Customer Reviews

Cooler Master RC-692-KKN2 No Power Supply ATX Mid Tower Case (Black)

5 star:		(72)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There's been a lot of speculation in forums that this revision of the very popular CM 690 is just a minor update with some black paint inside. Nothing could be further from the truth. I upgraded my wife's PC a year ago, and used the CM 690. It was perfectly nice, for a mid-tower. My own PC is in the Cooler Master ATCS 840 -- the best case I've ever seen -- but my wife's PC is in a location where a huge full tower case just won't go. The single feature that caught my eye in the initial announcements of this new version was full dust filters. We have a cat, and cat hair is the most evil thing that can happen to a PC. A co-worker was about to try his first PC build, so I offered him the CM 690 case and used that as an excuse to get the new model. With both cases side-by-side and opened up, I was amazed at the differences. Every piece, and every detail, has been rethought and upgraded. Some of the improvements are too little for the ads to even mention, but show Cooler Master's attention to detail. As one tiny example, two of the motherboard standoffs have a little protrusion. You use them for the back corners of the motherboard. When you fit the motherboard in place, the protrusions go up into the mounting holes and hold the motherboard exactly in position with all the mounting holes exactly lined up over their standoffs. You don't have to hold the motherboard in position with one hand while getting the initial screws in. A minor little enhancement, but really neat and something I've never seen before and never heard of. The tool-less harddrive carriers have been changed from the previous version, and are now just like the ones in the ATCS 840. There's a special carrier for 2.5" drives (e.g. SSDs) in one of them. Another minor tweak is a switch to turn the blue leds on the front fan on or off. Have it whichever way you prefer. With the previous version, a little surgery would have been necessary to turn it off. The built-in dock on the top is another very nice little feature. The CM 690 was a nice mid-tower case that's proven very popular. The CM 690 II Advanced is far better. I recommend it highly.

Long and the short: Great case, good workmanship, great value, easy to use and looks great. The more I use it and the longer I have it, the more I like it.

I've built all types of computers over the last ten years from super basic boxes to watercooled monster bling gaming rigs. If you are looking for something to put a mid-high end or better rig in, this case is a great choice. Whether you are air cooling or watercooling, this case has you covered. You can mount a fan just about anywhere you might like in just about any size you like. Want to use water? You can mount up to two standard dual rads inside the case, no drilling required. If you mount a dual rad on the inside bottom front, you will lose 5 HD bays (leaving you 2) but there is enough room to mount a thick dual rad and still have two sets of fans in push/pull configuration.

Everything is blacked out on the inside and there are holes and tie spots everywhere there should be to route cables neatly behind the motherboard. The 140mm fan in the front is surprisingly quiet and the switch to turn the LEDs on the front fan are a nice touch. (For those of you who like to mod, that switch plus a relay could make for some interesting possibilities for turning other lighting on & off as well.)

I was unsure about the the front panel controls being on the top front edge of the case. It's all up there: USB, audio, eSATA, power, reset, the fan lighting switch, and power and HD activity lights. It was my one concern when I bought the case. Since I keep my rig on the floor, I now like it much better than my old front mounted panel. It's much easier to get to. The X-dock up top is very handy as well. My only gripe with it is that it doesn't seem to be hot swappable, which is minor for me since I only have to use it occasionally.

One word of caution for those looking for a silent case. This case is by no means a loud case, but the fact there is mesh everywhere means if you have something loud in your case, you're going to hear it. (Think high end video cards with stock cooling.) For those concerned about dust, every mesh opening has a smaller mesh screen behind it to capture dust. The screen could be finer, but thus far has done a sufficient job of capturing dust before in gets into the case.

Personally, I've used watercooling with two radiators and a fan bus to control the fans to keep the noise under control. If I have things set on low, I'm not even sure it's on sometimes.

