- Joined
- Nov 15, 2010
- Location
- Livingston, Scotland
Coolermaster, as many other case manufacturers in recent years have been well known for their high end cases, Such as the HAF X (and other models of the HAF series), their Cosmos and now Cosmos 2 case which is Amazing for water cooling and there CM690 and CM690 II cases which were brilliant bang for buck. However, when it comes to building computers for the in-laws on a budget (as I was, for example) who have no real need for a $200 case with liquid cooling, all they need is something to get there basic computing needs completed on a simple day to day basis.
Now, few companies provide any decent quality cases at the low end of the budget spectrum, most either have a cheap feel, cheap look or poor airflow. But, when I came to doing research into components for the new pc for this build, I went straight for the standard parts, the corsair vengeance 2x2Gb DDR3 Ram sets. The Sandy Bridge Processor, and the z68 chipset motherboard. In the end I went for :-
This coolermaster case was of course, the elite 334U. It had a simple design, and seen as I am a fan of coolermaster products, I jumped on it straight away with the price tag of a mere £32.
Days past and the case and components arrived. The first thing I did, was open the case box. The case was well packaged, even though the box had a few dents in it, the case itself was perfect. It had the normal polystyrene bulk packaging containing the case in a fabric bag.
Upon looking at the case, the first thing I noticed was the fact that this case came with thumb screws for the side panels (a feature less common in cheap cases). I then proceeded to open up the case to find a rather spacious interior. As standard the case only has the 1 rear 120mm exhaust fan, however it does have the additional option to fit a 120mm fan in the front and another 2 140mm fans in on the side panel over the pci slots of the motherboard. The next thing I happened to notice, was that coolermaster had included the usual screw bag, in which contained 9 motherboard standoffs (including two of the standoffs which keep the motherboards in place even without the screws in place, and a handful of cable ties to keep the wiring nice and neat. The psu is mounted at the bottom of the case and can be mounted either standard or inverted as the case provides the screw holes for either. The front panel has the normal mesh designed 5.25 bay bezels which easily pop out of the front panel, however, not so easy that they feel cheap or weak. The case comes with 4 5.25 bays, then has 2 external 3.5 bays with another 6 3.5 internal bays.
Installing the system
The installation went smoothly, the i/o shield popped into the cutout no problem what so even, the 5.25 slot cover popped out no problem. The only issue I had was with the tool less “tools” the case only comes with 4 of the 3.5 inch tools and 2 of the 5.25 inch tools, which means you do need to move them depending on where you wish to mount your dvd drive and hard drives. As a rule of thumb, I generally mount the dvd drive in the top bay if the case is going to sit on the floor, or the middle of the 5.25 section if its going to sit on the desk. Now, as standard, the tools are on the 2nd and 3rd bays, moving them wasn’t actually that difficult, however having no instructions and having to work it out yourself can take some time. On the other hand, the 3.5 bay tools were simple and easy to use and move. The pci slot covers were unfortunately pop out shields, and therefore, have to be removed before the motherboard is installed and are left empty if anything changed hardware wise in future. The psu was simple to get in, the case includes some anti vibration pads on the case as standard, and it mounts very securely. Now, the case does not include any cable management aids. There are no cut-outs in the motherboard, or any room behind the board tray to hide cables (2 -3mm max) I had to hide the excess of my cabling behind the 3.5 rack, however, there was plenty room there for this and I wouldn’t say that the cabling will affect any of the airflow.
Cooling
My first intention was to leave the stock cooler on this build, however when I recently upgraded my own system to a h100 cooler, I was left with another zalman cnps10x performa. So this went into the build no questions asked. The motherboard tray included a very spacious cpu backplate cut-out which made installing the cpu cooler a joy, even though ive said before that this cooler is not the easiest to install. I only installed a single fan on the heatsink, which is more than enough to cool this chip effectively. With only the rear exhaust and the 1 120mm pull fan on the cpu cooler, left a core temp idle of 19C and load of 38C @ 3.3ghz on an ambient of 14C. To be honest, I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable putting an sli setup in this case with extra fans.
