Customer Reviews

Cooler Master Elite 341 m-ATX Mini Tower Case Black - (RC-341C-KKN1-GP)

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Great mATX case. Sleek design. Many cases have clear sides with LED's all over the place. It's a computer case, not a spaceship. This one won't serve as a reading lamp for you in bed from your desk across the bedroom.

Built-in fan is whisper quiet and keeps the case quite cool. My single complaint is the difficulty in taking off the front plate. The bottom and sides unclip very easily, but unclipping the top I thought I might snap the front plate in two. However, since I've finished the build, I'll have no need to take the plate off again, so it's not a huge deal. I did need needle-nose pliers to unclip the top though.

This box is a good, inexpensive Micro ATX box. It comes with enough directions and parts that someone who doesn't build computers for a living can put it together. It also comes with a quiet fan. There are no rough edges inside and everything fits. Yes, it is a little tight in there and 2nd hard drive placement may require some longer wires, but that was not an issue for me. Most of the smaller boxes that I looked at did not have room for a second hard drive, a second optical drive and full sized cards. This one did, which is why I bought it. Nothing fancy here, just a good basic box.

Great case. A lot of options for placing fans. I have 3 120mm fans in it (front, 1 side and rear). Desktop runs cool all the time.

At first the case seemed very light weight and flimsy but once you put all the bits and pieces in and tighten it all up it has enough heft to "feel" right. I added some felt pads on the hard plastic feet to provide some more vibration insulation. The front of the case has various small gaps and really doesn't provide much sound insulation at all for a hard drive(s). The case seems to have pretty good airflow with just the very quiet rear fan, my power supply fan and rear pointing fan on my after market Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU cooler (which *just* fits!). I don't think I need a front fan, CPU core temps never go above 42C max.

I also swapped the case sides, moving the one with the ventilation holes to the other side (behind the motherboard) to avoid fan noise from escaping from the side facing me on my desk. The end result is a very quiet yet cool running system.

My only negative feedback is that the badge on the front is not *quite* straight; that (and those useless 1394 and E-SATA blanks) is going to bug me every time I look at it... Still, for the price and free shipping this is unbeatable and makes for a really nice "stealth" case.

This mini tower is awesome. I just put one together with the following items:

- AMD Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition Callisto 3.3GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB
- Coolmax 750W 80Plus Bronze Level ATX Power Supply
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
- G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
- MSI 880GM-E43 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI Micro ATX
- Galaxy 60XMH6HS3HMW GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) GC 768MB 192-bit GDDR5
- Place a Cooler Master 120mm Blue LED Case Fan for in front inbound airflow
- Also include my old 160GB Hard Drive as a slave

This case is perfect balance between space saving, airflow, and being able to make a great system. I love the fact it is tool less. Who cares if it does not have a slide out tray for the mobo - what do people expect for the great price.

Perfect for Micro-ATX boards. Add an additional 120mm fan in front for great airflow. The quality is AWESOME for the price. If you want a sturdier case, pay $200 then. For $40, this case can`t be beat!

Pros:
- Best in class cooling with room for 4x120mm fans
- Ability for near 100% filter coverage for an almost dust-free case (simply add filters to the side panel and seal the front filter - read 'Other Thoughts')
- Fits large graphics cards (using with an ATI Radeon 5870)
- Nice 'rugged' finish to it; not a glossy paint that catches lots of fingerprints but a matte like finish.
- Light but sturdy construction; almost ripped off the side panel (user error, not case's fault - look at Cons) while trying to open it and it doesn't show any damage

Cons:
- Didn't read about the security screw for the side panel. Kept me from opening the side panel for drive screws until I simply realized that little screw was holding it tight. Keep that in mind. =P
- Plastic front bezel has a gap at the bottom to help in pulling off the bezel. This reduces the effectiveness of the front filter (simple fix for this, just add some tape)

Other Thoughts:
I wanted a small case to house a powerful system while keeping dust out. Taping the bottom portion where the front bezel is makes the front fan utilize the filter better. Add 2 aluminum fan filters and fans to the side, and you can get over 120CFM of dust-free cool air for your system. Not bad.

