Installation & Usage
So what are we going to be installing in this case? Our test system is comprised of an Intel Core i7-3820, Gigabyte X79-UD3 motherboard, Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 video card, 16GB G.Skill RipjawsZ DDR3 memory, Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W power supply and a 750GB SATA drive. The first thing you are going to want to do is install your motherboard. To make things easier you are able to remove the side panel from the case completely by lifting up on it. Our motherboard is a normal ATX motherboard and as you can see there is still quite a lot of space inside. Also we have the Zalman CNPS 12x CPU cooler installed, it is one of the largest CPU coolers out there and it fits without any issues.
Installing your hard drives is very simple. 3.5-inch drives slide right into the trays without any tools required. If you are using 2.5-inch drives they get screwed in from the bottom. Once you have your drives installed simply slide them back in where you want them.
Before you install anything else you may want to start plugging things in and running your cables. This is a very large case so I wanted to make sure everything did reach. All of the cables did reach just fine, the HD audio connection just made it, but I was still able to plug it in. One thing I would have liked to see was the fan controller already connected, but it was not. So you have to connect all of the fans to the appropriate connectors. They are labeled so you know which ones you will be controlling with the fan controller. Also there are 2pin connectors that are for LED’s on the fans. The only fan that has this LED connector on it is the 200mm intake fan. This allows you to turn the LED’s on your fan off with the fan controller.
The video card goes in like any other video card, simple and to the point. Some of you may notice that I did not install my video card in the top PCI-E slot, this is because my CPU cooler the Zalman CNPS 12X blocked it. So I decided to install it in the 3rd PCI-E slot since it was the only other x16 slot on this board.
Finally you are going to want to install your power supply. To do this remove the power supply back plate, just take out the 4 thumbscrews. The install it to the back of your power supply and slide your power supply into the back of the case. Now it is time to route the cables. You can route all of them through the backside of the case. I like it that Cooler Master did include a CPU power extension because our cable most likely would not have been able to reach all the way up there, and you can install it on your motherboard first, before you even install it inside. Once you have all of the cables routed you can see how clean the inside of the case looks.
The fan controller on the case is really cool and not only that it does not look like any other fan controller out there. Check out the video below to see it in action!