I bought this case about 4 weeks ago and it's been pretty much awesome from day one. The one gripe I have with it, and its very minor, is that they could have had just a tiny bit more space behind the motherboard tray for cable management. I got all of my cables to fit no problem but since my psu has the rounded cables they were a little closer to the back panel than I had expected so it took me an additional 10 seconds to get the back panel back on. So yea really it's a very small gripe but if you want to nit pick for something that's about all I can come up with. Other than that they used screws for the side panels instead of latches. Being able to remove the bottom half of the hdd trays is a really n1ice feature, it allows more airflow from the front of the case. I currently only have the three stock fans installed but I don't do any overclocking or anything like that so its plenty sufficient. If you're using a psu with a fan located on the bottom of it you will most definitely want to install the optional mesh filter, hell I would install it regardless, couldn't hurt any. The pure simplicity of putting this case together was so nice, no sharp edges or small working areas to deal with. I honestly do not believe there is a mid size case out there that can compete with this one and especially at this price. I highly recommend it.

Pros:
Amazon had the lowest price including shipping for this case when I got it.
Screwless design for drive bays... can be reconfigured for more cooling space
supports plenty of fans. designed for liquid cooling solutions with tube openings on back of case. The VGA support bracket is a nice feature (slim fan from coolmaster is optional). All adapter screws and side cover screws are nice size thumb screws.

Cons:
Screwless internal drive bays do not have hotshoe so you still have to take both side covers off replace a drive to disconnect data and power.
Only one 5.25 to 3.5 adapter face plate and bracket set included for front bay (Part was not available for purchace at time of sale. Now the faceplate with adapter is $4.95 on Coolmasters webiste but shipping is very high calculated for 2 lbs tho the part weight is under a quarter pound....
Cable management space behind system board is very very tight makeing installing the right side panel difficult...
If you install the Noctura heatsync instead of a liquid cpu cooling solution.. you can not install the upper side fan because it hits the CPU heat sink preventing you from installing the side cover.
Does not have a removable systemboard instalation tray.

Conclusion:
I love the case but its just a little too narrow. needs to be 1/4 inch deeper on right side for cables and 3/4 inch deeper on the left side for larger cooling solutions to fit with the upper side cover fan installed..... Optional side window (upgrade?) only has 1 fan location available... On the coolmaster website you can get a referb very cheep which makes it a good value for the price point.

This is without a doubt the nicest case I have owned from a finish and feature perspective. If it were perfect it would have been out of my price range

this case has been reviewed to death already lol, so i wont get into it beyond saying that this case is a steal at its price: it has the quality and style of a much more expensive case. the reason im writing this is to list some details that don't come up in the reviews or spec sheets, but are very useful to know before buying a case. so without wasting any more space, here goes:

-bottom mounted PSU = long reach for the ATX cord, buy a extension for your psu if you plan on routing it behinf the motherboard tray
-wiring is still a pain despite the features to make it easier, plan on spending hours working on it if you dont go with a modular psu
-very few lighted 80x15mm fans are available, and they are all blue. (this is the fan that mounts on the panel behind the CPU)
-bottom mounted PSU and fans suck up a lot of dust, but removable filters are included
-plan to buy a fan controller, this thing holds up to 7 fans and is about as soundproof as a hole in the wall
-on/off switch for the front fan's LED can be modified to control a cold-cathode inverter
-mesh bay covers means you cant stuff wires into empty 5.25 bays without them being obvious
-top fans can be mounted inside the top mesh panel, but only if done before installing the mobo
-tool-less 5.25 bays are a little lose and are not adjustable, plan to screw your drives in
-HD racks use slide-in caddys, so no room for HD coolers or fans
-wires from a fan controler can be routed through the top panel above the drive cage, but top panel must be removed first

Not a fan of some of his reviews... but 3dgame man basically pulls this case apart and reviews it well.

in short:
Pros:
SOLID construction
black interior looks great
no sharp edges
pc board access hole is a good size
lots of cable routing options.
Rubber feet prevent vibration and allow for air access at bottom
Dust filters EVERYWHERE!! (huge plus)
tons of fan mounting options
tons of room inside.

