controls at the front so this is
controlling your front top harddrive GPU
and LED for your fan so it's controlling
your fans as well as the LEDs you've got
a reset switch a power switch a hard
drive and a power indicator LED so
that's all covered up here's your front
i/o there's actually a little easier to
reach when you move that back as well it
has a very satisfying thump to it when
you move it back and forth I like that
so we've got a microphone and headphone
jack here eSATA 2 USB 3 SuperSpeed and 4
USB 2 in the front we find three five
and a quarter inch bays and two locking
three and a half inch hot-swap days as
well very cool actually and then here
we've got a cleanable fan filter
although I'm not 100% sure how to get it
off this is my first go at this with
this case you know what why don't we
finish off the exterior appearance for
here so on the side we find a gorgeous
brushed aluminum finish a very very
uniform very even and then we have what
looks kind of it I mean I guess they're
saying racing-inspired but to me it
looks more like the claw marks of a
beast or something and that is the side
panel ventilation so you can see there
is a filter installed in there some kind
of mesh so you'd be able to clean it off
it's not just going to take dust
directly into your case and once we open
it up we're going to find out what is
inside there in terms of cooling
potential the bars on the bottom the
bars on the bottom have rubber feet
installed so while you can put it down
without risking damaging the surface
below it I would still not really drag
the cosmos to around because you can
potentially damage the surface that is
sitting on with those bars so having my
table just detached on the bottom here
so hopefully it doesn't collapse while
I'm filming on the back here we've got a
140 or 120 ml fan some water cooling
grommets we've got 10 PCI expansion
slots plus one so you can throw like a
cathode inverter switch there or
something along those lines we have an
adapter piece that comes out with thumb
screws and then a power supply mount
that actually sticks out a little bit
from the back and then finally on the
other side we find a slightly different
approach to the animal claw mark thing
that was going on on the other side
panel and these ones have yep the same
filtered ventilation holes and I think
we are ready to open this baby up to
open up the side panel all you do is
click this latch right here and it pops
off it is on a hinge which is really
nice for working on cases like this one
where they're very very heavy so you
don't have to worry about what to do
with your side panel the sturdy
construction here is not going to have
any problem with the weight of this
panel which is very very heavy and very
very thick so okay this looks like once
I remove these screws I can take this
off and that'll take off these filters
there so that's pretty straightforward
but why is this so sick though I guess
because of the layered design you've got
a plastic layer we've got what appears
to be some kind of a that looks like
some kind of metal or plastic
construction and we've got the aluminum
piece on the outside which should be
great for noise isolation as well you
guys so I've actually opened it up
backwards so we're going to start on
this side so you can see we've got a
huge CPU cutaway we've got huge holes
for for mount for mounting for managing
cables so you up here you can easily fit
two 8-pin EPS connectors and if you're
buying a case like this there's a chance
you might be buying a motherboard that
has two eight pins no problem they
thought of that if it happens to be
positioned somewhere else we've got
another cable management hole up here
and then we've got all of the usual ones
using I might add a very high quality
grommet you can see it bounces right
back into place as soon as I move away
even if you take it and really heave on
it it goes right back into place so
that's really good to see as well and we
have two full banks of these which will
help accommodate a couple different
widths of motherboards depending on
where you need to run your cables we can
also see that there is ample space
behind the motherboard tray behind the
drive cages for running any kinds of
cables that you could pretty much
possibly see fit I mean here to give you
guys some idea here's where your power
supply is going to sit on a nice little
foam piece here for noise isolation and
you've got a good I mean that's well
over an inch of space next to it to run
cables over here to the drives as well
as to run cables up here to the
motherboard and the rest of the
components I'm just going to tilt this a
little bit there we go to give you guys
better angle we've got one two three
four five six
jessyca you can stay back it's okay I'm
just counting one two three four five
six harddrive cages down here five more
here and then we've got those two hot
swappable ones up in the top there's a
200 mil cooling fan comes installed with
a 120 mil but you can put another 200
mil up there and I think oh yeah here we
go if here's another
filtered fan intake under the power
supply where it's going to be exhausting
out the back of the case from there so
why don't we turn it around and have a
look at the the business side of the
in this case so I was investigating the