Water cooling
Despite the tight constraints of this case, I do believe with a little modding, this case would fit a very nice water loop. The top of the case is totally clear, which would allow a 360mm radiator to be easily mounted to the top of the case internally without having any clearance issues. However, as stock, I think the air cooling is sufficient.
Build Quality
When buying cases you always have to remember that you do pay for what you get, the metal, the finish, the paint job ect. Therefore the side panels on this case did feel slightly flexible, perhaps more than I would have expected from a coolermaster case, the plastic tool less parts feel like they could break with ease. However, the front panel has the same feel as the front panel that the 690 has, it feels like your going to break it when removing it from the chassis, however, it is actually a very solid and sturdy construction.
Conclusion
For a cheap case, in which an atx motherboard and Graphics cards are required for the build, this case will be hard to beat for the price tag. Where the haf912 is only slightly more expensive, the 334U does have a more mature appearance to it. The lack of cable “hiding” is the only issue I would have liked to have seen resolved. Even 2 or 3 cut-outs would have improved it massively with an additional 3-4mm of clearance would have allowed most cable to be hidden. For cooling options, this case has enough for most users as standard, with the ability for either 4 120mm fans or 2 120mm fans and 2 140mm fans on the door. With a bit of modding, the case would be able to fit another few fans on the roof of the case if it was required. I think coolermaster have done well to provide this case on such a modest price tag, and it beats most other cases for the same price, however I do feel that better tool less features could have been included, if not just enough to use all the bays tool-less would have been nice.
For a daily rig, or a home server, or a cheap lan case, or a workstation, this case will work great for anyone on a budget. Well Done Coolermaster.
* Pictured provided by cooler master*
Internal View
Front view
*pictures provided by google*
System Build (not mines)
Thanks for reading as this is my first personal review, I hope you enjoyed reading and would love any tips ect to help me improve in the future.
Now, few companies provide any decent quality cases at the low end of the budget spectrum, most either have a cheap feel, cheap look or poor airflow. But, when I came to doing research into components for the new pc for this build, I went straight for the standard parts, the corsair vengeance 2x2Gb DDR3 Ram sets. The Sandy Bridge Processor, and the z68 chipset motherboard. In the end I went for :-
- Intel i5 2500K Unlocked 3.3Ghz
- Gigabyte Z68 Motherboard
- Corsair Vengeance 2x2Gb 1600mhz cal 9
- Samsung spinpoint F4 320GB HDD (No need for more, as they have 2 x 1TB externals already)
- An old ati x1950 pro Graphics card which I has lying around
- An Oem blu-ray player
This coolermaster case was of course, the elite 334U. It had a simple design, and seen as I am a fan of coolermaster products, I jumped on it straight away with the price tag of a mere £32.
Days past and the case and components arrived. The first thing I did, was open the case box. The case was well packaged, even though the box had a few dents in it, the case itself was perfect. It had the normal polystyrene bulk packaging containing the case in a fabric bag.
Upon looking at the case, the first thing I noticed was the fact that this case came with thumb screws for the side panels (a feature less common in cheap cases). I then proceeded to open up the case to find a rather spacious interior. As standard the case only has the 1 rear 120mm exhaust fan, however it does have the additional option to fit a 120mm fan in the front and another 2 140mm fans in on the side panel over the pci slots of the motherboard. The next thing I happened to notice, was that coolermaster had included the usual screw bag, in which contained 9 motherboard standoffs (including two of the standoffs which keep the motherboards in place even without the screws in place, and a handful of cable ties to keep the wiring nice and neat. The psu is mounted at the bottom of the case and can be mounted either standard or inverted as the case provides the screw holes for either. The front panel has the normal mesh designed 5.25 bay bezels which easily pop out of the front panel, however, not so easy that they feel cheap or weak. The case comes with 4 5.25 bays, then has 2 external 3.5 bays with another 6 3.5 internal bays.
