The King of All Cosmos ====> Cosmos S


















Well, this is the first time I do a review, so please bear with me with those spelling errors and poor English
I will make things rather short, and more photos.

The purpose of this review is to poison more people
and also share with all of you a nice casing around~

Let's starts the review



The Specification:



This post has been edited by cschun86: Sep 28 2008, 12:57 PM

The Exterior of Cosmos S



Well, let's start with the packaging. The box is as shown in photo, I didn't take much photo of the box as can't wait to tear it up to open. The colourful box actually is wrapped by another chocolate rounds. Without second thought when the casing reached me, I remove the first layer cover and take this photo of the box. ARM YOURSELF WITH THE BEST







Open up the box, surprisingly the case isn't come with normal plastic package. It come with a brown colour bag, the material is like leather or I am not sure what type of material it is. You can see there is a large Cooler Master logo printed on the bag. This is the part of difference with the ordinary cosmos 1000 which just covered by plastic bag in the box. Open up the bag, we can see the case still do have a clear and thick plastic bag cover around to protect the casing. I guess cooler master wana secure our investment and put 2 layer of protection? Between, the brown bag are similiar with the laundry bag lol, maybe can use it as laundry bag







Then, I cant found any large sponge to put my casing on top so that it won't get scratches on the first day. Solution is simple, use the laundry bag
Here is the Left Right Side View of the Cosmos S. The Left side is a aluminium panel with black mesh and "Cosmos S" word on the mesh. The red colour "S" remind me the sports/racing car. Like GTR with a red "R" on the car. I guess Cooler Master get the idea from the sport car. The right side panel is plain, just a Cooler Master logo printed on the panel.








Next, we move to the top panel, you can see the is also covered 90% by mesh. This was an improvement over the ordinary cosmos that using a plastic top panel that you might break it carelessly. The mesh has strengthen the top panel. The ordinary cosmos 1000 look like car hoot, while the cosmos s personally I feel that it is like the alien head. I like this design more than the ordinary one. Woots, where is the IO port? Cooler Master moved it to the front panel? NO, actually it has been covered. The is a sliding panel, slide open the cover, you can see 4 USB, microphone and mic jack, firewire port and e-sata port like the cosmos 1000. The top panel mesh are removable, when you remove it, you will see there is 3 x 120mm mounting hole. You can put 3 x 120mm fans at here or inside the casing. If you wan the 3x120mm fan out the casing here then you need some modification as the plastic part the support the mesh are block in the way. Cutting them would be easy and won't weaken down the structure.

Eh? Where goes the Power, Reset Button? The reset button has been removed in the cosmos s. This might be a bad news for some of you but I am OK with it. The power button is change to the touch sensor type. This is the part of the reason that I choose this over the cosmos 1000. It is cool that a case that have touch sensor power button. I guess not much casing or may be none of them have this kind of mechanism power on/off? Ohya, I also notice the LED signaling has been removed. When power on, you can see a different thing here. Compare to the cosmos 1000 which is just printed words.

Moving to the front view, we can see that cosmos s no longer have a swing door. I think Cooler Master removed that design to have more air ventilation. It is a good move for me but maybe not for some. The 5.25" are easily removable. You just need to pull open the two side bar, which using magnet to hold it close, and you can removed it. The earlier version of cosmos s and using clip type and the latest one has been changed to the magnet type. And you can see from the front, you also can put a 3.5" bay using the coverter provided. Each of the 5.25" bay is cover by a mesh panel. Remove it and turn back round, you can see a thin layer a filter. This is a good move to prevent the cosmos become a powerful vacuum as it can be install with lot of fans. When I mean lot of fans, it is really lot of fans, more than 5 I mean it.











