Cooler Master Sniper Black Edition Review - PAGE 2

The exterior of the case is just as bold as ever, with support for five optical disk drives (or four if you convert one of the drive bays to hold a 3.5" floppy drive or card reader) plus the new additional option of an internal SSD drive. There is no shortage of options available with the Black Edition of the Sniper.

The flawless culmination of plastic and metal mesh on the front bezel is as good as the original Sniper, giving a great first impression.

The right side panel has a 230mm intake fan mounted to a mesh to supply vast amounts of cool air to the rest of your system. The 230mm fan is also backlit with a very nice blue LED, spicing up the overall impression. The left side panel sports a dome-shaped bubble, adding quite a bit of room behind the motherboard tray for better management of all of your power supply cables.

A 120mm exhaust fan is located at the rear of the case, as well as two predrilled holes for a water cooling loop with rubber grommets. Beside the rear exhaust fan is the I/O panel for the motherboard. Moving on down just below the I/O panel and fan we have the seven expansion slots, while just to the right of those is the Storm-tactics panel which stores whatever you feel the need to keep safe behind lock and key. Finally at the bottom of the chassis we find the PSU bay, with yet another two stamped holes for a water cooling loop.

The top of the case is where we find the I/O panel or the control center of the Sniper. The panel houses power, reset, rheostat and light power switches, USB, 1394 firewire, eSata, Mic, and head phone jacks, as well as the power and HDD activity lights. A 230mm exhaust fan is also situated in the top panel of the case, plus a carrying handle to make transport of the case much easier.