Easily fits my setup:
- Core i5 750 (stock) with room temp idle temps
- 8GB (4x2GB) G. Skill ECO Series RAM @ 1.4V @ 7-7-7-21 @ 1333MHz
- Western Digital 500GB Caviar Black
- XFX 5870 1GB GPU

This is one of the better micro ATX cases out there. The reason being is that it has better ventilation then most other cases in its class. You can add up to four 120mm fans, which is important for cooling in a small confined space of a micro ATX case.

I have been waiting to finally get this case especially after reading some of the lesser opinions. I just finished rebuilding my second system using this case, and I am using that system to write this review with, and I have found it quite easy to install parts, especially after getting the motherboard to just slip right in. I was worried that the case might be too small after I realized what it's design was for but not really. I think it will serve my purposes nicely. I am still waiting for the new DVD burner to come because it's black to match the case and the blue LED 120mm fan to go in front for extra cooling.
Now, to talk about some of the other reviews...to the guy that had issues with his other four cases and talked about his hands getting all scratched and bloody....I didn't find that an issue at all. Either he must have abnormally large hands and is really un co-ordinated when building his systems and doesn't read directions as I stated before, I didn't find any unusually sharp edges inside the case at all! Yes I do agree that the metal inside the case is somewhat thin and can appear sharp. This definitely isn't one of your more expensive type of cases but it works. If one just takes their time and carefully installs each component and pay strict attention to what he or she is doing, I didn't find any issue with building my system at all. The only thing I came across, as I did notice in the other case pictures, that if a person installs a mother board that is large enough to fit closer to the hard drive and cdrom bays, the power supply connecter and floppy connecter on my motherboard were in direct line with where the upper hard drive fit and so I had to work the power connecter out of the way of the hard drive in order to make it fit. I also had to plug the floppy cable in first and move it out of the way before installing the hard drive. Now I did think about installing it on the bottom of the case but that wouldn't have worked for by cable configuration at the moment. But after tomorrow when the SATA DVD burner comes and when the IDE/SATA converter gets here and they are all hooked up, then I could possibly change the location of my hard drive to free up the power and floppy drive connectors. But, that again is the design with the current motherboard I chose and not necessarily an issue with the case.
To the other person that talked about re-positioning the power supply vertically....HUH???? What are you smoking. There is no possible way I can see to do that and the case isn't tall enough to fit a full sized ATX motherboard anyway. There would be no proper way to screw the motherboard in place unless you re-modified the case itself.
Basically I am happy with my choice so far and I would recommend the case to a friend and I possible would buy 3 others if I needed them.
Oh and also to the person that complained about the blue power LED being too bright? It's ok with me. But I am not using this system as a home theatre case. It's on the floor in my computer room under the desk. I am glad to see that I can see the led's as that was a big issue in the older case I was using.

This is a great case. Very easy to work with. Other reviewers mentioned a poorly placed screw, but mine didn't have it. I guess CM listened?

VERY lightweight, while at the same time feeling sturdy. I am planning to carry this thing with me on a plane (along with the rest of the PC), so weight was important to me.

All components fit fine. I put an Antec EarthWatts 380W PSU, an ASUS M4A88T-M LE mobo, and a full size Radeon 4850 with no issues. There is plenty of room to work with, and there are no sharp edges.

Comes with tool-less connectors for 3.5" drives, 5-1/2" drives, and those expansion slots in the back. But I opted for plain old screws since they seem more secure to me (a bag of regular screws is included in the box).

This is currently under forty bucks, and for this price it's the best MicroATX case you can buy. Though, of course, there are better cases if you are willing to pay more, but this one is fairly adequate and complete (and much better than cheaper unknown-brand cases). It can also hold four 120mm fans, which pretty much guarantee good airflow.