Now, we move to the rear of the casing. You can see this time they doesn't include the back panel. It is a smart move as most of the people wouldn't use it. The is a 120mm fan exhaust, and there is also some ventilation holes beside the PCI slot. At the upper part, there is two pre-drilled holes for those water cooling user. There is a thumb screw right on the center, removing the thumb screw and you can remove the top panel mesh off. The mechanism of open the both side panels are like the cosmos 1000, it is simple, you just need to push and plastic bracket up and u can open it. You can refer to cosmos 1000 case review post #16.


You also can notice from here that the PSU has been move to the bottom of the casing. If you look closely at it (I'll provide picture, ), you will notice the PSU can be put in both way. Either the PSU fan take the hot air from the GC area zone and blow out (bad idea which made your psu harder to cool down as it keep drawing hot air) or in the opposite, intake from the bottom of the case.










At the bottom of the casing, you can see there is 2 honey-comb holes. One of them is for PSU intake and another one is for 120mm fan intake. Too bad the Cooler Master doesn't include the 120mm fan this time. They just provide an air filter at the bottom of the case. The PSU zone actually also have air filter but it is only removable inside the casing.

Remove the left side panel of the casing. You will see the gigantic fan on the right side. According to Cooler Master, it can blow up to 150cfm or more into the casing. This will help to cool down the GC area drastically, especially those using 3850 that cannot ventilate the hot air out the casing. There is a big draw back on the side fan too, if you are using high cooler tower like Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 120. The cooler is too high and will make the side panel unable to close. You need to remove the fan or mod the fan to fit the tower cooler.

The entire side panel is also actually cover by a big filter. The is a good sign that Cooler Master does put their mind into our shoes. With such a high cfm intake, you case will become a dust collector. With filter here will help to prevent the dust went into. I think you also dun want to clean you case once in a week or two.







On the holding frame at the case, at 4 corner, there is rubber dampening. This is help to reduce the noise create when the fan rotating and make the panel hitting the main frame. Other than that, there is also a rubber line at the bottom part of the panel, the use of it is same as the rubber.







Here is another side panel. It is plain which have just 4 metal bar screw on the panel. In real, those bar are just hold your panel into position and to make sure the side panel fit in correctly. Cooler Master should make the metal bar smaller or think other mechanism. Using the current mechanism is just simply add the weight of the entire casing.

The Interior of Cosmos S



Inside the case, you will found a white box. Inside the white box, it has the 3.5" to 5.25" converter as shown above. Other than that, it also bundle a lot of screws, cable ties, cable holder. I doubt you can finish all of them in the first installation. Except that, you can also found an 8-pin extension, this is for those that have short 8pin connectors which doesn't have enough length to route the 8-pin to the right position. There is also a 24-pin extension. This is a must used items when you installing you hardwares because you noticed there is power button connector on the 24-pin extension. A minor draw back here is both the extension are not sleeved.









In the picture below, you can see there is mounting hole for one 120mm fan as mention before. The fan filter is just located outside the casing.







Moving beside, you can see the PSU zone. The black colour is some kind of sponge, it dampening the PSU vibration and prevent it to making noise when the PSU fan is spinning. There is also a fan filter at the PSU bottom area. It is simple to remove the filter by pulling it out. Be aware that the handle is pretty fragile, or actually is got technique to remove the filter. You need to press down a bit and the opening zone, and the another hand pull the air filter out. This is because they made a little bump that prevent the air filter to slide out. On my first try, I didnt notice as it is below the metal part (you can't see it) and I pull to hard and the handle break into 2 part.

Well, it doesn't matter, Uncle Elephant Glue will help me fix it. Below are the picture of the filter and my broken one.







Moving upwards, it is the PCI Slot, as usual, Cooler Master fix the panel into position using thumb screw. This is pretty normal at current market casing that price RM300 above. A minor draw back for me is the PCI slot cover does not have air ventilation hole. Cooler Master should have seriously consider about this in their coming case as the high end graphic card are pretty hot. Adding ventilation holes wouldn't cost much and it helps to cool down the hot zone.

