CoolerMaster 690 II Advanced Review

Andy Ruffell / 14 years ago

Exterior
As said in the specifications, the case is made from various materials including it having a steel body, plastic and also a mesh bezel. The top of the case is mainly mesh giving fantastic ventilation to the extreme top of the case.

The same styling follows around to the front of the case with a ventilated mesh design giving the best possible cooling whilst maintaining a sleek design. The silver trim seems to follow the contours of the case.

There is also a pre-supplied 140 x 25mm blue LED fan at the front of the case at the bottom. Of course, the front of the case can be removed for easy cleaning of the fan.

Taking a look at the sides of the case, you can see that it comes in as quite a tall case, even though advertised as a mid-tower sized case but that just means you get more for your money in our books.

The side panels are both solid steel with spaces for various sized fans.

The right side has a single space for a fan measuring 80 x 15mm and is an optional extra, you can choose to fit any desired brand or style as long as it conforms to the correct size. By installing a fan here, it will be flowing into the underneath of the motherboard, giving ventilation directly to the CPU backplate.

The left side has a bit more flexability with regards to fan sizes and dimensions as firstly it has 2 spaces for fans, and also supports different sizes including 80, 92, 120 or 140mm fans which again are all optional extras.

The rear of the case once again carries on the colour scheme, being completely black and from what we can see, has everything you would.

At the top we can see that the case includes 2 grommit holes for water cooling tubes to slip through.

A pre-supplied 120mm fan is included which operates at 1200RPM at 17dBA.

The usual I/O slot and PCI expansion slots are easily seen of which there are 7 as well as an extra one in a vertical poisition. This may be used in conjunction with a Riser card of some sort.

Down the bottom of the case is where a standard ATX PS2.EPS 12v power supply would be fitted. Cases have used the bottom for the power supply location for a while now, and it’s becoming more and more mainstream as products are developed. Next to the PSU slot is where you will find the slot for adding some form of locking mechanism.

The bottom of the case is probably the most boring part of the case to look at, but is also one of the most vital parts too. This is all down to the type of feet that the case uses. The reasoning behind this, is all down to anti-vibration properties and thankfully this case has rubber feet to aid in that. There is also a huge mesh supplied for PSU ventilation and the space for two option 120mm fans with removable dust filter for easy cleaning.

We could have mentioned the main features on the top of the case earlier, but we believe in leaving the best things till last, or at least until later. On the top of the case is a very nice feature for the novelty value of a hot-swappable hard drive dock for all 3.5″ SATA drives.