top and found out how easy it is to
remove the top panel you can see here
that it has a fan filter that is
built-in and the whole thing is held on
by only one thumb screw so what that
means I'm holding the thumb screw here
yeah so what that means is that you can
gain easy access here I'm just going to
tip this forward so the lights better
for you anyway
so you can gain Oh as much as I can
there we go so you can gain easy access
to the single 240 mil dual 140 mil or
200 mil 200 mil sorry
dual 140 ml or triple 120 mil which is
fully water cooling ready and you can
see the spacing allows for some
forgiveness on either side which means
it should be very compatible with a
variety of different radiators from
different manufacturers because of that
leeway that they've left in for you up
there which is great there's also very
little restriction on the fans
themselves because this is very open and
then other than that there's absolutely
nothing in the way cooler master was
actually a pioneer in the whole built-in
support for water cooling thing until
Coolermaster really started taking it
seriously with cases like the cosmos and
the half 9:32 water cooling support was
usually some rubber grommets in the back
of the case which to me does not mean
water cooling support because maybe one
of it every 20 water cooled builds you
see online uses an external radiator and
the rest people are trying to do them
internally so Coolermaster really I
believe started that trend in a big way
compared to the other major case guys
now speaking of a big way this is a big
lot of internal cables holy cow look at
this okay so here's our front panel
cables where we've got our internal USB
three header I'm good to see that style
being used we have our internal HD audio
USB 2 x 2 so that's total of four ports
and our eSATA then we've also got ha ha
2 data connections and 2 power
connections for our hot swap bays which
I showed you from the front these are
quite solidly constructed actually right
that was one of the other things I
wanted to show you guys about this I
want to show you how these carry
handles are connected to the case so you
can see actually you will have to come
over up top on this one you can see
they're bolted in and they've got some
serious reinforcement going on here even
with your system fully loaded up I would
not expect there to be any give in these
and you'll be very able to move your
system around as long as you have the
Hat the physical strength for it because
it is quite heavy all right so here we
have I'll have to find out what these
are looks like some kind of dual 120
millimeter thing though yeah we'll
figure that out in a bit okay we've also
got some other included actually all
let's finished with the cables okay here
we go the instructions for this case are
actually surprisingly detailed with
really good pictures we find out how
many languages that it's in saw very
efficient so I figured out what these
are it actually comes by default with
the ability to remove all these bottom
cages and these are the 240 millimeter
radiator brackets that you will need in
order to install a dual 120 rad in the
bottom so here these are four fan LEDs
so this is for the LED controller if you
have fans that use these particular
cables then you'll need them and if you
don't then you won't be able to have LED
control you'll have to take this whole
thing in kind of tuck it away somewhere
which is what I would do because none of
the fans that I particularly like use
that use that system this is something
that's really smart though check this up
so they we've got our top fan controller
we've got our harddrive fan one we've
got our GPU fan one and we've got our
front fan one they've actually broken it
out into how many of that particular fan
you might need to control so rather than
locking you down to the configuration
the case comes with four the fan
controller which I've seen in the past
which is just mind-boggling they've gone
they've included however many you will
need to plug it in to each individual
fan so that's a really smart thing that
cooler masters done on this case to give
users the best possible flexibility for
their configuration here's our hard
drive LED power switch and reset switch
so looks like no
um no power led fascinating yes it's got
it figured out some other way so that's
it for the point table so that brings us
to some of the other internal features
so one of them is the tool is five and a
quarter inch base here so we've got
three of them that we have those hot
swaps you've also got not these so these
are really easy to use cooler masters
design is actually excellent you can see
if there's a lot of flex to it but as
soon as you put a drive in there it just
gets totally rigid and works incredibly
well for keeping your hard drive
installed you don't even need tools
because you got these little these
little nubs right here so you just bend
it out put the drive in clip it in slide
it in and then lock it into place so
that's how you install a drive in this
particular case and then the way to get
access to those bottom ones is you just
go ahead and let's see there we go nope
this piece yep so there's your two 120mm
fans and there's your six additional
three and a half inch or 2.5 inch
remember these are all compatible with
