Test Results ~ with NVIDIA 8800 GTX

Pre-fitted with 3x120mm fans the CM 690 will have no trouble keeping your hardware inside cool enough; what we want to find out with our performance tests is if we can gain a cooling advantage by moving the fans around a bit, adding one here, removing another there, while keeping an eye on our dBA noise meter to find the better performance/noise configuration.

The three 120mm fans are model A12025-12CB-3BN-F1 rated at 1200rpm / 44 CFM, they can be under-volted easily and spin up nicely even at 5v.

In the chart below we used abbreviations for the location of where we installed the 120mm fans; most are straight forward, we just mention them here for reference. Front , Rear, Side, Top, Bottom. Only one test was with the Front fan undervolted at 5v, all other tests were with fans running at 12v (high speed).

These are the results obtained, compared the similar sized and priced models, no less than 8 other cases are included: Antec 900, Silverstone TJ-09, Coolermaster Stacker 830 Evo, Ultra Grid, Sunbeamtech 3D Storm, NZXT Adamas and Zirconium.



The 8800 GTX was running near maximum temperatures through out most of the configurations, causing higher noise levels. The classic configuration of 1x120mm front and 1x120mm in the back proved less ideal this time around, when adding one 120mm fan in the bottom pulling cool air inside the case the results were most favorable, installing one 120mm at the top instead of the bottom wasn’t too bad either, and if you add a second one at the top will surely prove itself useful.


CM 690 with 1x120mm installed in top panel, one in rear panel

The overall conclusion for the performance/noise is easy, if you run all fans at maximum speed you will notice this case humming along in a quiet room, if you undervolt these case fans they no longer become the main source of noise and you’ll have to look at the other components (VGA, CPU cooling) to reduce noise further. Temperature wise the results are encouraging, and there is much potential left, having only installed 3 out of 8 possible fans.

Speaking of which, we did an extra test with an 80mm fan in the back, we had to remove the back panel so the results are not comparable to those seen above. We also did not run RealTime HDR to stress the VGA, nor any other tool used before, instead we opted for Intel TAT short for Intel Thermal Analysis Tool, this software stresses the two cores on the Core 2 Duo to the maximum while recording the temperature of each core. Here are the results of our little test:

Reference no 80mm installed: Core1: 64°C / Core2: 60°C

80mm fan configured as out-take: Core1: 63°C / Core2: 63°C

80mm fan configured as in-take: Core1: 63°C / Core2: 63°C

Overall it’s hard to say it’s doing anything positive at all? We’re ignoring the fact that an 80mm fan will be louder and provide a very low performance/noise ratio.

Conclusive Thoughts

If this product carried a price-tag of $150/€150 our conclusion would have been quite straight forward, the CM 690 is a feature rich enclosure which comes with handy tool less features, three 120mm fans which keep all components cool, plus the possibility to add another 5 fans to provide for excellent thermal management, a lot of expandability options. Drawbacks are the steel construction which makes this case heavy to carry around, the side panels can be hard to install and remove. Overall a good case in a market with plenty of competition.

Now that we’ve learned that the case costs actually HALF of what we expected, at €76/$70 this case is the best there is at the price point, you’ll be hard pressed to find a mid tower ATX enclosure which packs as many features as the CM 690.

Newegg store (US): $70 - $20 (mail in rebate!)

ZipZoomFly store (US): $80 - $20 (mail in rebate!)

We have no hesitation when we say that the:

CM 690 Recommended for



We hope Coolermaster continues to surprise us with these affordable cases to please the budget minded enthusiasts out there; thank you for reading, until next time!