| Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Cases | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by David Ramsey | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 12 September 2012 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Computer Case Review
Manufacturer: Cooler Master Full Disclosure: Cooler Master provided the product sample used in this article. The last Cooler Master case I reviewed was the enormous (and enormously expensive) Cosmos II. This case is so huge that Cooler Master felt obliged to define a new category for it: the "ultra tower". It was so big it wouldn't fit under my desk, and so heavy, even empty, that it's very difficult for one person to lift it to the top of their desk The Elite 120 Advanced is about as far from the Cosmos II as you can get and still be considered a "computer case". Since it's designed to use a standard ATX power supply and has a full-sized 5.25" bay, some might argue that it's on the large end of the mini-ITX case spectrum, and while they'd be right, it's still pretty tiny in absolute terms.
While Cooler Master has a broad line of cases, the Elite 120 Advanced is currently their only mini-ITX case. Since it can accommodate a full-sized ATX power supply and video card, there doesn't seem to be any reason you couldn't build a killer small gaming system in it. Features and specifications supplied by Cooler Master. RC-120A-KKN1 Features
Elite 120 Advanced Specifications
Let's take a closer look at this case in the next section. Closer Look: ExteriorThe Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced case exterior is painted black steel and black plastic, with aluminum accent panels on the front. There are two USB 2.0 ports on the left, with a single SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port on the right, below the power and reset switches and the power and drive activity lights. I've enhanced this image to make the power and reset buttons more visible; in normal room light they're all but impossible to see. The (removable) upper trim panel covers the 5.25" drive bay. 
The left side of the case is ventilated, which is good since it provides intake air for your graphics card's cooler if you're using a discrete graphics card.
At the rear of the case we see a clever Cooler Master design touch: a power supply mounting bracket that moves the power supply about 1/2" outside of the case (oddly, they used this same trick in the gigantic Cosmos II). This design keeps overall case size down while allowing the use of standard ATX power supplies. Below the power supply is a ventilation grille and the I/O panel for the motherboard. To the right are the two slot openings (mini-ITX motherboards have but a single slot, but a dual-slot graphics card still needs two openings), and a rubber-grommeted hole for...something else. 
The right side of the case is a mirror image of the left side. You can see a small internal fan at the lower right section of the grille.
The bottom of the case seems initially boring, until you notice all the tie-down points. This will be significant later on as I'll show you in the section on the build.
The front panel snaps off easily since there are no attached wires. This reveals the 120mm intake fan, which blows over the hard disk bays, and the 5.25" drive bay directly above.
Given the solid-appearing front panel, you might wonder where the front intake fan gets its air. The intake ports aren't readily visible but are at the sides of the center aluminum trimmed section of the front panel.
Let's take a look inside this intriguing case in the next section.
Closer Look: InteriorThe top cover is secured with three thumbscrews and lifts off easily once they're removed. Below the 5.25" drive bay are the three 3.5" drive bays, just behind the 120mm intake fan. This will keep cool air flowing across the drives which means that your VelociRaptor won't bake itself.
A small 80x15mm cooling fan is positioned to blow air across your motherboard. This, along with the 120mm front fan, comprise the case's cooling system...hardly "unprecedented", but it should still be adequate. Both fans are equipped with adapter cables with both four-pin Molex and three-pin header connectors so that you may connect them either to the motherboard or your power supply. Since a discrete graphics card will block airflow out of the opposite side of the case, and the power supply will blow airflow out of the top of the case, the small ventilation panel above the motherboard's I/O section is really the only exhaust available.
The 3.5" drive bays are riveted into place, but you don't need to remove them. Cooler Master supplies snap-in rails for up to three 3.5" hard drives, and plastic adapters that allow you to install 2.5" drives or SSDs in two of the three bays. Each of these plastic adapters holds two 2.5" devices, one upside down below the other. This particular way of mounting two 2.5" devices strikes me as rather useless since the power connectors will be inverted relative to each other, making connecting both to SATA power connectors on the same cable all but impossible. 
A standard Cooler Master locking mechanism secures your 5.25" device. This is one of the better screwless latching mechanism I've used; the spring tension is low enough to let you push the drive in, flip the latch to "Lock", and then slide the drive the rest of the way in until it snaps into place. 
