Introduction

Coolermaster recently launched their latest high end enclosure, the COSMOS, it’s an expensive piece of equipment build with silence and performance in mind, the spotlights of the enthusiast have been on this case for months and first reviews are now appear on the web. While we are stress testing our Cosmos sample we got a chance to look at a more affordable case from Coolermaster, the less spectacularly named CM 690. The name doesn’t mean much, but we’re sure it will pop up on the radar of people looking for a sub $100 case.

You’ve read it correctly, the CM 690 is a brand new mid tower case stuffed with plenty of features and comes with 3x120mm fans preinstalled, all this for a low price of €76 in Europe, and even as low as $70 in the USA! It’s been a while since we have seen such a lower priced enclosure from Coolermaster, it’ll be interesting to see what they offer us at this price point.

Yes it a steel case, comes in one color: Black



Specifications

Let’s go right to the gritty details:



The CM-690 is a heavy case, made from sturdy metal chassis this is no surprise, inside you can fit ATX or Micro ATX motherboard, you have 5x 5.25” drive bays available at the front, one can be turned into an exposed 3.5” bay (floppy/multimedia card reader). You can fit up to five 3.5” hard drives in the custom rack. At the top you find I/O panel with support for not only USB/Firewire/(HD) Audio, but also eSATA!

Coolermaster did not neglect cooling of the CM 690, no sir! You can fit up to 8 fans in this case of different sizes. Quickly summed up, you get one 120mm LED fan preinstalled in the front, one none-led 120mm in the back, and one 120mm non-led in the side panel. The side panel can hold 2x120mm or 2x140mm fans. The top panel can also hold 2x120mm or 2x140mm, the bottom panel also has plug and play installation for 1x140mm or one 120mm fan. Still not enough? In the rear panel there is room for one low profile 80mmx15mm fan to provide cooling to the back of the motherboard.

The specifications alone won’t be a deciding factor of course, so let’s take the CM 690 for a test drive and explore the features and find out how if performs ->