Customer Reviews

Cooler Master Cosmos ATX Full Tower Case Silver - (RC-1000-KSN1-GP)

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I basically divide cases into 3 types:

1. Economical cases which serve only to hold your hardware.

2. Gamer type cases can be cheap or one of the finest on the market, but they all offer features that make them flashy, such as windows, lights, etc.

3. Luxury cases I define as cases that are solid, very well built and made of top end materials, but are more artistic and stylish than gamer cases and are appropriate for your home office up to your corporate office.

This is one of the finest "Luxury" cases I have ever built a system in, and I have built well over 50. An aluminum skin all around with noise blocking material installed from the factory is just the start of a long list of quality features.

I would have liked to have 1 or 2 more 5 1/2 bays, but that is more of a personal preference. Above that, this is a solid, stunning case (much more so in person) that will leave most buyers content with their decision to buy this one.

UPDATE: After building several systems in this case for customers, a serious flaw became very apparent. The HDD (Hard Drive) bays basically act just like mini toaster ovens on the drives due to the enclosed design and lack of any ventilation or cooling. After doing a dual OS system install on one computer, the two installed (Raptor 150's) were so blazing hot you couldn't hold them in your hand for over a second.

REMEDY: Normally I would discontinue using a case with a flaw like this, but I like this case so much I decided to search for a solution instead, and found a great one if you WATER COOL your PC.

Get one Koolance Hard Drive Hydra-Pak soft Cooler #HD-50-L06 (HD)for each drive. The cooler fits between the drive and the removeable hard drive tray and fit right back into the slot. You CAN NOT use the Koolance dual drive cooler due to the way the hard drive bays are designed on this model. This solution allows you to "sandwich" the water cooling Hydra-Pak between the HDD and tray and have the water connections easily available on the back-side.

I water cool all my systems, and this solution turned a serious over-heating and HDD killer into a constant 20-24 temp. reading on the hard drives at all times (readings from a Koolance Exos 2 LX at both idle and heavy, sustained system testing)! If your not up to speed on temps., that's a pretty impressive range for a hard drive under heavy use. Went from a problem to a positive if you have decided to use water cooling on your new rig.

If your not water cooling, don't mess around too long before finding a good air solution or you will be replacing your hard drives and having the huge headache of re-installing everything back on new ones. The extreme high temps will be a huge burden on your HDD's over time if it doesn't knock them out sooner than later and cause a source of high temperature inside your case that makes all the fan cooling just that much more inefficient. The High Performance Raptor 10,000 drives I was using produce more heat than normal 7,200 drives so the problem may not be as extreme using most hard drives, but it will still be an issue that needs to be addressed sooner or later.

