COOLER MASTER Elite 361 RC-361-KKR350 Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mini Tower Computer Case 350W Power Supply

Pros: Nice compact box with excellent airflow. Easy to move, assemble.

Cons: The power supply switch is inside the front case and makes it extremely hard to just flip the switch. You need to unplug it instead.

Other Thoughts: Would have liked the HD Fan location to have proper sized screw holes and to be able to put HD's in through the front.

Pros: *Smaller
*good layout
*Can sit vertical or horizontal

Cons: *PSU is garbage
*Comes with NO case fans

Not a con but a small annoyance:
1. If you need to work with the front fan or PSU you have to take the front panel off the case, which, means you have to take all the side panels off too.
2. If you have to change the PSU, you will need to remove the motherboard. Makes what should be a 10-15 minute job a a 45-60 minute job.
3. GPU cooling fan location on the side/top of the case is worthless

Other Thoughts: This is a great little case and despite it's quirks, I like it. If I were going to build a lan box to take around i'd consider this case.

Three things to do when you order this case:

1. a modular PSU is a MUST for decent cable management. This PSU is garbage.

2. It comes with no fans. you need to order 80mm fans at the same time you order this case

3. If you use a MATX board and GPU you need to also consider ordering a very thin 120mm fan for the top/side. The gpu only has about 15-20mm clearance between it and the side panel fan spot.

Pros: Smallest case I've tried that'll fit full size mobo. can be desktop or tower orientation. take note that psu sits below optical drive. optional fan locations always good

Cons: no usb 3.0, need vertical loading or slot load optical drive in vertical tower position. newegg had sold it before $40 without the ps. give us free shipping!

Pros: A decent case for the money. If you're building a basic system, or a budget HTPC, this will do the job. The front USB ports are great for running a couple of controllers to it for some living room gaming.

Cons: As others have noted. The layout of the case is a little strange. The power supply is located at the front of the case, so you will need to make sure that your power supply switch is set to the on position before mounting it in there.

Other Thoughts: I recently rebuilt my main computer, so I stuck the guts from the old one into this case and turned it into an HTPC. Mine is set up in a desktop case configuration at the bottom of my entertainment center. It does the job nicely.

This does indeed come with a power supply included, which I removed in favor of a 500W.

Pros: So I'm just going to give my thoughts on the case since there wern't any major drawbacks to this case since its such a small form factor, but a few minor changes could really improve the case for something suitable for a high end build.
-increase the width of the case by 12 mm and 10mm on the top or so
This allows several things, first the back to fans can become larger to 92mm, secondly the side case fan that is right above the graphics card can actually fit a standard width 120mm fan, also it will be able to fit other cards such at the larger sapphire 7970's that are a bit wide. On the top this will allow the exhaust fan to be off center allowing to have something like an H80i in the top without hitting the motherboard, which means significantly better overclocking and less cooling limitations. The extra width will also allow a larger front fan which would really help out a lot.
-something else that might help would be having a fan slot right above the cpu location, I only say this because my current cooler exhausts right out the side which is kinda weird, but would help if it could just go right out, might be moding that if I can't fit an h60/h80 inside.
- another change if would be to remove the dvd drive, not too many people use dvd drives anymore and it will only decrease in the future. as well as remove the top external drive bay and move the psu right to the top.
-better front ventilation and a filter, also might think about having more direct exhaust for the psu since it has to push it out the side
-filter for the psu intake
The last few aren't really necessary but would be really cool, now that I think about it, if the top drive bay and cd bay's were removed the PSU could exhaust out the top, which would defiantly increase cooling just based on natural air flow patterns, and possibly allow for larger psu's if the some of the HDD bay's were remove able

Cons: Can't find a good cooler to cool my 8350 at stock settings, that will fit in this case, currently using the noctua sideways one with one fan on the bottom. and about 60C with my own fans on it during full use.
This is really the only problem per say that I had, and would be easily fixable in the future if it was possible to mount any type of radiator.
Also just took another look at the case, and it might be possible to have a 2*120 rad on the side right over the motherboard(horizontally from the motherboard's i/o to a little over the ram, that would mean that the side would have to be pretty thick but it would be totally baller, if it were possible to fit a 2*120 rad in this case.

Other Thoughts: TLDR: I bought this case for college so I can easily carry my whole comp and monitor back and forth in a suitcase. It fulfills that role quite well, but has some cooling issues limited by the width of the case, some small changes could make this case very friendly to high end compact builds.