Cons:
some minor issues time to time with top ports/wiring (contact Coolermaster about replacements)
heavy as hell (also a plus though, it's not going to bend)

sidenote: took a dremmel (sp?) to the window panel for the prior version of this case (the nicer V shaped window) and fit the door to this version of the case... was NOT a fan of the new full window.
also wired UV cathode tubes to the switch that normally turned off the fan LED on the front. Replaced the fans with the CM green LED 120mm fans except at the back and bottom, bottom has a larger fan pulling air in.

Place the fans to pull in from everywhere but the very back and top, have those as exhaust, you can feel the air move inside the case, even with the door panel off.

Ok, this case is the closest thing to perfect in a mid tower (well big mid) I've used. I've got this case and only using Cooler Master fans within it.
The airflow through this case using the default side panel is amazing.
One minor complaint is that the edges for the mesh used were not always tamped down and so are sharp and catchy at some points, and even block better design use of the case (as on of my suggestions will elaborate on).

One review mentioned that the XDock is not hot-swap. Technically incorrect. Since the XDock is really a direct connection to your motherboards SATA ports it depends on the settings you have configured in the BIOS of your motherboard for the chipset you connect it to. Use AHCI mode and hotswap works just fine on the ports. This is something that they should have covered in the manual for the case but did not.

I wish that it had been 1 inch taller to accommodate having the motherboard high enough to use 3 Dual Slot sized video cards in a triple SLI configuration. Unfortunately the last slot due to PSU and motherboard placement is really restricted to only a single slot card (oh well guess I'll only go dual SLI and use a third single slot card for PhysX).

Another area that could have used improvement was the 3.5" drive trays. The pins fit fine in WD drives, are a bit tight but workable in hitachi drives, but in Seagate drives you'll be twisting the rubber if you go straight for putting the drives into the trays. Instead remove one of the pins and push it all the way in the 4 holes that would align with the mount on each Seagate drive you plan to put in this case to wear down a bit of the screw thread so they'll fit better.
While on the subject of the 3.5 trays, it would have been nice if a backboard had been included for making it so the drives could just slde right into the system and be connected. Instead both sides of the case must be opened so the wiring for power and SATA can be accessed (unless you happen to leave long air blocking tangled messes).
The bottom 4 of the 3.5" trays come out to allow mounting of an additional bottom intake fan or water cooling radiator. It would have been nice if the 4 bay and 2 bay 3.5" segments were interchangeable allowing one to remove only 2 bays and have the 4 bay hang from the 5.25" if one chose to do so.

On to the 5.25" bays, it would be nice if the bottom one had been given a gap between the face and the main bay hanger such that instead of a single front 140mm a dual front 140mm fan configuration could have been used.

The top exhaust fan area could use some slight improvement. If the top of the case mesh were bent more cleanly for the securing parts through the plastic then 2 140mm fans can actually be mounted underneath the top plastic instead of within the main case proper. Unfortunately the current design does not have screw mount holes to support this configuration even though the exhausted air comes out much better (I've actually just rested the fans on top of the case proper, cleanly bent the mesh mount point and it clips on just fine with 2 140mm fans there).

Fan mount screws, should have come with enough in black to mount every possible fan within the system. If not the fans that come premounted should use the standard silver that ships with nearly every fan including the Cooler Master fans. Instead the case comes with 4 pushpin fan mounts that match nothing used anywhere else on the case. Perhaps they should consider switching to using them on the pre-installed fans and providing enough of them to mount all the possible fans.

The odd 80x80x15mm instead of standard 80x80x25mm fans should either be included or adjustments made to support a more standard size.

As others have mentioned a bit more room behind the motherboard would be welcome. I was able to fit all my wiring on that side but it was kind of tight.

Dust filtering mesh stuff should have been included for all fan points. Admittedly a good step up from the previous version of this came which had no filtering the current version still leaves some nothing for the side panel intakes.

