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Cooler Master Announces Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case

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That would make for the sweetest HTPC case I've seen to date. Also perfect for a compact office PC. The only thing preventing it from being a killer enthusiast PC as well would be the fact that mini-ITX motherboards lack the necessary voltage regulators for higher overclocks. Other than that, it would also make for the perfect compact gaming PC.
 
The front looks uuuuuuugly but the internals are pretty good.

[citation][nom]merikafyeah[/nom]That would make for the sweetest HTPC case I've seen to date. Also perfect for a compact office PC. The only thing preventing it from being a killer enthusiast PC as well would be the fact that mini-ITX motherboards lack the necessary voltage regulators for higher overclocks. Other than that, it would also make for the perfect compact gaming PC.[/citation]

High overclocks? Small HTPC cases are difficult to keep cool&quiet anyway.
Low noise is much more important than a few percent more performance.
 
Coolermaster are crap. They're the McDonalds of cases/cooling. A couple of their high-end cases are good (and they better be considering how much they cost), but everything else is mediocre at best. They invest too much in advertising and not nearly enough in product quality.
 
[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]The front looks uuuuuuugly but the internals are pretty good.High overclocks? Small HTPC cases are difficult to keep cool&quiet anyway.Low noise is much more important than a few percent more performance.[/citation]

Let me guess, you like apple products?
 
[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Coolermaster are crap. They're the McDonalds of cases/cooling. A couple of their high-end cases are good (and they better be considering how much they cost), but everything else is mediocre at best. They invest too much in advertising and not nearly enough in product quality.[/citation]

I disagree!

Whilst coolemaster are not the best, they are better at the various price point than most of the competition.

At the lower end, no other cases here in the UK come close to the Elite series, at under £35.00.

I have been using fractal cases recently at this price point, but the quality has gone down, just picking up a fractal 1000 can cause deformations in the super thin panels!

I have a Coolermaster Scout, and I have hammered that case far beyond the norm, transporting it everywhere, and it has worked flawless, no dents and superb cooling for my 3570k OC over 4.4Ghz, and two 5850!

for under £70, what a brilliant peice of kit!
 
[citation][nom]moricon[/nom]I disagree!Whilst coolemaster are not the best, they are better at the various price point than most of the competition.[/citation]

Well that really depends on what you're looking for. The fans Cooler Master include on their cases and CPU coolers are too loud, while cooling capacity is not better than the competition. That's pretty much a dealbreaker for me, so every Cooler Master product I bought was a disappointment - I had to replace all fans in every case.

Since there's plenty of competition and people generally don't buy cases and coolers that often, it doesn't make sense to save a few quid and get stuck with an inferior product.

It also annoys me to see and hear them advertise everywhere - knowing that they're spending money on marketing instead of investing some effort in their engineering.
 
[citation][nom]pennanen[/nom]Let me guess, you like apple products?[/citation]

Do you have a HTPC? Nothing more annoying than fan noise when watching a good movie. Even a loud hard drive can be a pain.
Noise is also a problem when gaming, since you won't be using headphones when gaming on a HTPC.

I actually do have a 3-4year old Mac mini as my HTPC / PLEX server, which back then was actually decent value for money. Guess what: It's dead silent even under high load (decoding high bitrate video while running a small Minecraft server at the same time)

btw: For people who just want video and music playback, it's better to buy a cheap set-top-box for $50-$100 instead of a full grown HTPC. Spend the money saved on a NAS server with a good processor and the right OS so that it can run a XBMC/PLEX server
 
I was looking for a mini-ITX case using a full size ATX PSU and a full size DVD drive. I won't use this as a HTPC. But with a full size graphics card and quad-code CPU - and plenty of RAM, it will make a great desktop replacement for my liquid-cooled full-tower monstrosity.
 
[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Coolermaster are crap. They're the McDonalds of cases/cooling. A couple of their high-end cases are good (and they better be considering how much they cost), but everything else is mediocre at best. They invest too much in advertising and not nearly enough in product quality.[/citation]

I strongly disagree bruh. Ever heard of the hyper 212+?
 
[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Coolermaster are crap. They're the McDonalds of cases/cooling. A couple of their high-end cases are good (and they better be considering how much they cost), but everything else is mediocre at best. They invest too much in advertising and not nearly enough in product quality.[/citation]

I used to think this, but CM has come a long way. I bought the CM Sniper a few years ago and it's the best case I've ever owned. They make some legit products if you are willing to spend the money.
 
