Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini-ITX Chassis Review

Exterior

The Elite 130 is finished in powered black and comes with a one piece cover that makes up the left, top and right side panels. As you can see, there is plenty of ventilation on the left side, which is handy given that this is the side our GPU will use for air intake. Unfortunately no air filters though.

The right side also features plenty of ventilation.

The biggest difference between the Elite 120 and the Elite 130 is the newly designed front panel, the new one looks much neater and professional than the old one. There is a large ventilated section in the middle that matches up with the 5.25″ drive bay cover, behind which you’ll find a pre-installed 120mm fan for air intake. You’ll also find three USB ports, 2 x USB 3.0 and 1 x USB 2.0, the master power and reset buttons, as well as a power LED and HD audio ports.

Around the back there is a removable PSU installation bracket, as this chassis requires the PSU to extend out of the back of the chassis, it’s one of the tricks CM use to allow more components to fit within the chassis. There are two expansion slots on the right that will be perfect for a dual slot GPU, and finally you’ll notice a motherboard I/O cut-out as well as a little extra ventilation at the bottom.

There is even more ventilation in the top panel, this will be used to allow airflow to the PSU, which will be mounted with its fan facing upwards. Here you can also see how the PSU bracket (seen on the back left here) extends out from the chassis.

On the underside there are four hard rubber feet, and you’ll notice a few keyhole shape cut-outs, these are used to mount hard drives on the inside of the chassis with the rubber washers that were included in the box.