Cooler Master iTower 930

Conclusions

The iTower is clearly trying to do something a bit different. It has started life as a fairly standard steel case, but been souped up with quick-fit hard drives, the little reset button on the back and a big strut across the middle for fan ducting and graphics retention. These are all good features, but don't really work with enthusiast components which tend to be bigger and heftier than your average bits of kit.

Value: The case will be available next month, and will cost an estimated £89 inc VAT. We have to say that this is too much. You can get the sublime WaveMaster case for a mere £88 these days, and that is one of the greatest cases ever machined - and is all aluminium. Sure, you don't get the quick-fit hard drive mechanism, but you will survive.

Potential: There is some room in the case if you take out the various extras, which means you could possibly squeeze in in a watercooling loop if you wanted to. However, unlike many cases where there are plenty of obvious places to put a radiator, the mounting system for the PSU means that there isn't much room at the top of the case and there is only room for a single 120mm radiator on the rear panel - you'd have to think about running something externally.

I do like the hard drive cage - it's a very handy thing if you need to swap drives very often, and it's clearly an elegant solution. However, most people really don't swap drives that often, so whether or not this interests you will depend on the number of drives you have.

I would like Cooler Master to have made this case a trifle bigger. As it is, it just feels a little too cramped, even for a mid-tower. There's very little opportunity for hiding PSU cables and the lack of room at the front of the case means that hard drive cables and the ATX cable can interfere with the drive bays.

Final thoughts

The iTower 930 is fairly plain base case with some added features that aim to take it above the standard steel monstrosities on the market. Unfortunately, aside from the hard drive rack, the features don't really add to the case, and in some ways make usage more awkward. For the money, we'd go with a more proven case like the WaveMaster or even, for the same money, a Lian Li PC60.