Cooler Master Cosmos II Computer Case Review

Manufacturer: Cooler Master
Product Name: Cosmos II Ultra Tower
Model Number: RC-1200-KKN1
Price As Tested: $349.95 MSRP

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article was provided by Cooler Master.

In computer cases, it's a constant battle between price, function, and style-- as the saying goes, "Pick any two". There are any number of very serviceable cases available at $100 or less; if you have $150 in your case budget, you can choose from some excellent full tower cases; and if you have $250 to spend on a case, you can get almost any combination of function and style you could ever want. Beyond that are the super-premium cases, and Cooler Master's latest entry in this field is so special the company calls it an "ultra tower". Benchmark Reviews takes a look to see if the Cooler Master Cosmos II case deserves this designation.

Cooler Master is very well known in the enthusiast community, and while they make a variety of computer peripherals, including power supplies, fans, and CPU coolers, they're best known for their cases. Benchmark Reviews has examined a number of Cooler Master cases over the years and we've generally given them high marks.

The original Cosmos 1000 case was introduced in 2007, and Cooler Master has continued to evolve the line with new releases such as the Cosmos S and Cosmos Black Label Limited Edition. The Cosmos II represents the latest (and most expensive) iteration of this case line yet.

Ultra Tower Features

The exterior of the Cosmos II utilizes a high-grade aluminum for its primary construction and form. This is supplemented by steel and mesh to add to strength, stability, and overall appeal. It maintains its trademark Cosmos appeal while being further refined for today's advancements in air/water cooling, peripheral support, and styling.

A stock Cosmos II supports a 360mm radiator in the top. Removal of the bottom hard drive cages results in space for a 240mm radiator placed on its side; having direct access to cold air from the exterior of the case. Mounting support will vary based on radiator manufacturer. Large single 120mm or 140mm All-in-one (AIO) watercooling units are supported on the rear exhaust fan port.

The Cosmos II can hold up to 13 HDDs or SSDs (2 X-docks, mid-cage 5, bottom cages 6) and multiple watercooling radiators. The Cosmos II has 10+1 expansion slots that enable the installation of up to 4-way SLI / Crossfire builds. Support for 4-way GPU setups depends on the layout of your motherboard manufacturer, but should be available on most. The +1 expansion slot allows users to install add-on cards via PCI extensions, or install other function panels for CCFL / Cold Cathode lighting control and other uses. The motherboard tray will accommodate up to a XL-ATX motherboard.

A professional cable management look is possible with little effort. This is thanks to high quality grommets on the cable management holes and utilizing the many cable tie zones. Smarter and larger placements of these areas allow for efficiently routing cables. In an effort to reduce installation times, a great number of hardware can be mounted tool-free via the use of the included locking mechanisms or trays. A very large CPU heat sink retention hole has beenplaced in the motherboard tray to allow it to be compatible with most types of CPU and motherboard layouts (Current LGA2011 and AMD FM1 sockets are supported).

The included front panel connections and controls provide a user with the ability to make on-the- fly changes to fan speed and case LEDs while USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, and audio connections are also provided as an added means of convenience. This is topped off by two HDD/SSD X- docks in two 5.25" bays. These make mounting extra drives as easy as loading a Blu- ray/DVD/CD.

RC-1200-KKN1 Specifications

Features and specifications provided by Cooler Master.

Let's take a look at this dramatic case in the next section.

Closer Look: Exterior

The Cosmos II is a very large case, much larger than most full tower cases. The case comprises a steel frame with the trademark Cosmos heavy steel tubes running above and below it. The exterior is largely plastic panels with brushed aluminum trim. You can use the top steel tubes as handles, which is good because this massive case weighs over 47 pounds empty! In my last case review, of the Rosewill Blackhawk-Ultra, I said it was the largest case Benchmark Reviews had ever reviewed. Well, the Cosmos II knocks the Blackhawk-Ultra off that pedestal: it's 3.5" wider, 2.7" taller, and 0.1" deeper...not to mention over 10 pounds heavier!

A signature feature of the Cosmos II is its dramatic, swing-open side panels. Mounted on heavy, motion-damped steel hinges, these doors pivot open from the front of the case. The doors are thick plastic slabs with a brushed aluminum external trim panel, and lift easily off the hinges using the handholds molded into the inside of the door as seen below.