In the opposite of PCI slot, it is the where the HDD cage located. The HDD cage is able to hold up to 4 HDD and it is equipped with a red led 120mm fan. The red colour does match the theme of the red sensor power button. The is also 4 rubber at each side of the hdd cage to prevent the vibration of the HDD making noise. This time Cooler Master did a pretty good job like the previous cosmos 1000 in sound dampening.







If the HDD cage is install, the is still 7 of 5.25" bay are available for you rom or any 5.25" devices to install. The fit into location mechanism is very simple. Push the blue button to lock, and push another time to unlock. However, on the another side, there is no such mechanism. If you can live with side side locked, then it is easy. For myself, I will still put 2 screw on the other side to fit the 5.25" devices nicely.







The last part of that I am going through is the pre-cut routing holes. They has made some changes, the vertical holes becomes 3 instead of 2 on the cosmos 1000. They also move the horizontal hole and allign them together. The hole is very good in cable routing. Just becareful those those thick cable should route through the upper horizontal hole. This is because there is a metal bar on the side panel will cross between 2 horizontal hole. On my installation, I fit all nicely on the bottom hole, when want to close the panel to try power up, realize my 24-pin cable block the metal bar on the side panel. All nicely route cable have to be re-route, end up no mood by simple routing and a bit messy at the PSU area.





















Conclusions:
Overall, I still like this casing. This is still the best among those I am looking for. The case is suite both the air cooling and water cooling needs. No regret if you get this case. Below I list some pro and cons of the casing.

Pro:
1. A lot of space, easy for assembling
2. Very good air ventilation
3. Easy cleaning air filter
4. Easy Mounting 5.25 device
5. Cool red sensor power button
6. Beautiful and cool design
7. Full feature I/O port
8. Easy cable routing

Cons:
1. Side panel fan has problem with high tower cooler
2. Sharp edges at some part
3. Some useless metal bar block cable routing
4. Even provided extension, some cable is still not long enough.
5. Right panel space are limited and need well plan cable routing or else will end up unable to close the side panel.



Specially thanks to those helps in the review and providing me opinion for cable routing:
1. Zhane
2. Verticalar
3. hiphop

*Poisonous Poison* ~~~~ Time for more poison~


















This post has been edited by cschun86: Sep 21 2008, 03:39 AM

The ULTIMATE Poison~












This post has been edited by cschun86: Sep 21 2008, 03:30 AM

Temperature Comparison in Stock and OC


In Stock Speed mode~



In OC mode~




This post has been edited by cschun86: Sep 28 2008, 12:56 PM

chun reshoot back the pic ..got sum blurry kasi sharp one bro

CM should provide psu fan filter like ur cosmos for 690 too.

Will do, but no digicam on me now,
today afternoon gesa-gesa finish installing my then angkut back hostel already,
no time to take more shot...

such a beauty woot

wohh..nice casing.

walowei, 4 exhaust fans but only 1 intake fan!

that's ain't a good move

---

Added on September 21, 2008, 5:16 am

@ cschun86

its best if u test the setup that u have with minimal amount of fans

1: Install only 1 intake & 1 exhaust fans, stress the system, record the temps on idle & full load
2: Increase the intake & exhaust fans 1-by-1, stress the system, record the temps on idle & full load

see which setup is da best

i already done this before on my previous G7

adding more fans is totally a crap idea

no significant temp reduction, only significant dBA increment

This post has been edited by E-J@1: Sep 21 2008, 05:16 AM

oh oo,
okok
but still got 3 fans on the way lol,
the front i will put like armorsuit, 3 x 120mm ^.^

Actually the fan putting is abt same with armorsuit i plan to do,
the different just top armorsuit just 2, this one can fit 3,
and bottom got another intake too..

now thats cool

do update us on the temp results

I think move the top 3 exhaust fans to front intake.

this would be better , no ?

it worsen the air flow = creates a +ve pressure

oh.. what is the best figure then ?

I'm noob at air flow btw... though intake and exhaust is just enough.