Test System

Assembly

Installing the motherboard is done by traditional means, with the use of spacers and screws. There is plenty of space on the side and above, so you should run into no issues there. The width of the Mastercase 5 also allows for massive air coolers of up to 190 mm/7.5'' in height - which is nearly unheard of. A quick search for CPU coolers revealed the highest 140 mm tower variants to clock in at 170 mm, so the Mastercase 5 will allow you to use virtually any cooler on the market.

The GPU's length is restricted to 296 mm/ 11.7'' if you fill the front up with HDD cages. Install no cages and you have 412 mm/16.2'' to work with instead. It would be cool of Cooler Master to offer an optional 2.5" HDD bracket for the front. Such a bracket would increase overall flexibility even more - I know you are reading this, Cooler Master.


Use the plastic trays to put a hard drive into an HDD cage. You will have to use traditional screws with a 2.5'' drive, but a 3.5" drive will just snap into the pre-installed pins without the need for any tools, or other such parts.


Once filled, simply slide the tray into place until it snaps into the HDD cage. At this point, the drive will hold in place pretty well, so you won't have to worry about it during transportation.


Adding an optical drive does not require any tools at all - you simply pop out the front cover to slide the drive into place. Once positioned properly, slide the lock into place to pin the drive down. While it does work, there is still some wiggle room, so you should really use a single screw to secure the ODD properly to avoid annoying vibrations it might otherwise produce while in use.


Installing an SSD is done outside of the chassis as well, thanks to the individual trays. You may not need to use screws if you have a thick SSD, but the more recent drives are thin, so you have to use screws to hold those in place. As a last step, simply slide the tray into place. Use the included thumbscrew to firmly attach it to its mounting surface.


To install a power supply, you will first have to detach the frame. Mount it to the power supply with the screws Cooler Master supplies and slide it into place. Once positioned correctly, screw the four thumbscrews back into the chassis to secure it and your PSU in place.


With everything installed, the Cooler Mastercase 5 makes a great, clean impression. I chose to route the power cables for the GPU through the opening in the dividing plate, but it may look cleaner through the grommets on the motherboard tray. Even the back of the chassis looks clean, which is due to the trench and the Velcro strips.

Finished Looks

With the side panels in place, the Mastercase 5 really looks quite spiffy. A white LED lights up underneath the power button as soon as the PC is turned on.


The black optical drive is surrounded by the slightly lighter plastic parts, which looks swell. Behind the mesh panel is the front fan, spinning.


With the large window and that darkened area, you really only see the parts you would want to look at, which does add to the chassis nicely. All the parts in the rear are where you would expect them to be. The large opening for expansion cards creates a slight gap between individual cards. Though rather unusual, this is by no means a problem.