CES 2008 -- Part 2

David's adventures at CES continue -- he brings news of shiny, new and improved cases...

Coolermaster is going one better than the Cosmos, which was already a helluva good case. The Cosmos S, fresh and crisp from its launch at CES, is an improvement in every way – in fact, in the words of US product marketing manager Bryant Nguyen they “listened to every user complaint – and fixed all of them!”

From my brief look over the case, he’s not kidding. My number one question was whether or not they made the ‘handles’ actually load bearing, and the answer was a resounding yes. More than one Atomican has fallen fall of those things snapping clean off, so that alone improves the design 100 per cent.



Some of the other big improvements is the upgrade to an all aluminium case, and better grouping of fans – the case features three 120mm fans along the top, with room for a radiator, two 120mm fans in front, and frack-off huge 200mm fan in the side panel, which is itself tool-less, for easy removal.

Coolermaster has also released three new air coolers for serious cooling – the V8, V10 and Hyper 212 Deluxe. The aim of the fans is to offer the best cooling solution short of water cooling, for those enthusiasts still unsure of cabling up a mess of coolant to their PC. The V8 offers a copper base with eight heat pipes and large heat-exchange surface, along with a sickle-bladed fan that runs at only 19dBA. The V10 goes one step further, with a mirrored copper base and an extra fan to vent hot air from inside the case, while the Deluxe model ups the ante with a Fluid Mechanics Cooling Solution. They’re all pretty light, too.



But cooler still, is the news that Coolermaster is teaming up with Smooth Creations to create a new Coolermaster division called CSX. The TLA stands for Customised Style Xperience, and while I gnash my teeth whenever marketeers are allowed to mangle the English language so, I’m thrilled at what CSX offers – custom hand painted case art and designs. My poor photographic skills didn’t really do the cases justice, so check out their site for photos that don’t suck.