I love how the Shroud of the GPU makes up the side of the case..... In a regular case the design tends to face downward so you can't even see how cool it looks. This though seems to just showcase the shroud on the side.
Really want to see what a GTX 690 would look like in that
 
I have a CM Scout II case and aside from it looking decidedly bland next to my NZXT Phantom it really is a solid case. The huge issue that I owuld have with this case (and its funny that the first post mentions OCs) is heat.

This case will be boiling, theres no space for airflow unless you wanna have a close circuit watercooler on the go. Sure they say 'cool' and quiet, but my Scout box with its Q6600 and 560ti at stock clocks still hits 60C on hot days and with less space I cant see that getting any better. GPUs are ridiculously hot hings under load and need cooling on the underside as well if you want to run them under load for gaming. It looks quite simply impossible on this case.
 
[citation][nom]thety6on[/nom]I strongly disagree bruh. Ever heard of the hyper 212+?[/citation]

Yeah, perfect example of what I was talking about. It's middle-of-the-road at best, check out the charts - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/lga-1156-heatsink,2535-15.html

Compare it in the charts to Scythe Mugen 2, which is what I bought. Why would anybody buy average products just to save like $15? Do you buy coolers every week?

The best I could say for Cooler Master products (that I've seen/used/owned) is they're serviceable, but you may not even know how mediocre they are until you try the best of the competition.
 
I work in International Education so for me this is a great thing. I have been toting Mini-ATX case around the globe. It fits in a suitcase, but is still a pain in the ass. My next gaming computer will be a Mini-ATX so I will be giving this line of products serious consideration. You do not need to do much overclocking to play games well. You actually don't need to do any.

I don't care much about the noise since I use it for gaming and not HTPC for which I just use a TV box like most people do these days.
 
It is amazing how far the mini-itx form factor has come in the last few years. When I built my first HTPC in this form factor, there were hardly any cases to choose from, and you had to buy from specialty web sites. Newegg had nothing. Now there is some real design work going into these cases and slowly but surely all of the flaws are being addressed. I agree with one of the other comments here that CM makes pretty decent cases for the mid-range price point. , but the fans they use are junk. At least that is my experience with the one CM case that I used. (Still using that systems as a home server).
 
[citation][nom]pennanen[/nom]Let me guess, you like apple products?[/citation]

If, by the phrase "let me guess, you like Apple products?" you mean "let me guess, in a discussion regarding aesthetics you enjoy the aesthetic of a company known for aesthetically pleasing products?" then I'd have to assume most people would answer "yes" - that's a big part of why you'd buy an Apple product. Surely you wouldn't spend $1,200 on an Apple laptop with specs of an $800 Windows-based laptop just because?

Anyway, perhaps it's my employer's archaic IE6 installation, but the only picture I can see is the OP picture which makes the front look almost un-finished. I can't tell if this is because the case isn't fully assembled, but it looks kind've weird to me, almost like they are missing a piece or something.

That being said, I would assume the look of a case would matter a great deal if your purpose is to have it be a part of your home theather setup, which is one of the main appeals of a case of this size.

Me? I have a 24" LED monitor affixed to a lapdesk that used to house my Alienware M17xR3, plugged into an OC'd i5/ Ti 570 in SLI system in an Antec P280 that sits between my leather recliner and my coffee table. I much prefer this to play a game on a screen so far away, but in my defense my living room is huge and my TV is only 42".
 
that looks a LOT like a Shuttle case, the front could really use some work. Cooler Master makes a tough product that can last many many LAN parties, I used my HAF 912 for a year and still didn't have a single scratch in the powder coating, didn't have a dent either, my only complaints were it didn't have a side window (which I later bought from the CM store) and it wasn't exactly the best looking case in the world. it had excellent air flow kept my temps lower than any other case I have ever owned.

I too switched to a fractal case, the quality per dollar is higher for fractal cases, but the powder coating isn't nearly as strong. I have the define R3 pearl black, its definitely a sexy looking box but the air flow just doesn't match a CM, on the plus side its whisper quiet. going to eventually make a mini itx build in the near future, transportation for a mid tower is a bit ridiculous
 
[citation][nom]enewmen[/nom]I was looking for a mini-ITX case using a full size ATX PSU and a full size DVD drive. I won't use this as a HTPC. But with a full size graphics card and quad-code CPU - and plenty of RAM, it will make a great desktop replacement for my liquid-cooled full-tower monstrosity.[/citation]
sounds like you are a man of extremes :)
 
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