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Jason F.

Jason F.

Joined on 02/18/12

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 3
Most Favorable Review

Very Excited!

Cooler Master HAF XB EVO - High Air Flow Test Bench and LAN Box Desktop Computer Case with ATX Motherboard Support
Cooler Master HAF XB EVO - High Air Flow Test Bench and LAN Box Desktop Computer Case with ATX Motherboard Support

Pros: Here goes: Giant case in a reasonable footprint. Airflow! Adding all the fans makes it look great. Very well thought out design. Sturdy, very sturdy for 100 bucks. X-drive bays are very handy. Power supply bracket makes even large PSU's a breeze to install.

Cons: None so far, all facets of the case are appealing. Only slight pet peeve is the lack of extra 3.5 bays. But a Dremel, a dream and a few old HD mounts will make the side panels hold one each.

Overall Review: I was so excited to get all the parts in to build my first computer. I have repaired, jury rigged and modded computers I have owned from Sony, Dell or Cyberpower. I have also fixed others for people. I have never built one from scratch... this is where this case came in. I wanted something different and well this is it in the dollar range. The case is spacious, well thought out and everything you need it present in the box. Cable ties, mounting hardware and brackets. You only have to add 2 80mm, 1 120mm, 1 200mm fan to have the case maxed out in fans. I do know that some people would never need to use most of them as the case if so spacious and has such a great amount of normal airflow that with the mess lid it will most likely never suffer. I was going all out like a kid dressing up his first christmas tree though so BAM! AIRRRRPLANEEEE! The xdrives were one of the coolest features that easily show you how Cooler Master dominates on planning out a design. The drive bay holds either a 2.5 or 3.5 inch drive. It is easy to use, swap and roll with this. They even designed the rubber drive pin to be removable and you can place it on a pre molded area on that bay! Seriously??? YES The power supply I chose was a OCZ 600W semi-modular with the power correction. Yeah don't ask me, I thought it looked cool and it works snazzy with just a few size differences. This case was designed in mind for those 1500w rocketship PSU's. I read up and noticed I didn't need one so i went with the best I could find at a great price. Installation of the motherboard with the removable tray was so easy I was completely shocked. Two things scared me trying to build my own PC. The mobo and the processor! I went with an ASRock Extreme 4 z77 mobo. No real cons other than the mobo itself was not really a full size ATX board, but larger than a micro. The right most row had only one screw design for support, nothing that breaks the bank on it just kinda felt a lil floppy at the main connector. That iis not on CM though, the tray made it so easy and the placement of the internal part locations is spacious. I had everyting up and running in a little less than 4 hours after working a 12 hour shift with a 2 hour drive on top of that. No complaints other than I am tired. Sys: This Case! OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W Modular PSU i5 3770k ASRock Extreme 4 Z77 8GB Corsair Veng 1600 64GB Samsung SSD Reused Geforce GTX 560ti Twin Frozr II 2GB And well reused the misc amounts of HD's I had.

HTPC - Game Server Dream

In Win BP655 mini ITX case with IP-S300FF1-0 H Haswell Ready power supply, 8cm Fan, Black, TAC 2.0, Front USB 3.0X2, HD audio
In Win BP655 mini ITX case with IP-S300FF1-0 H Haswell Ready power supply, 8cm Fan, Black, TAC 2.0, Front USB 3.0X2, HD audio

Pros: The size of a DVD Player Great layout Sturdy once put together 300W PSU and this for 69.99 IS YOU CRAZY?

Cons: Cable routing is non-existent. This is not too bad, learn to use zip ties and a Dremel. Use the Dremel to make some side vent holes for an extra videocard. In my case I cut it out and added a fan shield. My issue was due to placement. I had to make a USB fan and place it front facing on the right, next to the ehaust port in my entertainment center due to a lip that trapped heat. Runs a cool 33c this way.

Overall Review: Had this for nearly a year now... on and running. It hasn't crashed or needed restarting other than updates or things I have installed requiring it. I have it running Plex Media Server and Center. Also a Terraria Server and a Starbound server for my 5-6 friends that play. AMD A6-3500 Llano 2.1GHz Triple Core APU AMD Discreet graphics Card (Whatever It was) ASRock A75M-ITX FM1 AMD A75 16GB DDR3 Corsair Ram I had laying around. 32GB SSD and eSATA 2TB HD / USB 2.0 1TB HD LG Blue-Ray Burner Windows Media Center Remote Kit Windows 7 Home Premium 64BIT Teamviewer for pals to restart the servers.

MSI > All

MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Video Card N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II 2GD5/OC
MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Video Card N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II 2GD5/OC

Pros: Great bang for the buck. Great heat sink Not the largest card in the world, fits in easy. Still useable!

Cons: None

Overall Review: Works great in my older rig with an AMD Phenom II 630. Will work ever better in my new i5 rig I ordered off newegg.