I wasn't looking for a new case when one of Amazon's competitors, via a marketing email, brought the Cooler Master Cosmos to my attention. Then again, I've been looking all my life for a case as beautiful, spacious and quiet as this one.
All the research I did online, and there are many places that have the specifications, beginning with Cooler Master's own web site, and quite a few with reviews, convinced me the price was worthwhile for what will likely be my last computer case. By the way, Amazon had the best price.
I placed my order late on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, taking advantage of free shipping, and was pleasantly surprised and very pleased when it arrived on Wednesday (before the holiday)!
The manufacturer's box comes with an outer shipping sleeve, which I'm amazed arrived together with the box, since there was nothing holding it in place. Packing is adequate, and there was no damage beyond some to the cardboard sleeve.
Optimum use is made of internal spaces to pack (read hide from view) the smaller parts, and it took me a while to locate everything mentioned in the parts list.
How fortunate that my company dismissed us early on Wednesday, because I could not wait to get this beauty home.
The case comes with four 120mm (4.72") fans installed. One in the base, one at the rear opposite the CPU fan, and two in the top. There is an ample hardware package in the form of an accessory carrying case (advertised as a freebie) containing a screwdriver key ring, cable ties, tie mounts, motherboard stand-offs, and all the screws for motherboard and peripherals you could need. Not that you need too many for peripherals, as I mention later. Not sure either, where to keep the accessory carrying case.
The case is bigger than you'd expect for a computer case. Though at 23.5" it is equal to the full tower it is replacing, it is both substantially wider (at 10.5"), and deeper (longer?) (at 24.7") than the tower case. The bottom rails provide ample lateral support and nicely complement the two upper rails/handles which make moving the case much easier than most. They are also very convenient when turning the case onto its side to work on the innards.
The finish is a beautiful combination of machined aluminum and black acrylic, with a black mesh front panel behind the reversible front door. The side panels are the full size of the case. They release simply by lifting the appropriate lever on the back, and then lift up and outwards to disengage the bottom lip from the base.
Inside, there is more space than you'll know what to do with. For me, removing memory no longer entails first removing a disk drive! In fact, my full ATX motherboard now has a full six inches clear between it and the hard drives.
Regarding the hard drives; one reason for the increased width, is to accommodate mounting the internal hard drives from side-to-side in the case, using HDD racks that are each secured by one finger-turnable screw. There are six such racks. Drives mount on edge, using four special screws (provided) that go through grommets in the rack to attach the drive.
The case accommodates either 5 x 5.25" exposed drives, or allows one 5.25" bay to be used to install a 3.5" drive. The mounting bracket and front bezel is provided for the 3.5: drive. However, Cooler Master "strongly recommends" the lowest exposed bay (5.25") not be used for installing any device that is bigger than 3.5" "to guarantee optimal thermal performance for HDDs". Mounting the 3.5" drive is tricky, and requires patience. See my notes later.
The exposed 5.25" drives mount simply by pressing a button catch to release or engage two locating pins - no more screws!
I was initially taken aback when I found that the power supply mounts in the bottom rear corner of the case. Unlike my previous tower cases where it was installed at the top drawing hot air from the CPU, Cooler Master, in my opinion, has placed the PSU in the ideal position, where it neither adds to, nor is affected by in-case heat. Air is drawn from outside through the bottom of the case, and exhausted out the back.
Fan placement is ideal, with one fan on the bottom introducing fresh air, one exhausting at the rear, directly opposite the CPU fan, and two exhausting from the top, where one expects hot air to migrate. The side panels are adequately padded with soundproofing material. All fans operate at low RPM, and the overall effect is a system that is substantially quieter than my old tower with its three 3" fans.
A definite plus is the externalized connectors on the front (actually top) panel. The cables included with the case enabled me to connect the four previously unused USB ports on my Intel DP965LT mobo. You'd think the six that are externalized via the back panel would be enough, but I have steadily added to my USB peripherals, to the point where the four are a welcome addition! I was also able to connect the unused 1394 connector on my motherboard using the provided cable, and found an unused SATA port (eSATA cable provided) so that I now have all three port types available on the front panel.
The following bear mentioning, but don't detract from the beauty of the case, or my award of 5 full points:
1) Mounting the 3.5" exposed drive is tricky, and requires a lot of patience, due to the tiny screws that go into the mounting rails. The push-button catch can easily be removed for this exercise, so that the left-hand side screws can more easily be inserted. Not so for the two on the right, where the tiny screws have to be passed through tiny holes in one metal plate in order to screw through a second plate into the mounting frame. I dropped each screw multiple times, which caused them to disappear between the metal plates and required rolling the case to bring them into places where they could be retrieved using a magnetized screwdriver. Definitely an area for improvement. I do not plan to replace that drive anytime soon.
2) The knobs on my SoundBlaster Audigy 2 protrude, and don't allow the front door to be closed. This has necessitated permanently removing the door, which is a pity. I have asked Cooler Master if they have a solution for this issue.
3) Hardly a complaint - The RC-1000 has one fewer exposed drives than my old case. Also, though Cooler Master claims 5 exposed 5.25" bays, they also recommend against using the bottommost one as anything but a 3.5" bay. Still, I can live with 4 x 5.25" drive bays instead of five.
4) I would have liked a dust cover for the front panel externalized connectors. This would also help keep my two-year old grandson from pressing the power button, which he loves to do!