The Cosmos II accessory bundle includes a set of rails for mounting a 2x120mm radiator in place of the lower drive bays, an EPS-12V power extension cable, a bag of assorted screws and standoffs, two sets of keys for the locking external drive bays, and miscellaneous zip ties and adhesive cable holders. A small motherboard speaker and an extremely brief manual (not shown) round out the bundle.

While the Cosmos II is solid black and eschews side panel windows, it nonetheless is a very striking case.

The right side of the case is as featureless as the left, with only a small set of ventilation strakes to break up the brushed aluminum.

The front of the case reveals the I/O ports, a sliding panel that covers the 5.25" drive bays, and the intake for the front 200mm fan.

The front mesh panel snaps off to reveal the included blue LED-lit 200MM intake fan that blows air over the upper drive bays. There's a space for a 120mm fan below it should you wish to add one. The mesh panel serves as an intake air filter.

Let's take a closer look at the details of the exterior in the next section.

Detailed Exterior Features

The front panel slides down to reveal three 5.25" drive bays and two locking, hot-swappable bays for 3.5" SATA drives. I crticized the Cooler Master Storm Trooper for having a hot-swap bay that would only accomodate 2.5" drives; the Cosmos II has the opposite problem, as its hot swap bays only accomodate 3.5" drives. While the bay covers for the 5.25" drives appear to be swing-open doors like the lower 3.5" bays, they're just normal pop-off covers. Only three 5.25" bays seems like too few to me, especially in a case this size. One dual-bay reservior and an optical drive and you're done...

Each 3.5" bay can be locked with a key, and an internal ejection mechanism pushes the drive out for removal when you swing open the bay cover.

Under the sliding panel at the top of the case are the power, reset, and fan controller buttons. You can set low, medium, or high fan speeds for three top fans, two front fans, two HDD fans, and two GPU fans, and the speed can be set individually for each group of fans; LEDs on the fan buttons glow blue, purple, or red to indicate fan speed. A separate "LED" button at the lower right turns fan lighting on or off, but as delivered, only the front fan has LED lighting.

At the back of the case we can see three grommeted holes for water cooling hoses, the mounting area for the rear 140/120mm fan, ten card slots plus an extra accessory slot, and the power supply mounting. Ten card slots means there's enough room for triple or quad-SLI or CrossFireX systems on EVGA Classified series or other XL-ATX motherboards.

Under the top panel (it's secured with a single thumbscrew) are mounting areas for three 120mm fans, or a 3x120mm radiator. The design of the case mandates that the radiator be mounted on the inside of the case, and the fans on the outside in the "pull through" configuration. Double-thickness radiators won't fit.

The bottom of the case is relatively uninteresting, with only the pull-out power supply intake filter. Plastic feet are attached to the bottom rails.

Now let's take a look at the inside of this case.

Closer Look: Interior

Cooler Master says the Cosmos II will handle up to XL-ATX motherboards. While there is no standard for XL-ATX motherboards, the Cosmos II should easily handle larger-than-ATX motherboards like ASUS' Rampage series or Gigabyte's Assassin or EVGA's Classified boards. It won't, however, accommodate HPTX boards, so you EVGA SR-2 owners are out of luck here. The Cosmos II case design has a separate compartment for the power supply and lower drive bays.

In front of the power supply area, two 120mm fans swing out to reveal more six 3.5" drive bays. Combined with the five bays in the upper section and the two hot-swap bays in the front, the Cosmos II can handle thirteen 3.5" drives! Impressive, but I'd trade a lot of these for more 5.25" bays.

Looking towards the front of the case from the inside we can see the three 5.25" bays and the two 3.5" hot-swap bays. The 5.25" bays use standard Cooler Master push-to-latch retainers, but there's no provision for mounting a 3.5" device like a card reader or fan controller in these bays. Each hot-swap bay has a very long (just over two feet) SATA data cable and a four-pin Molex power cable. The inclusions of only three 5.25" bays will limit expansion possibilities for water cooled setups, since a bay reservior will occupy one or two of these spaces, leaving little room for other devices. I suppose you could remove the hot swap bays and install a reservior in their space, but note the lack of standard mounting holes on the panels to either side...