Unlike ATX cases you're familiar with, the tiny size of a min-ITX case doesn't allow for things like a separate motherboard tray. Let's give this case a real test: building a system in it. Building a SystemWhile historically mini-ITX motherboards have been low-power designs best suited to home theater or server use, we're starting to see a number of mini-ITX motherboards aimed at the enthusiast. Several vendors have or are releasing LGA1155 mini-ITX boards based on Intel's latest Z77 chipset. Paired with the right video card and CPU, such a motherboard can be a good basis for a high performance, readily portable gaming rig. But when dealing with the space constraints of this case and mini-ITX builds in general, you must choose your components carefully. You'll need a CPU cooler that will fit within the limited confines of the case (of course you can use the stock Intel cooler); in particular, the CPU cooler cannot extend beyond the edges of the motherboard, and in most cases the height of the cooler will be severely limited. Mini ITX motherboards only have two memory slots, so consider how much RAM you'll need now and in the future. Here are the major components I used for this build:
You'll also want to consider the video card and hard drive you select due to ventilation limitations. "Reference design" cards with a single axial fan that expels all hot air from the rear of the case are better than dual-fan video cards that exhaust part of their heat back into the case; these will create a hot spot in the dead air zone in front of the card. And even though this case is on the large side of the min-ITX case spectrum, interior space is still at a premium, so I chose a short, 140mm long SilverStone modular power supply along with a short cable set to make the most of the limited space available. With the motherboard, drives, and power supply installed, things look pretty clean. However, this is the point at which you would be well advised to stop and think carefully about your cable routing options. There's no motherboard tray to tuck extra cable length behind, and precious little space elsewhere in the case to do so.
This shot shows some of the tie-down points on the base of the case that Cooler Master has included to help with cable management. You can also use holes in the frame rails as cable tie points. Again, a little planning goes a long way at this stage.
This image shows how I routed the front panel wires along the front of the motherboard, securing them with zip ties at the supplied tie down points. Some short SATA cables help reduce clutter as well.
You can't loop ties over the top of the side rails-- that would interfere with the fit of the cover. But you can slip them through holes in the rails and wrap around the bottom of the rail to secure wires as shown below.
The 80x15mm side fan is right up against the ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe' unusual vertical VRM board. I suppose having air blowing right on this board is a good thing; air coming off the CPU cooler should help cool the component side. 
The position of the power supply limits your CPU cooler selection. With the very low profile GeminII M4 cooler, there's less than 1/2" of space between the bottom of the power supply and the top of the 15mm cooler fan. This is about the minimum you'd want for good airflow. 
There's lots of room for video cards, though, as this NVIDIA GTX570 shows. There's even enough vertical space clear above the card to fit cards with large, shrouded third party coolers, although the card itself still must fit within two slots. 
Even with the most careful cable routing I could come up with, and the short cable kit for my power supply, things still get kinda tight at the top. Aside from fabricating your own custom-length power supply cables, this is about as good as you can do. Imagine the mess with a standard power supply with cables designed for an ATX tower! 
Join me in the final section as I present my thoughts and conclusion about this case. Mini ITX Case Final ThoughtsIt's good to see other manufacturers getting into what I'll call (for the lack of a better term) the "enthusiast mini case market". While perhaps not quite as sleek and elegant as the SilverStone SUGO SG-08 case I reviewed recently, the Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced case costs exactly 1/4 as much. Granted, the SilverStone case includes a 600 watt 80 Plus Bronze power supply, but even adding in the cost of a SilverStone Strider 500W full modular power supply (also an 80 Plus Bronze unit) and short cable kit, the Elite 120 Advanced is still about $70 less expensive. Cooler Master's decision to include a full-sized 5.25" bay gives you more options than does a slim optical or slot-load drive bay. And using rather thick steel for the case body and frame rails means that you don't have to be as careful with it as you do the SG-08: I could pick the fully populated Elite 120 Advanced case up by one of its frame rails without worrying about the rail bending under the load.
The whole point of a mini-ITX system is "small size", so building such a system for the enthusiast market is a balancing act. Small size means airflow restrictions and cabling headaches, and the two cases I've reviewed so far make different tradeoffs. The SilverStone SG-08 has excellent processor and motherboard airflow with the 180mm Air Penetrator fan blowing down from the top of the case, but the hard drives receive no ventilation at all, while the Cooler Master case has less airflow to the CPU and motherboard but compensates with excellent hard drive cooling. The SilverStone's included power supply has short cables and is much easier to deal with than most standard power supplies would be in the Cooler Master case. Although the Elite 120 Advanced is not as dramatic a design as the SG-08, it's obvious a lot of thought went into it: take, for example, the multiple tie-down points throughout the case interior which make cable management much, much easier to deal with than in the SilverStone case. This case appears to have been designed by people who actually build systems into their cases. Like the SG-08, the Elite 120 Advanced has no integrated memory card reader. I wish Cooler Master could have at least included an SD card slot using the other channel of the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port that they didn't bring to the front of the case. Of course, with the 5.25" bay, you can add your own card reader; there are even brackets that fit a slim optical drive and a 3.5" bay devices into a single 5.25" bay so that you can have both. CM Elite 120 Advanced ConclusionThe Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced case is the result of solid design with a