two and a half inch SSDs should you see
fit to hold the case up with a whole ton
of SSD so modifications you can make you
can actually just by removing these two
screws and removing all these cages you
can remove this entire hard drive cage
here there's something you want to
install there if you want to make some
kind of modifications to the case you
can completely remove this whole bottom
cage this here as well in order to
install these radiator brackets in order
to put a 240 ml rat radiator down in the
bottom which would allow you to do two
separate loops you have all the room in
the world for a couple reservoirs and
pumps 360 rad in the top 240 rad in the
bottom speaking of which that is another
smart thing cooler masters done with
this cases they've actually built in
cable management grommets between the
bottom chamber and the bottom chamber
and the top chamber so you can keep your
segmented separated airflow thing going
but you can actually run things from the
bottom up to the top which is something
that I
run into with a couple cases in the past
that have used this compartmentalize
design and not give an adequate space to
run things like water cooling tubing
from one place to another it just allows
you to be a little bit tidier with
something like that so I mentioned
before excel ATX is also compatible with
EXO that's why we have cable grommet our
cable management grommets out here as
well as ones over here coolermaster
mentions that it's four-way SLI and for
Wii crossfire compatible and it better
be because if you take to usually excel
ATX motherboards start here so you got
two four six eight yes it is fully
capable of doing that I mean I think
we're at the practical limits on how
many video cards people would want to
install in a system so Cooper masters
pretty much got the bases covered there
I couldn't figure out immediately how to
get the door off the side of the case
but it turns out it's really easy you
just take it and lift it off and it's
just got these four little metal pieces
right here that slip into place and are
held up by the hinge design right here
sorry I'm just going to put that on for
the sake of demonstrating to you guys
how easy it is to put back on huh I was
faster the first time this is only my
second time putting it back on the go
yeah back in place and not going
anywhere anymore which is very cool let
me just see if there's anything that
I've missed inside here so basically in
a nutshell you can install as much
hardware as you want three five and a
quarter inch devices along with thirteen
three and a half or two and a half inch
devices you can install up to a triple
radiator in the top and a dual in the
bottom and then I call man I'd imagine
if you get a little bit more creative
you could probably do a couple tools in
the bottom you could do a larger
radiator like a 140 here in the front
you can do another 120 or 140 here in
the back and yeah you could have all the
water cooling nests that you could
possibly fit although it might not be
very portable at that point
that's how you put all those radiators
inside you can install pretty much
whatever motherboard you want as many
video cards as you want and as long a
power supply as you want ultimately this
is an ultimate style case it is not for
the faint of heart
it is not for installing your your sort
of daily driver machine this is for a
gaming system and I think that pretty
much covers everything I'll show you
some of the accessories here we've got
our speaker we've got our mounting
screws and grommets and standoffs and
all that good stuff
couple included cable management pieces
these are so handy Thank You
Coolermaster for including these check
this out so you just do that pull them
tight and you can use these to mount
cables wherever you want they've just
got double sided foamy tape on the back
so we got four of those five of those
they also include a whole bunch of black
cable ties so you pretty much won't need
anything with this case other than
what's included Coolermaster already
knows that you might not be able to
reach with your 8 pin connector so they
included one that is going to be long
enough to get you darn near halfway from
the top of the case down to your power
supply so pretty much no matter what
kind of power supply you have you'll be
able to get your system going right away
although personally I'd replace this
with something sleeped
because if you're going to have a case
that looks really nice like this on the
inside you're probably going to want to
stay looking nice and not be covered in
this speaking of which there is no
windowed side panel on this case for now
but there could potentially be a
windowed side panel available for
purchase in the future as an add-on to
to this case and yes
fan fan placement so I mentioned the
triple 120 s in the top the 140 in the
back you got your power supply fan
you've got your dual 120 s here which
are totally removable you can just take
them off very easily here you can also
mount an additional 120 millimeter fan
here for to a pull more air through
these hard drives to help out the 200
mil that's here in the front you can do
to 120 s here on the side and I think
that pretty much covers it so don't
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