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The CM 690 II Advanced ships in a pretty neat looking black box with the model name clearly displayed. As you can see, the box took quite a hit during shipping and, as a result, the case unfortunately suffered a slight dent on the side panel.
On the back side, Cooler Master shows off their brand new case under a few more angles and also highlighted some of the enclosure's main features. It definitely seems like Cooler Master has cooked up some interesting stuff for us to enjoy.
With the packaging out the way, the steel case comes in at rather heavy 22 pounds, significantly more than most mid towers out there. On the main side panel, Cooler Master made two openings that can accommodate 80, 92, 120 or 140 millimeter fans. The other panel also has room to install an 80mm fan right behind the processor's socket. However, those three intake fans are optional so you will have to buy them separately.
The front's framing consists of good quality plastic pillars separated from the central part by a neat looking chrome lining. The rest of the facade is entirely made out of steel mesh and leaves you with four 5.25" drive bays, a 140mm intake fan and Cooler Master's logo. On the back, you'll find a slightly different layout than other mid towers,but first of all, noticed how there's nothing but steel back there. The power supply is located at the bottom and there's also a vertical PCI brackets on the right which we will look into in the coming pages. Additionally, they also drilled a couple holes at the top for water cooling tubing.
The power and reset buttons are located on top along with power on and drive activity LEDs. There's also an eSATA ports, a couple USB 2.0 ports as well as an audio input and output. Right behind is a really neat feature only found on the Advanced version of the CM 690 II.
Using it is as easy as it seems; simply slide in a SATA drive and you're good to go. However, in order to use it as a hot swap bay, there are a few rules to follow. Your SATA controller must be set in AHCI mode and follow the proper procedure within your operating system before removing it. In Windows, it's the same steps as ejecting a USB drive. If your SATA controller cannot be set to AHCI, you should only install and remove a drive when the computer is turned off.
Finally, at the bottom, Cooler Master installed a mesh filter to keep dust out. It's pretty good, but the holes are fairly large so it's not likely to catch the smaller dust particles like a cloth filter would. Also, the filter is held by tabs so you have to lightly squeeze it to take it on and off. Unfortunately, that means it is not possible to do it blindly so you'll have to turn the case over to clean it which is annoying and actually impossible if you have a water cooling setup.
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On cosmetics:
They have improved the paint on the Mk II by a good margin, both inside and out. My paint job on the external of the case has lots of little bubbles, as if the spray was set to the wrong air / paint mix. The new case was nice and smooth with less gloss than the original, so fingerprints won't show as blatantly. The painted inside is also of high quality, which beats the "overspray" marks on the primed metal of the Mk I. It looks like they let the paint dry on the Mk II before putting on the side doors, as they didn't stick when removed while the Mk I doors were stuck and had to be pried open the first time.
The feet are still vulcanized rubber, and stink right out of the box as if you had a new bicycle tire.
The chrome strips on the Mk I were slightly misaligned on the joint between the front and top panels, this is fixed on the Mk II.
The top I/O panel is now a single row of plugs in line with the front of the case, rather than two strips running towards the back. The firewire port has been taken out.
On internals:
The Mk I had a row of screws being held in a row of holes down the 5 1/4 drive bays, this is missing on the Mk II. It was convenient in theory, but they used a REALLY high torque power driver to put them in my case that stripped every head and actually removed the paint below the screws, I had to pull them out with pliers and use spare parts for my install. If they did that to all the cases, I can see while they just put the screws in a bag this time.
The Mk I had a few cut metal parts that weren't edge ground, some of which still had some flash (read: little metal ribbons like steel wool remaining from the cut). I didn't find a sharp edge in the Mk II case in my quick inspection, and no debris.
The tool-less system for the drives is much improved. 5 1/4 feels nice and solid, as opposed to a loose tab mount in the Mk I that never felt quite right. The Mk II *does not* have screw holes for the 5 1/4 drives so far as I saw, so you can't tighten down a drive aside from the toggle clamp. That I don't like.
The 3.5 racks have a solid flip open lock on the Mk II vs a "pinch and pull" on the Mk I that never felt secure. Mk I drive bays were riveted in place, being able to pull the bottom 4 from the Mk II is nice. Both drive trays load from the left side but have cables on the right, so you need to pull both side panels to do anything with a drive. Neither lets you flip the drive around to be able to keep the right panel on.
There are a lot of cable routing holes in the Mk II vs one below the motherboard on the Mk I. The Mk I had several annoying, long and narrow clips that were impossible to secure cables in, these are gone on the Mk II. The Mk II's motherboard tray extends and is riveted to the 5 1/4 and top two 3.5 inch drive racks, with two cable management holes next to the 3.5 inch bays for routing. The Mk I had the motherboard tray end in 1-2 inches before the bays, allowing cables to go anywhere you needed. This is a potential problem as I had issues with my PSU's SATA power cables being barely long enough to attach to a 3.5 drive and then move to a 5 1/4. With the holes placed as they are, I'd have needed an extension.
The Mk I had no *hole* on the motherboard tray behind the CPU, just mountings for a slim (4-5 mm thick max) fan. Mk II's big hole behind the CPU is welcome for heatsink installation, but don't let anything hang around that could poke the motherboard through the hole, especially if it can get caught and pushed in to the board by the side panel closing.
That's all I can get from memory and photo references for the Mk II. Might have more info later if I get to play with it. All in all, it's a *very* nice upgrade. Even with the possible power extension needed, I was hard pressed to not buy one to replace the older model. Cooler Master deserves a pat on the back for improving upon the original.
It uses two pin-type things to lock things in correct? Well, one hole lines up fine with the drive, but the other hole doesn't. It should be noted that my BD-RW is a bit longer than my DVD-RW, by.....Like an inch or something?
My DVD-RW drive is fine though.
but overall the haf probably delivers better performance, long live the haf
Looks like I missed the video card in the testing setup, nice catch! It's a GTX 260
This is standard, it really should fit. Both of my optical drives fit just fine.
That is to say, the same product being reviewed.
I have an earlier model of this, the NvIDIA model (ironic, considering I went ATI. But I didn't even know it was an NvIDIA special until I actually got it XD).
Bah, my Blu-ray drive isn't secure. Yeah, the lock doesn't fit. I wonder if this case solved this issue?
I'd also like to point out that I did not see the video card specified, I can see it's a Nvidia card, but I could only guess from looking at it, and I'd probably be wrong.
the new case i have now came with water cooling too so i've got a spare heatsink lying around. also behind the motherboard there was a complete lack of room - i found the door wouldnt fit on when i tried threading the cables around the back on my original build so i just taped the unused cables down with duct tape and sat them in the spare optical bays.
and cant you thread the cables behind the mobo?
dont mind the complete lack of cable management - i'd just put my new build in and was waiting on a new case
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