The power supply mounting area looks smaller than it really is, since the rear of the power supply extends about 1" beyond what you'd normally consider the rear of the case.

Let's take a closer look at some of the interior features of this case in the next section.

Detailed Interior Features

The motherboard tray of the Cosmos II isn't removable, but there's a reasonable amount of space behind it, complemented by seven cable management cutouts and fourteen tie-down points.

The Cosmos II has a mass of interior cables: power and LED connections for nine fans (18 cables plus a Molex connector for power), shown here on the left, USB and front panel connector cables in the middle, and SATA interface and power cables for the hot swap bays on the right. The fan cables are run to the fan controller panel on top of the case. Fortunately, the fan cables are both physically labeled and color-coded.

You can remove the lower drive bays and use this area to mount a 2x120mm radiator on its side using the radiator mounting rails included in the accessory kit.

Looking up at the top of the case you can see the single included 120mm top fan as well as mounting spaces for two more. Alternatively you can remove the included fan and mount a standard thickness 3x120mm radiator here, with the fans on top of the case in a pull-through configuration.

This plastic panel on the inside of each side panel can be removed by unscrewing the two small screws you can see at the far right of this image. You can then mount two 120mm fans with screws from the other side of the panel to keep your graphics cards cool, but the screws won't be visible on the outside of the case. It's a lot of extra effort to go to for aesthetics, but that's what you're paying for. However, you'll have to secure and run your fan power cables from this side panel, making sure you have enough slack to allow the panel to swing open. Also, you'll have to unplug the fans each time the panel is removed. Thermaltake has already shown a much cleaner way to have integrated fan power in a removable side panel in their Level 10 GT case.

Let's see what it would be like to build a system in this case.

Building a System

The Cooler Master Cosmos II doesn't have a removable motherboard tray, but there's so much space that building a system is pretty easy anyway. The dramatic swooping rails at the top and bottom of the case, though, mean that it won't lie flat on its side; it will rock a little front-to-back as you work in it. A standard ATX motherboard (an ASUS P8Z68-V Pro) shows how much room is available in this case. Like the Cooler Master Storm Trooper, the Cosmos II has a couple of pre-installed motherboard standoffs with little lips machined into them. These fit into the corresponding holes on the motherboard to precisely locate it so all the other motherboard mounting holes are aligned exactly over their standoffs, and putting the remaining screws in is very easy.

A huge cutout, about as large as is possible without encroaching on the motherboard standoff mounting points, means you should never have a problem mounting third-party coolers with back plates.

With everything installed, the build looks reasonably neat from this side. Note how much room there is between the end of the video card (an NVIDIA GTX280) and the drive bays. There's 15.1" between the back of the case and the drive cages, which is more than enough for the very longest graphics cards.

In the previous image, note how short the power supply looks. This is because about 1" of it protrudes from the rear of the case, as shown below. In fact, the power supply is installed through the rear of the case after attaching it to the mounting shell; the shell is then secured to the case with four thumbscrews.

There's about 3/4" of cable clearance behind the motherboard tray. I prefer an inch of clearance when I can get it, but this will be enough if you're careful with your layout.

At the rear, things aren't as neat. The problem is the morass of fan wiring: with nine separate cables each for fan power and LED, plus a power connector, there are 19 fan-related cables to deal with. I used three of the nine possible fan power connectors (front fan and two lower side fans), and one of the LED connectors (for the front fan, which is the only LED fan delivered with the system). The rear and top fans were connected to fan headers on the motherboard. This left 15 rather long cables to tie up and stuff somewhere out of the way. Despite the bulging wad of cables you can see here, the right side panel closed and latched with no problem.

With the system powered on, lights on the top panel illuminate the various controls. Note that the FRONT and GPU fan speeds are set to their lowest (blue) setting, while the HDD fan is set to medium (purple) and the TOP fan is set to high (red). These speed controls are illuminated and functional even when no fans are connected, as is the case with the TOP and GPU fan headers. The power button looks as if its icon should be illuminated, but the power light is actually the tiny lightning bolt below it; the HDD activity light is visible just to its left. You can slide the top panel down to cover these switches.

In the next section I'll go into my final thoughts and conclusion about the Cooler Master Cosmos II.

