Hardware Review: This new iteration of the beloved Cosmos family may be THE last word in luxury case design.
Every now and then you get a piece of hardware that literally rocks you back on our heels. Sadly, it’s often the case because a piece of hardware is spectacularly poor; it’s far rarer for something to be so utterly great, so close to, if not actual, perfection, that it renders one lost for words – or, at the very least, prone to refer to oneself in rather hoity-toity ways. And yet, here I am, quite giddy with excitement over Cooler Master’s latest case, the new and really quite thoroughly improved Cosmos II Ultra Tower (gallery here).
To call it merely epic is an insult to its greatness.
Comes with wings The impression that the Cosmos II is something special starts before you even get the thing out of the box. More akin to 2001’s monolith than a mere cardboard receptacle, Cosmos II’s own container is a giant. It’s heavy, too; the case alone is over 20kg! Before our sample was shipped to us, we joked about how many PR people we might be able to fit in the thing – answer: a lot.
Getting the Cosmos II out of is box is a struggle, but possibly one of the most rewarding ‘getting a thing out of a box’ processes you’re ever likely to go through. Once the cardboard dust and foam bits have settled, I promise you that you will want to call a friend, neighbour or even relative to come share in the glory. In the office, even our less than technical co-workers were somewhat in awe; John Gillooly and I had to shoo them away.
After all, in the words of Professor Frink, we enjoyed it on more levels than they ever could.
Without even touching the case, you can tell this is something special. There’s practically no point where it seems like a designer or engineer has said “Oh, we’ll just slap some mesh on it” – it’s full of little bespoke flourishes, alluring curves, and has an incredible presence.
There is some mesh on the front fascia, of course, but it’s offset by a hexagonal, honeycomb like backing structure that gives it depth and solidity. Above this is a sliding panel, secured by small magnets and elegantly lubricated (which is a phrase I really thought I’d never ever get to use, at least not in tech writing) so that it can slide down to reveal easy-to-remove drive bay covers. These feature a useful lever to unlock from each slot – it’s nice to not have to force the issue, and the bottom two are lockable.
The upper fascia has another sliding panel, which after a short travel back along the body of the case reveals the usual IO options, including eSATA and USB3 ports, and sexy control panels to manage up to ten fans and their lights. Not only is the panel functional, but it also shows off in miniature the entire design ethos of the case – in either position this panel looks like it’s designed to be in just that spot. And, like the sliding front panel, it just feels smooth.
The rear is pretty typical, though well made of course, but the real stand-out design feature – or, perhaps, one of two or three – of the Cosmos II Ultra Tower are the two sidepanels. Both feature slightly different cutouts, with a hexagonal fill design supporting a fine mesh to keep dust and whatever other contaminants that may be floating around your house out of your PC. The left-hand ‘main’ panel has a cutout that matches up with the two 120mm fans mounted inside the case, just over the HDD caddies, while the right-hand panel has a cut-out designed to help exhaust air from drives. Both these panels, however, are over a centimetre thick; the outer surface is beautifully curved brushed aluminium, and the inner plastic, with sound-dampening material sandwiched in-between.
This sounds great as is, but it’s when you swing them open that – and I shit you not – you fall in love. It’s not a matter of simply shoving the panels off their mounts, like in many cases, nor of carefully swinging them on some simple pillar/post design – they sit on proper steel hinges that swing them easily all the way out from the interior. Even better, each panel has four lugs that slot into the hinges; you can easily remove the panels entirely for serious building and upgrading. The entire panel mechanism is machined to perfection, not to mention ingeniously designed.
And inside the case? It just gets better.
Buying the farm It should already be apparent that as good as the Cosmos II is, it’s not perfect for everyone. Its size and weight make it supremely impractical for LAN gamers, or even anyone who needs to move their rig around the house. Similarly, it’s probably more expensive than a lot of builders can justify, and with features that are, honestly, hardly essential. However, if you’re looking to build a big, quiet system with a lot of drive capacity, and ease of access to those drives, combined with a great looking case, this is what you’ve been looking for.
The mobo plate is roomy, and surrounded by rubber-grommetted cable-runs. There’s good room behind the mobo plate, though not quite as much as you’d expect given the overall size of the case – those heavy panels really cost you in this regard. There’s a series of rubber mounts for the PSU, which also features an extension that goes about an inch beyond the case’s rear plate, and there’s a removable mesh panel under the PSU mount. It’s all great stuff, but it’s the drive bays, especially the HDD ones, that we love.
The drive bays feature a removable caddy design, and there’s enough room in the case that you don’t even need to remove one to fit in extra-long graphics cards (in fact, you can fit four double-slot designs in here, if you’re an insane fiend for frames per second). As we said, there are two 120mm fans mounted over the lower six bays, and these swing out to reveal the caddies for easy drive removal. What’s great though is that there’s another six bays above here; as we said, this is a great case for anyone who finds themselves swapping out drives frequently. If you’re working in high-end graphics or rendering, it’s perfect.
In fact, I’m hard-pressed to find any flaws with this excellent case. For all the features, it’s extremely well-priced, and once you make the investment we’re confident the Cosmos II Ultra Tower will be the last case you buy.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012