Cooler Master 690 II Advanced Black and White Mid-Tower Chassis Review

It’s not big surprise that Cooler Master are one of the leading manufacturers in the world, when it comes to case production and the 690 II Advanced is a prime example of why this is fact. With a tried and tested method, Cooler Master have taken it one step further and really listened to what the end-user actually wants and I should know, as I’m part of that demographic and am a real sucker for white cases.While the white 690 II Advanced is a lovely looking case, it was a bit much, and the Black & White edition gives the solution to this problem and adds a lovely black accented touch throughout.

It’s always a tough task when you’re faced reviewing a case that you’ve already looked at once before, but we’ve tried our best to enlighten our readers who may not have seen the original 690 II Advanced reviews and are still interested in one or another designs of this case. With a choice of black, white, or the combination style that we looked at today, we really do believe that Cooler Master have this market demographic in their sights and have done an extremely good job with this particular mixture.

With confirmation that the panels behind the front will be changed to black, we can only comment on the gripes that we’re unsure of, such as the chassis being included with silver thumbscrews to hold the doors on, when a simple extra touch of black screws would have made all of the difference. We’d also like to see better dust filtration protection with a thicker, foam-like material used, but we’re not one for telling the masters how to do their job.

The tool-less design on both the optical drive bays and 3.5″ cages are a nice touch and one of the simplest designs we’ve ever used from any manufacturer, though some users may find the bend and snap approach to installing hard drives a bit tedious and may have the fear of snapping the bracket itself.

One of my favourite features from this case, that is seen being adopted by other manufacturers, is the hot-swap dock that sits on top, which allows for a quick and easy transfer of files without interrupting the rest of your system, and without the need for taking the side panels off.

The subtle white fan at the front of the case is a nice addition and isn’t to over the top by adding the ability of turning the LEDs off, if you so wish, but just gives that extra jazz to the case that was needed, though it would have been nice to see another LED based fan top mounted inside the chassis, though we do believe a lot of consumers buying this case, may look at the watercooling capabilities behind this case when thinking about the cooling system in general.

Currently sparse within the retail channel, Scan have it in stock at £89.63, which is perfectly priced in our opinion sitting just between similar offerings from rivals Antec and Silverstone.

Overall this has been a favourite case of mine for quite some time, and now that a black & white edition is on the market, we can see a lot of modders adopting this case with custom white watercooling loops, and that’s exactly what we have in mind for it, so all we can advise you, is to keep checking back when we have everything set up and ready to go.