Ultra Tower Case Final Thoughts

You can tell the market demographic Cooler Master's aiming at with the Cosmos II case when they call it an "ultra tower". This is a large, very expensive case with enough features to keep anyone happy.

Very expensive cases must be judged to a different standard than less expensive cases. On a less expensive case, I'd praise the multi-speed integrated fan controller, with power and LED connections for nine fans; here, I must criticize the huge mass of separate fan cables, which will be one of your greatest obstacles to a neat build. At this price I'd expect there to be more than one LED fan, and I'd expect all the case fans to be pre-wired. The Thermaltake Level 10 GT case has all of its fans pre-wired to the fan speed and LED controllers (although you can't add any more fans to the controller). A small printed circuit board "header" for all the fan connections would have been a much cleaner solution.

There are other misses: only the two hot-swap bays have SATA backplanes, and their oddly-long data cables mean you'll have to tie the extra length out of the way for your build. The lack of a 3.5" mount for one of the 5.25" bays will limit your choices in card readers and similar accessories.

The weight and size of the case will make moving it difficult for one person; and front-hinged design of the beautiful swing-out side panels, which open and shut with silky authority, mean that you'll need to remove the side panels if you need to get inside the case while it's on your desk or the floor. Rear-hinged panels would have been more convenient.

With three possible radiator mounting points (rear fan area, top fan area, and bottom of the case once the lower drive bays are removed), the Cosmos II is an excellent case for water coolers. The only potential downside is for those who prefer bay reservoirs: with only three 5.25" bays, space can be tight.

All that said, this is still a spectacular case, even with its flaws.

Cooler Master Cosmos II Conclusion

Although we strive for objectivity here at Benchmark Reviews, please remember that each author perceives these points differently, and our conclusions and recommendations will necessarily differ from others. Also, prices can fluctuate and designs change after publication, so that the product we review might not have the same price and specifications of a product that's available later. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested, which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary of each of the areas that we rate.

Although the case is very large, it uses most of its space well, with room for thirteen 3.5" drives, two of which may be hot-swapped. I'd like to see more than three 5.25" bays, though. Being able to gracefully handle XL-ATX motherboards puts this case in an elite group.

Although the case is has the standard solid black color scheme that's so common these days, its size and dramatic styling make it stand out without appearing garish. Rather than the faux-military/industrial look adopted by some (including, I must add, all of Cooler Master's "Storm" series cases), the Cosmos II has a stark elegance.

As you might expect at this price, the quality of the case was impeccable, comparable to Lian Li, although the latter's ascetic design philosophy was obviously not something Cooler Master was interested in! The doors fit perfectly, despite being a lift-off design, and the various buttons and sliding panels excude precision and quality.

Functionally, the Cooler Master Cosmos II is a mixed bag: for every cool feature like the swing-open doors, auto-ejecting hot swap bays, and quad-channel fan controller, there are offsetting misses like the lack of a SATA backplane, only three 5.25" bays, and the immense tangle of wires from the fan controller.

At a suggested retail price of $349.95, this is very expensive case. If your rig will be built on an E-ATX or XL-ATX platform and you have lots of drives, it might be right for you...but even then, from a value point of view, it's hard to justify over much less expensive cases such as Cooler Master's own Storm Trooper.

Pros:

+ Styling makes "all black" look good
+ Accomodates XL-ATX motherboards and lots of 3.5" drives
+ Excellent cable management...except for the fan controller
+ Auto-ejecting, key-lockable hot swap drive bays
+ 2x120 and 3x120 radiator mounting points
+ Intgegrated quad-channel fan controller handles up to 9 LED-lit fans

Cons:

- Very large. Very heavy. Very expensive.
- Only three 5.25" bays
- Tangled mass of fan controller wiring difficult to deal with
- Front-hinged doors look dramatic but obstruct interior of case when working from the front
- Hey. Where's my SATA backplane?
- Will not lie flat on its side

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.5
• Appearance: 9.0
• Construction: 9.5
• Functionality: 8.5
• Value: 7.5

Final Score: 8.8 out of 10.

Quality Recognition: Benchmark Reviews Silver Tachometer Award.

Benchmark Reviews invites you to leave constructive feedback below, or ask questions in our Discussion Forum.

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