Installing the system
The installation went smoothly, the i/o shield popped into the cutout no problem what so even, the 5.25 slot cover popped out no problem. The only issue I had was with the tool less “tools” the case only comes with 4 of the 3.5 inch tools and 2 of the 5.25 inch tools, which means you do need to move them depending on where you wish to mount your dvd drive and hard drives. As a rule of thumb, I generally mount the dvd drive in the top bay if the case is going to sit on the floor, or the middle of the 5.25 section if its going to sit on the desk. Now, as standard, the tools are on the 2nd and 3rd bays, moving them wasn’t actually that difficult, however having no instructions and having to work it out yourself can take some time. On the other hand, the 3.5 bay tools were simple and easy to use and move. The pci slot covers were unfortunately pop out shields, and therefore, have to be removed before the motherboard is installed and are left empty if anything changed hardware wise in future. The psu was simple to get in, the case includes some anti vibration pads on the case as standard, and it mounts very securely. Now, the case does not include any cable management aids. There are no cut-outs in the motherboard, or any room behind the board tray to hide cables (2 -3mm max) I had to hide the excess of my cabling behind the 3.5 rack, however, there was plenty room there for this and I wouldn’t say that the cabling will affect any of the airflow.
Cooling
My first intention was to leave the stock cooler on this build, however when I recently upgraded my own system to a h100 cooler, I was left with another zalman cnps10x performa. So this went into the build no questions asked. The motherboard tray included a very spacious cpu backplate cut-out which made installing the cpu cooler a joy, even though ive said before that this cooler is not the easiest to install. I only installed a single fan on the heatsink, which is more than enough to cool this chip effectively. With only the rear exhaust and the 1 120mm pull fan on the cpu cooler, left a core temp idle of 19C and load of 38C @ 3.3ghz on an ambient of 14C. To be honest, I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable putting an sli setup in this case with extra fans.
Water cooling
Despite the tight constraints of this case, I do believe with a little modding, this case would fit a very nice water loop. The top of the case is totally clear, which would allow a 360mm radiator to be easily mounted to the top of the case internally without having any clearance issues. However, as stock, I think the air cooling is sufficient.
Build Quality
When buying cases you always have to remember that you do pay for what you get, the metal, the finish, the paint job ect. Therefore the side panels on this case did feel slightly flexible, perhaps more than I would have expected from a coolermaster case, the plastic tool less parts feel like they could break with ease. However, the front panel has the same feel as the front panel that the 690 has, it feels like your going to break it when removing it from the chassis, however, it is actually a very solid and sturdy construction.
Conclusion
For a cheap case, in which an atx motherboard and Graphics cards are required for the build, this case will be hard to beat for the price tag. Where the haf912 is only slightly more expensive, the 334U does have a more mature appearance to it. The lack of cable “hiding” is the only issue I would have liked to have seen resolved. Even 2 or 3 cut-outs would have improved it massively with an additional 3-4mm of clearance would have allowed most cable to be hidden. For cooling options, this case has enough for most users as standard, with the ability for either 4 120mm fans or 2 120mm fans and 2 140mm fans on the door. With a bit of modding, the case would be able to fit another few fans on the roof of the case if it was required. I think coolermaster have done well to provide this case on such a modest price tag, and it beats most other cases for the same price, however I do feel that better tool less features could have been included, if not just enough to use all the bays tool-less would have been nice.
For a daily rig, or a home server, or a cheap lan case, or a workstation, this case will work great for anyone on a budget. Well Done Coolermaster.
* Pictured provided by cooler master*
Internal View
Front view
*pictures provided by google*
System Build (not mines)
Thanks for reading as this is my first personal review, I hope you enjoyed reading and would love any tips ect to help me improve in the future.
