Coolermaster ATCS 840

A well made and sturdy case for the enthusiast who wants a LOT of room.

We hold the unboxing of new tech to be a nearly sacred moment here at Atomic HQ. Quiet descends over the labs as new gear is brought out, hymns play in the background, and incense burns in holy respect of kit as we all ooh and aah. And boy, did we ooh and aah at the ATCS 840.

This a full tower case in the classic mould. Tall, square, but will rolled aluminium edges to add strength and a few softening curves. The black brushed aluminium is attractive, but we did find it was a real fingerprint magnet. Mind you, that’s only a problem if you compulsively stroke your PC. Like us.

Nice and chunky thumb screws secure the side plates, and once you slide both off you’re treated to a view of enthusiast beauty. Airy, open and fully featured, the ATCS’s interior is bested only by the space and features of the Lian Li X-2000 reviewed in issue 91, and features in our KitLog. There are six each of 3.5in and 5.25in drive bays, though one of the latter has brackets for a floppy drive. Why, we don’t know. Perhaps you’re retro. Nothing wrong with retro.

The standard Coolermaster push-button system secures optical drives and such without the need for screws, and new, clip-in mechanism secures HDDs in a similar manner, while also allowing them to slide straight out of the case, rather than into the interior and then out. Very handy if you’re a habitual drive swapper.

All edges are nicely rolled metal, and there are swappable backplates to enable installation of PSU and watercooling rigs on the top or bottom of the case. The slide out mobo tray is a lovely touch, and works very smoothly. The tray also has a lot of clearance, allowing for excellent cable management by routing it behind the board. Similarly, all the IO cabling is nicely bundled out of the way, with room enough for everything else to be neatly folded, cable-tied or spit and bailing-wired.

It’s a cool and quiet case, too, with a mess of 200mm fans to push air around with ease. All of the open space this case offers really comes into play, here, making this ideal for a serious gaming machine with a raft of ATI’s latest, greatest – and hottest – cards. There’s even a plastic housing to slip over rear of the expansion slots, to which you can add another 120mm fan.
This is a case that’s easy to love, and easier still to do a lot of serious computing with.

Travel sturdy
You might have noticed the dent in our ATCS’s side-panel. There’s a matching one on the right hand side, leading us here to think that the case was either jammed between two oddly shaped objects in transit, or possibly damaged by some form of giant robotic claw (we know which version we prefer). This is annoying, as it mars an otherwise lovely case, but look at it this way. Those dents are very sharp and pronounced, suggesting rapid application of force. Force heavy enough to dent the aluminium quite heavily. And yet the internals of the case are fine, undamaged, and still structurally sound. Now that’s impressive build quality.



PS: For some reason, our Content Management System likes to make products look short and stumpy - like in the main pic of this product... time to have a 'chat' with the dev lads.