Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 Chassis - Wow

We had dropped by one of our local suppliers to pick up the Antec P180B chassis being used to build a QX9650 based system (previous blog post).

While there, the following site caught my eye:

Cooler Master Cosmo 1000 Chassis Box

The box was sitting on a stack of other component boxes in the middle of the display floor.

To date, when it comes to the various chassis offerings out there, none have really caught my eye the way the Cooler Master did.

The Antec P180B, while not overly great to look at, is a very functional chassis with a lot of attention paid to air flow and acoustics which are the two most critical elements in any chassis design.

While waiting, I asked to have the box taken down and if it could be opened for a closer look at the chassis itself.

The box was heavy. This left the impression that there may be a rather large power supply included with the chassis. But, once the box was opened and we had it out on the counter and opened up, there was no PSU therein.

The chassis is very solid. Looking around the inside, it isn't difficult to see that there was a lot of attention to detail during the design process.

Cooler Master Cosmo 1000 - Internal Side View

The bar running across the opening near the top contains the quick release catches for the side cover. Note the absence of any plastic for the catches or within the mechanism itself. The release mechanism operates very smoothly and provides good feedback as far as when the side is about to be released. The same is true for replacing the side panel: The release mechanism makes it very easy to tell that the panel is firmly locked in place both audibly and physically.

Both side covers have a quick release system to make internal access neat and simple.

The smoke coloured piece with the Cooler Master logo on it is a duct that channels fresh air to the video cards via a vent on the rear of the case. The fan near the front bottom draws fresh air that can be directed anywhere into the chassis by changing the round grill's orientation. In this case, we have it pointed straight at the air channel for the video cards.

There are three fans located on the chassis itself: One on the back and two on the underside of the top - at the rear - of the chassis drawing hot air out of the chassis.

The power supply, which sits on the bottom of the chassis gets its own fresh air duct drawn from the bottom of the case. While the Antec P180B provides an isolated channel on the bottom of the chassis with the PSU and some hard drives installed, the Cooler Master provides a completely isolated air flow environment for the PSU.

Besides being a huge plus for air flow, this design means that the PSU fan will be running a lot slower - and thus quieter - due to not having to pull already heated air in from within the case. Performance and the life of the PSU will be greatly improved as a result of an ongoing cool stream of air from outside the case.

The sides are solid brushed aluminum, with the internal panel covered with a foam sound insulation that is quite thick.

Cooler Master Cosmo 1000 Side Panel - Internal

Acoustically, this means that a lot of internal based sounds will be held inside. The panel is actually on its side in this shot.

I personally am not into any type of chassis that has a side window with no form of Faraday Cage to keep any stray EM where it belongs: Inside the case. It was refreshing to see an enthusiast class of chassis have a set of solid sides.

Cooler Master Cosmo 1000 - Hard Drive Air Flow

Again, attention to detail: The hard drives have their own fresh air for cooling. With the fans at the back and top of the case creating the necessary vacuum to draw air into the case, the drives receive a cool air stream via the slots that also act as rails for the drive carriers.

The attention to detail takes on a new respect when we realize that all of our critical heat sources have a cool fresh air stream for their cooling needs:

• Hard drives via the front bottom intake
• Video cards via the fresh air vent at the back of the air channel
• Video cards via the front bottom fan pulling fresh air and pumping it into the air channel over them
• CPU receives a relatively balanced fresh air flow via the front grill on the chassis

All fresh air intakes have a grill that will help to keep dust out of the case. The grills are removable so we can give them a quick clean every once in a while.

One will need to pay particular attention to the bottom two grills if the system is in a carpeted environment as they will tend to plug up a lot quicker.

And finally, the chassis' aesthetics. There is the old cliché: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We all have our particular tastes when it comes to anything from rims on a vehicle to the style of chassis our system sits in.

To me, the chassis is nothing short of stunning:

Cooler Master Cosmo 1000 - Top Front

Cooler Master Cosmo 1000 - Side View

Cooler Master Cosmo 1000 - Rear Corner

All in all, from the quality of the chassis' materials and construction, the air flow characteristics, and the aesthetics this chassis is a real winner to me.

There are a couple of not so serious cons to the chassis:

• The hard drive mount insulator grommets in the drive carriers could be a lot thicker aka the Antec P180B to provide better drive noise isolation (especially for the WD Raptors)
• The chassis will be quite heavy once loaded up

There is an added bonus for those of us anticipating the Intel D5400XS dual socket Extreme Edition (previous blog post) motherboard and processors: This chassis is E-ATX compliant so the board will mount in the chassis with no issues (hopefully).

Cooler Master Product site: Cooler Master Cosmo 1000. Check it out, it is worth a look for your enthusiast/performance based client partners. ;)

MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.