Pros: Both side panels are removable, "quick" mounts for hhd's, rubber feet on bottom, top mount 120 mm fan, PS is mounted in the front of the case...may also be a con will see with time. they run a cord to the back to connect another cord out the back to the wall. said there was no PS and there was one in my case! lots of extra screws, mb standoffs, zip ties, ect.

Cons: PS mounted in front, what i dont like about it is then the on/off switch on it is covered by the front cover. the front cover only pops off after you remove BOTH side panels to unsnap plastic tabs that keep it on. have to remove either A: the mother board or B: the dvd drive to pull the PS out. They said there was no PS included and there was one in it. So i ordered one when i "didnt" need it, but the one in it only has 1 sata power cord. The one i ordered worked great with plenty of connections.

Other Thoughts: all though i seemed to have complained about this case a lot i do really like it and will be buying another one if i do another build anytime soon. as of now there are only 10 reviews. I rolled the dice and am glad i did....but then again time will tell. I am unsure on how cool it will be but i think it will be great in the end.
I put a dvd burner in it and a card reader in the floppy drive. this will be a great office computer with pleanty of cieling room for upgrades down the road.

Pros: Great small form factor case for ATX motherboard. Very good quality and easy to work with.

Cons: None really. The components fit perfectly.

Other Thoughts: Very pleased with the purchase.

Pros: This is a small form factor case that I have had good experience with.
I build pc's for resale and have probably sold 30+ of this model. I like to build in it because the drives are easy to install, lots of ties are provided, and screws, etc.

Cons: I don't know if this is a con really, but you have to plan your installation or you will need to remove the front bezel several times potentially. *make sure the power supply switch is in the 'online' position - for one example.

Other Thoughts: This case makes an excellent small size pc that is quiet. It only supports one hdd, and one dvd, which should not be problem for a basic workstation. Most of our resources are on the network, or cloud nowadays.

Pros: Small form factor. Simple design. Inexpensive.

Cons: Bad plastic moldings in the front bezel mean that once you get if off you'll have a hard time getting it back on. In addition, the switch leads as well as the USB leads are glued into that shoddy plastic front bezel. That means to remove it, you have to pull those leads completely from the machine, through the case.

The case design itself is a cludge. The PSU is mounted high and in the front, under the bezel of all places. Cooler master's jury rigged a power cable from the front of the case where the PSU's plug is, through the box and out the top in the back. The bulky cable makes it even more difficult to get that bezel back on.

Finally, though the case lists as having no PSU, it did indeed ship with a PSU installed. Once I replaced it with my Corsair 750, I discovered that I was quite pressed for space. The top mounting is directly in line with both the mainboard PSU connectors and the RAM slots of the mainboard. Glad I chose modular, I would never have been able to shoe horn everything in.

Other Thoughts: I don't might a tight case. I before mobile systems and like to do my builds small. This case however isn't just small, it's poorly designed, poorly executed and cheaply constructed. Don't waste you're time. I'll be returning it shortly and if you put it into your basket, you might want to take it out.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi nimajneb,

We are sorry to hear of your trouble with the case. Was there something wrong with the usb that you have to remove the lead? If the usb is defective, you will have to return it for replacement. The power supply cable is the overall design of the case, any defects should be reported to support. When you purchase the item, the product does come with a power supply, and is removable if you wish to install another case. If you have any other questions, please contact us on live chat for further assistance.

Respectfully,
CMUSA Customer Support

External Link(s):

Live Chat|

Pros: Small footprint case, can be vertical or horizontal. Shipped with everything you need to mount motherboard and optical drive and hdd.

Included a PSU that was not in the specs. Looked quite cheaply made and as I was building this computer for a client, I used the PSU I had originally bought for this build.

COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS-550-PCAR-E3 550W ATX12V V2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Power Supply Item #: N82E16817171038

All in all, good product, I got what it promised; switches worked, lights worked, and it's a pretty sturdy case for the price.

Cons: I did have to make a run to the store to buy rails to mount a 2.5" SSD in the 3.5" bay. $3.99, but a 40 minute round trip.

Other Thoughts: The PSU is mounted in the top front of this case, where normally you would find a few 5.25" bays in the old days' cases. It has a 3 prong power cable that runs from your PSU to the back of the case, where you plug in your 6' 3 prong power cable to the wall.