Cooler Master Elite 430 - Mid Tower Computer Case with All-Black Interior and Windowed Side Panel

Pros: I bought this for a friends build but I liked it so much I kept it myself. I was building a machine for my friend and picked this case out for him. When I opened the box and saw the case, I decided to give him another case and I kept this one.

Cons: The side of the case was a little hard to slide off but not a big deal.

Pros: For $30 (discount, promo, and rebate), I have yet to find this case's equal. All-black interior, beautiful to look at. Solid plastic side window, well-placed front panel buttons and inputs. Cooler Master reliability. Up to ATX boards without all the extra bulk. Enough fan mounts to blow the computer across the room. Included blue fan. Dust covers on the fan mounts not in use.

Cons: The list price on this case ($60 + $4 S/H) is bologna. The metal for the frame and especially the sides is unusually thin. The plastic on the front panel seems pretty cheap. Way too few tool-less clamps, and the ones that are included are solid, but really weird to operate. I prefer the holders from earlier cases that had sort of a "screw" clamp to them. And as other reviewers have noted, an average-sized PSU will half-cover the only bottom fan-mount. There's plenty of room to avoid this, not sure why Cooler Master placed the mount where they did...

Overall Review: Important note: bottom-mounted PSU. The first time I built in this case, I about had to stretch the (already short) 24-pin motherboard power connector to reach the plug. It wouldn't be any different than a top-mounted, EXCEPT a Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX board is going to be on the opposite side of the case, unlike top-mounted cases, where small motherboards are the same distance from the PSU. As long as the price stays at $30-$35, I'll keep buying this case for customers. Except for the lack of sturdiness, all my complaints are assuming this case is valued at $60. When the price drops to $30, I say buy this without a second thought.

Pros: What a great little case for cheap,A really good quality case for cheap, it has plenty of room for even the largest video card.

Cons: There is now bad things to say about this case, at under 50$ and the quality, I can not think of any as of right now.

Overall Review: I usually get this for customer builds, because of the clear side window and the good quality and low price.

Pros: Good looking case. USB 3.0 on top front Bottom mounting PSU Very roomy inside Cool looking lighted fan in front panel

Cons: There are 2 glaring cons with this case, that are not expected with a Cooler Master case of this quality build. No rear exhaust fan is included...why not? Back panel break outs are they kind you have to manually break out with a screw driver, bend them back and forth and twist them off. This is what you would expect to find on a cheaper entry level case. Also, the threads for the stand offs are really tight, there is paint inside the threads I guess, so be prepared to use a nut driver to screw them in.

Overall Review: Overall, a nice roomy case, but cost should be lower due to the cons I pointed out.

Pros: Sturdy construction, nothing feels week or flimsy Nice 120mm blue LED fan in front grill Dust filters

Cons: Bottom mount PSU is nice...unless your cables are too short and you need to buy an adapter like I did.

Pros: * All black finish inside and out * Takes 4 120mm fans (could be 5 depending on PSU) * Superb cooling * Side Window * $39.99 on sale * Simply solid

Cons: * No wire management * If your using a low profile cooler it could hit one of the top fans

Overall Review: Bought this on a budget for a gaming room. I have to admit I am very pleased with the quality of this case. I removed the 120mm blue LED fan and replaced with 4 Lian Li 120mm red LED fans I had and Zalman fan controller. With that the case temps stay in the 20's ultra quiet. I tried really hard to find something I did not like and so far the only thing is the wire management...it doesn't exist. I had to get very creative being that I am picky with wires just hanging around. Another thing is I had a Scythe Shuriken low profile cooler that I had but I could not use it because it would hit one of the top fans. Then again that cooler has a 100mm fan, something to keep in mind. Replaced it with Cooler Master 212, its huge but no issues fitting. It has to be the best case I have purchased under $40. What in the box? *Biostar A880GU3 *AMD Phenom II X4 955 *Cooler Master Hyper 212 *8GB Mushkin *Samsung Blu Ray Drive *4 Lian Li 120mm Fans *Zalman Fan Controller *Xigmatek 500W PSU *M

Pros: See other thoughts first. Good looking case, tool-less drive mounts, extra space for fans. Overall, pretty spacious interior. Good layout for important bits, bottom mounted PSU, top oriented front ports. Only thing that would make it better would be to rotate the hard drive bays 90 degrees.

Cons: See other thoughts first. This second one I bought, was so badly damage, that the space for the back panel punchout... wasn't even rectangular anymore, it wasn't just that space that was bent, the entire case didn't even stand up straight because it had been so badly bent. I don't think this was the fault of the shippers either, because the box appeared to be in quite good condition, and the case was packed neatly into the box, surrounded by foam, as you would expect. By sheer bruteforce, I managed to make this case work for me, as I was in a hurry and couldn't afford the time to RMA it. It still doesn't sit flat.

Overall Review: I've bought two of these and had vastly different experiences with them, the 3 egg rating reflects that. You can consider the cons to be my review of the second one. Despite all that, I still like this case, I'm just highly suspect due to the circumstances, I could only imagine somebody at CoolerMaster dropped my case and packaged it anyways.

Pros: Ended up getting it on sale for $40 here at NewEgg. I love this little mid-tower case! There are ventilation areas all around, including the top and side. I used the top ventilation holes to my advantage by facing my Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler with the fans up, blowing out the case. Speaking of the CPU cooler, know that the NH-D14 is a tight fit in the case. The plastic side window doesn't touch the cooler, but it's close. If you're looking at this case, you need to know that: * CPU coolers shouldn't exceed 163mm (the Noctua NH-D14 is 160mm) * graphics cards shouldn't exceed 315mm Love the tool-free installation of drives on this case!

Cons: * Only comes with one case fan. As other users have pointed out, you can buy matching case fans from NewEgg here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103022 * There is only a little space on the front right side to hide cables. It's not much. Not worth taking an egg off given the excellent price.

Overall Review: System specs: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R motherboard Core i7-950 3.06GHz Intel processor Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler Gigabyte GV-R685D5-1GD Radeon HD 6850 video card Corsair XMS3 3 x 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 1600 SDRAM 2X Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA HDDs in Raid 1 Antec TruePower TP-650 650W power supply Cooler Master Elite 430 RC-430-KWN1 ATX Mid Tower