Overall due to the excellent airflow this case is great. Fits nicely under a desk and yet allows for great cooling. The XDock is immensely useful as long as the BIOS/Controller card is configured correctly to support hot swapping and Windows "Safely remove hardware".

Definitely one of the better cases I've used in my years of PC building.

I bought my case a month ago for my new Win7 build. I've built with a couple of Antecs, a NZXT and a Cooler Master before, but this is dollar for dollar the best deal going on a great case.

Pros:
Looks great
Solid and well made
Plenty of room for any but the wildest gamer builds
Well ventilated for a variety of cooling schemes
Lot of fan mounts
Included dust screens
Supplied fans are nice and not too loud
Bottom PSU mounting
Interior is black powder coated, looks nice
Almost tooless assembly
Cut-outs for cable routing
A vertical PCI bracket mount for cable attached brackets like USB ports or such
The top dock for a SATA drive
Large rubber feet
Lots of bays and one of which includes an adapter for a SSD.
Front panel removes easily
There were plenty of screws, cable ties, a mobo speaker, and other nifty accessories included with the case.

Cons:
The biggest is an issue with grounding. I couldn't figure this one out until I emailed CoolerMaster support (Marvin). Their support is great by the way. Whenever I would walk across my carpet and touch the top panel or the front panel, Windows would shut down. the PC would continue to run, fans and all, but Windows had left the building. Marivn told me they had grounding issues with some of the cabling in the top panel. He sent me another top panel and it arrived a week later in the mail. While I was waiting for it I did some experimenting. I ran a 16 ga wire from the mesh on the front panel through my case and attached it under on of the PSU mounting screws on the rear. I scraped off some of the paint to make sure I had a good contact there. Now when I build up a good carpet static charge and touch the case top or front panel, my video winks off for a second and returns with no other issues. I think I will replace the top panel when I get the time, but I can live with it the way it is.
A little more room behind the mobo tray would have been nice. It is a pretty tight space to be routing power cables.
All of the thumb screws have to be removed with a screwdriver. Some have loosened up a little, but most haven't.
The dust screen for the bottom intake of the PSU mounts between the PSU and the case. That is really a poor design. To clean it you have to remove the PSU.
The dust screen for the front panel intake fan is a screen on the back side of the mesh. A removable screen over the intake fan itself would have worked much better.
The top panel is a pain to remove and you must be careful while doing it to not break any of the clips/prongs.
The manual is an absolute Chinese comic book and it isn't funny, it is worthless.

This is a great looking, well made case for a great price and Cooler Master has great customer service.
If it wasn't for the static issue, I would have definitely rated this product 5 stars.

My build:
Asus M4A88T-V EVO/USB (from Amazon)
AMD X4 965 BE (from Ebay)
Noctua NH-CP12 SE14 CPU cooler (from Amazon)
8GB of G. SKill Ripjaws DDR3 PC1600 (from NewEgg)
Crucial C300 128GB SSD (from Amazon)
WD 500GB HDD (from Amazon)
Corsair HX 750 modular PSU (from Amazon)
XFX Radeon 6870 HD Black Edition (from Amazon)
LG BR/DVD writer (from Amazon)
Asus 23" VH238 monitor (from Amazon)

JB Marker

This case is notable for its external appearance and internal advantages.
With a sober matt black finish very nice texture and easy to clean.

It is one of the best current options.

Inside has all the necessary advantages, including:
- Retaining Cable managment and CPU hole.
- Space for 10 fans.
- Water cooling suport. Accommodates 120 x 240 mm radiator inside the top and bottom.
- Dust-control filters for all meshed areas.
- Rear Retaining holes for water cooling kit.
- Tool free trays.
- Large rubber feets.

Cons:
- USB 2.0

This is the builders case. Room for routing and hiding non-use wires and once my build was done, I couldn't believe how quiet the fans were. I would recommend this case.