This is a terrific case that is nearly perfect. What would have made it perfect was if it had active cooling for the hard drives. Out-of-the-box, the case has no fan directing air over the hard drives. What that means is that if you have multiple hard drives--I have four installed so far--those hard drives will run hotter, which may negatively affect the drives. The solution (which is more of a preventative measure) is to move the snap-on intake fan with bracket from the bottom of the case to over the hard drive cage, which reduces the number of expansion slots, and to obtain another 120mm fan to replace the intake fan at the bottom of the case. Otherwise, the case is perfect.

I was impressed with this case when I first took it out of the box. It's huge! It looks really classy to me. It's spacious and easy to work in. But the stock cooling fans don't move enough air. My motherboard temps were 20 degrees above ambient. So I replaced all of the fans. Now it runs cool but the whole case buzzes and rattles. I sat a jar of change on top of it and the buzzing stopped. It needs some sort of damping material. I still like the design and features of the case though.

This case is a bigun. I had forgotten what a full tower case really meant. But I'm glad for it. The system build was easy with so much space to work with. And most importantly, it will hold the hardware of the foreseeable future. I got burned (figuratively) by my last case that wouldn't fit the current generation of 10.5 inch video cards. And be warned that the next generation of high end cards like the ATI 5870x2 and NVidia 300 series are going to be as long as 12 inches. A good case can last through several system builds so I feel it's worth spending the money for something high quality and as future proof as possible.

I think the Cosmos is the most attractive case on the market short of crazy expensive custom painted jobs. I much prefer it's elegant appearance over gaudy light shows and excessive styling. The build quality is exceptional with many nice touches throughout like easily accessible dust filters, reversible door, lots of cable ties, robust jack panel, and the nicest panel latch mechanism I've seen. And don't discount the value of the rails on the bottom. This thing is heavy when it's fully loaded. The rails make it easy to slide around instead of having to "walk" it like you do cases with rubber feet.

This is about the quietest case you're going to find that has the cooling necessary for high end, overclocked hardware. It keeps my overclocked Intel i5-750 and ATI 4870 at reasonable temperatures while only producing a muted whoosh. However, it's not the ultimate in air flow. To achieve it's low noise level it makes trade-offs with slower fans and no side ventilation. If you are going for extreme hardware like multiple video cards, multiple 10k drives and an overvolted CPU then you probably want a case that is optimized for airflow like the CoolerMaster HAF932 or Antec 1200. But the Cosmos' cooling will be adequate for most enthusiasts.

So it's well built, has good cooling, is quiet and easy to use. Then why don't I give it 5 stars? Well, it has some flaws. The biggest disappointment is the cable routing. There are cutouts to route cables behind the motherboard but it's not deep enough and the support rails are flush with the side panel so you can't route over them. There are some very useful cutouts and a routing path between the motherboard and the drive cages. But it's not enough. If you don't have a modular power supply you're going to end up bundling all the cables in the small space between the power supply and the intake fan. The hard drives are mounted sideways so you don't have the usual space to stash cabling there. I'm able to keep the main chamber mostly free of cables but it's not as clean of an installation as I'd like.

The lack of fan controllers is a surprising omission for a case this expensive that is designed for low noise. The fans are quiet but they aren't silent and if your cooling needs are modest they could be turned down. The fans are all 3 pin (with included molex adapters) so they can be controlled by the motherboard but not all motherboards have robust fan control and it's simply easier to turn a knob.

I wish Amazon let us give half stars because the Cosmos is so good that I hate to only give it 4 stars. But I just can't give it a perfect rating with the insufficient cable routing. That said, I don't regret buying it and I don't know of another case that would satisfy me more. There are cases with better cooling. There are quieter cases (though just barely). And there are cases with better cable management. But there aren't any that combine these attributes while being so easy to work with and so visually appealing.

