Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, you've no dubiousness seen the Cooler Main Cosmos Ii online or peradventure at your local hardware retailer or LAN party (although I pity the person responsible for lugging this heavyweight anywhere exterior of their house). Cooler Master showcased what they call the 'Ultra Tower' at this year's CES and we've been anxious to get it on the exam bench e'er since to see if information technology lives up to the hype.

With back up for up to 13 hard drives and a full weight of nearly 50 pounds without any hardware installed, this is probably the largest example I've ever worked with in over ten years of reviewing figurer hardware.

Starting at the front, we encounter that Cooler Master hides the forepart drive bays with a hydraulic-fashion door that slides up and down. The door locks in the top position simply pushing it barely by the "breaking indicate" initiates a slow downward fall of the door. And when I say ho-hum, that's exactly what I mean... if it drops at all. I've been using the Creation Ii for a few weeks now and even notwithstanding, the door won't autumn all the style down under its ain ability. This is likely to work itself loose over time as I retrieve the demo systems at CES not needing whatsoever help.

Information technology's brash to leave the door in the airtight position every bit to non impede the cooling vents and 200mm LED fan behind them. With the door down, you're greeted by 3 5.25" drive bays and two 3.5" drive bays of the locking diverseness. These bay covers are very piece of cake to remove and well designed equally you don't run the risk of snapping or breaking any plastic tabs during removal or reinsertion.

The front I/O console resides at the very superlative of the chassis and is partially hidden with withal another sliding door. With the panel pulled back we can see a headphone and microphone jack, an eSATA port, ii USB iii.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports. Farther back is the advanced control console which includes a full docket of fan controls, power push button, reset push, power and HDD LEDs also as a push that allows y'all to control fan LEDs independent of fan speed. This requires a special connector that must be built into your fan like the ane on the front 200mm LED fan that comes installed in this case.

The fan control console is dissever into four groups: forepart, top, HDD and GPU which should make it easier to go on track of which buttons control such fans. Fan speed is indicated past colored LEDs: ruby-red is high, purple is medium and blue is low.

On the superlative of the case are ii big handles and a vented area near the rear that's removable. We'll comprehend that in more detail equally we work our way inside the case.

Here we see both side panels of the Creation II - the i with the extra vents is the left side panel. No gawdy instance windows or radical cuts hither, but a more than streamlined look.

A look at the rear of the Cosmos 2 hints at simply how big this case is; 10 expansion slots, a 140mm exhaust fan, water cooling provisions that allow three tubes to pass through and a bottom-mounted power supply.

The PSU bracket is removable for easier installation while the top grill can also be taken off to install a radiator or cooling fans. Also note that the PSU mounting expanse has been extended to allow for actress-long units. There'due south a removable air filter but under the PSU to let for like shooting fish in a barrel cleaning.

Cooler Chief utilizes the same handles from the top of the case to serve as anxiety to raise the chassis off the ground.

One of the coolest things most this case is how the side panels operate. Rather than unscrewing and lifting off like yous'd observe with most full tower systems, Cooler Main has implemented a neat hinge arrangement that allows the door to open up up backwards (think suicide doors on a car). While the feature is very convenient, I do wish that the doors hinged at the back and opened the other way. Having the door open towards you when the organisation in on a table is rather strange. But hey, information technology works and furthermore, the panels tin can be lifted upwardly and off for 100% access.