real sense of what system builders need. The fact that it's a mere $49.99 is a bonus. A min ITX case doesn't have the expansion capability of a full sized case, but a 5.25" bay and three hard drive bays will satisfy the needs of the majority of users. Any double-slot graphics card will fit, and the new Z77-based mini ITX motherboards available will accept any LGA1155 CPU you like. Again, the limited interior space does require careful planning and execution of your cable management strategy. The black with gray aluminum accents is becoming a Cooler Master styling trope; indeed, the family resemblance to the Cosmos II and other Cooler Master cases is obvious. Still, it's not as striking or "in your face" as many of the sci-fi or military themed cases available today, but rather is just interesting enough to be noticeable. The case body and frame are steel, with a plastic and aluminum front bezel. The steel used for the frame is sturdy enough to make moving the open system easy since you can use the frame rails as handles. The removable steel cover is secured with three thumbscrews, and goes on and off easily. Everything fits well and the construction quality is what you'd expect from a major vendor like Cooler Master. My one complaint is that the black plastic power and reset buttons at the front of the case are virtually invisible. My main functional concern with this case is motherboard cooling. The proximity of the power supply mandates the use of a very small CPU cooler, and while the tiny 80x15mm side fan would help more on motherboards that didn't have the ASUS' vertical VRM panel, that's still not a lot of airflow. The 120mm front fan does blow air straight towards the back of the case but in most builds this airflow will be blocked by a tangle of cables between the motherboard and the drive cage. Intake air filters would have been a nice touch, but it's easy to remove the cover and simply give the interior a few blasts of compressed air. Although you'll want to plan things carefully, the many cable tie-down points make the necessary cable management easier than it would otherwise be. For $49.99 at Newegg, this is the least expensive mini ITX case I can find that can credibly claim to be aimed at the enthusiast market. It's slightly larger than the very smallest such cases, but its price and features are hard to beat. At the end of the day, this case impresses me with its combination of features and excellent value. Pros:
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Comments
Besides the enormously wide fan mounts, the pitifully tiny front-fan intake ports can't possibly help anything. At all. CoolerMaster is known for poor performing fans supplied in their cases that are regularly tossed and replaced by any conscientous builder. Myself included. CM should just keep the fans and lower the case price commensurately.
You should've mentioned that Ivybridge cpu's are strictly verboten due to practically zero cooling. There's really no mention of the loud, high-pitched whine from the side fan, either.
This case definitely needs an 80mm. top exhaust fan, but then it wouldn't work since there's no air intake source, so this point is rendered moot. I seriously doubt intake filters would be worthwhile since there's so little air intake to begin with.
On the other hand, this case is a prime example of what the consumer should NOT buy. Congratulations on proving this very point! Thanks for the heads up! I generously give this case an overall rating of 6.5. It is quite cute, though it is rather unusable for even a very slightly warm-running system.
BTW, what does the above post have to do with this case review?
If you don't like the "loud, high-pitched whine" (certainly not what I heard) from the side fan, then remove it. Just four screws.
The case design leaves no space for an 80mm top exhaust fan, so I don't know where you'd put one.
I've been running my personal Hackintosh in this case since I received it, using the hardware mentioned in the article, and haven't had any overheating problems at all.
The first comment has nothing whatsoever to do with the review. Perhaps Olin can remove it.
I've been building air-cooled PC's since Win3.x, and I've certainly never seen 1 or 2 fans perform well at such small sizes. I certainly won't be using any fans under 120mm ever again. As to CM not making any fans that perform well, I'll rebuke that with the fans that came in my game rigs current case, the Storm Sniper Black Edition. These 3 great big honking 200mm fans are whisper quiet at full speed and move more than enough air to keep my OC'ed 4GHz AMD Phenom 2 X6 rig supplied with enough cool air that my Noctua NH-D14 doesn't even hiccup when they are set at the lowest speed.
Frankly, the fans on the review case don't perform to your standards simply because they are small. To perform better they would need to be faster, which means they would be louder, also. Seeing that your already complaining about the noise, I doubt you'd appreciate it.
When I get a chance to pull out the motherboard I'll have another look. Might be a few days though. Thank you for the quick reply David.
If I've missed something please let me know. With the exception of this one issue everything installed fine. Although, I do fine the front & side fans a little noisy (emiting a buzzing sound from both fans) so I expect to swap them out soon.
Thanks for the detailed review David.
I'm using an ASUS P8Z77-I motherboard; is that what you're using?
Here is a pic of my kit showing the rubber pads (lower portion of pic), #prohardver.hu/dl/cnt/2012-05/85571/cm_geminii_m4_2.jpg, and although it's tough to judge the hight of the pads from this pic, they add apprx. 1/8" to 3/16" (guessing, don't have them in front of me). Add this to the already raised back plate and that's why it comes into contact with the bottom of the case -- interesting that you didn't experience this.
Thanks for continuing to stick with me on this issue David.
Dave, I misspoke when I said I was using the rubber padding (that turned out to be on another machine; I have lots of 'em around here). I'm using the large multipurpose bracket shown in your image. The four black Intel "feet" face down on the motherboard, with the raised center section sitting slightly about the backing plate on the motherboard.
Where, exactly, are you having component clearing problems?
Although he is using a different CM cooler the back plate appears to be the same as the Geminii M4. The MoBo is also different but it shows alsmost exactly what I'm experiencing with the P8Z77-I.
Wish I had more time to remove the board from my system and take a few pic's but I'm Currently out of town working long hours -- just enough time to type this then hitting the sack.