This case does very well for keeping quiet. The foam padding on the side panels keeps it so quiet that I had to play music at night just to keep my sanity because there was no hum or clicking sounds in my room. It is not designed for ultimate airflow, due to it's quietness, and therefore if you put super high-end parts in it, they are going to overheat. If you want to use this case and use hot parts, there are changes you can make to improve the cooling, but you should know a little bit about airflow if you plan to do that. Firstly: the top fans are 120MM, but they will fit 140MM (holes for both sizes are present). The bottom intake is a 120MM and should probobly be improved to a higher airflow fan. You wont ever have to worry about the power supply, it has it's own dedicated intake and exhaust. The hard drives can be cooled, but you need to arrange them so that they get air (each person's setup will probobly be different, you'll just have to feel it out). Adding a fan on the outside of the HD cage, blowing towards the graphics card has been reported to give the Hd's a good airflow. I found my Hd's to not get very hot (1 10kRPM, 1 7200RPM About 40C each) being kept in the top far left and far right cages, without the aforementioned additional fan. The case is deceptively large. It is a bit wider than most full-tower's and about as tall. It doesnt offer too much room for creativity in the wire-tucking department, but it is not meant to have a window and look pretty, it's made to look professional and perform extremely well.

This is an excellent case, top quality and a favorite of mine to use on my custom builds when a client wants a very quiet PC. I normally purchase locally but none were in stock at my local vendor so I used Amazon. HOWEVER, AMAZON LLC SHIPPED ME A USED CASE which they advertised as new. I am a custom PC builder and I run my own business and I know when a case has been already used and tampered with. This one shipped in a re-taped box which had clearly been sliced open down one side. There were scratch marks inside from where components had been installed and then removed. The left side panel also was barely locked into place - further investigation showed a bent retaining pin/clip that I had to fix to get the panel to stay on while pressed against cables which exerted some pressure against the panel... before the fix there was no way of getting the panel to stay on with those cables on the other side. Luckily there was no outward visible signs of wear and tear but clearly this was a USED CASE ADVERTISED AS NEW. I doubt I will ever buy any future cases from Amazon again.

Awesome case, really easy to work with, as the title says look no further than this case!!!!

I bought this case because of the raving reviews but ended up somewhat dissappointed. I still kept it because I'm really drawn to the sexiness of this case.

Pros: Great minimalistic design, Build quality is superb, Big and roomy

Cons: Airflow in the Hard Drives area could have been better, left side panel keeps opening (I can overlook other flaws but this really irritates me), Not as silent as I was hoping for.

As mentioned, the case has plenty of space inside. After afixing the cables to the back panel (shared with the motherboard), I was left with very easy access to any point inside the case. Actually, this is true without having to secure any cables - it just looks neater. Below are the things I considered to be most important in purchasing a higher end case:
1. Temperature - My machine now runs between 69 and 79 degrees F.,not Celcius. I have yet to see it reach 80 degrees.
I'm running a dual core 2ghz with 256mb video card, four hard drives and a DVD burner, powering it all is a cool master 750W PS.
2. Long lasting - This is a very will fit case. The side panels are released by pulling up on lever at back of the case, then simply put the panels aside. What is left is total access to everything inside. No more need to slide the tray out of the case to get to the motherboard. No more fighting ribbon or power cables. No more unintentional unseating any of the small cables which run to the power button and other functions on the front faceplate.
3. Noise - Four fans, a very high powered processor cooler/fan, hard drives, Power Supply... all very quiet when the panels are put back in place. Much quieter than my last case while using the same guts.

I can't think of any shortcomings. The locking mechanism on the hard drive bays seem a little flimsy but only time will prove this to be an issue. I don't think it will as I don't intend on removing and reinserting drives. Perhaps the only other possible negative is that the case is heavy. But then, that could be a testament to quality construction.
If the three bullets mentioned are what you also consider to be the most important traits for a case, congrats - you've found it!