Cooler Master Cosmos II 25th Anniversary Edition Review

Cooler Master Cosmos II 25th Anniversary Edition Review

Manufacturer: Cooler Master
UK price (as reviewed): MSRP £299.99 (inc VAT)
US price (as reviewed): MSRP $349.99 (ex tax)

Every company needs a flagship case, and for Cooler Master that case has been the Cosmos for the last decade. It's seen a number of revisions, not least of all moving up from the standard Cosmos chassis to the Cosmos II around five years ago. This year marks the company's 25th anniversary, and to mark the occasion and also to dish out out some extra cash in the prize pool for its recent modding competition, Cooler Master has once again tweaked this hefty case to add some modern features.


Gone are the attractive metal side panels and in their place are some gorgeous bent tempered glass sheets. These have no bezels - just some rear metal supports - so the design is as seamless as it is attractive. As usual, these swing out on hinges and can also be removed fairly easily. The downside to using glass is the weight, and this is something of an issue for the Cosmos II 25th Anniversary Edition. It weighs in at 23kg, so needless to say if it's kitted out with an extra 20kg of hardware, water-cooling gear, and coolant, you'll be dealing with a monstrous system.


In addition to the glass side panels, Cooler Master has added an engraved aluminium motherboard tray, solid brushed aluminium handles, an ambient blue lighting LED strip, and has also returned to the silver colour scheme of the original Cosmos case. Thankfully, though, while the Cosmos II 25th Anniversary Edition sports some extra features on top of the standard model, it costs about the same with an MSRP of £299 - still not within the realms of many people's budgets, but it's nice to see a case of this calibre not automatically demanding an extra £100 just for being some sort of special edition.

Much of the rest of the case, as we already mentioned, is identical to the Cosmos II. You get the same high quality front panel that sports six USB ports, two of them USB 3.0, the usual audio jacks, and a button-controlled, four-channel fan controller that offers low, medium, and high speeds as well as a control for the ambient lighting which comes courtesy of a Molex-powered LED strip.


The three external 5.25in bays can be covered up by a sliding hydraulic panel, so externally you won't be spoiling the show by adding an optical drive or fan controller, plus they're useful for bay reservoirs too. There's a similar panel on top of the case that covers up the front panel buttons too. The base of the case offers a PSU dust filter as well as a few screws that can be used to remove the internal drive cages.

Specifications

• Dimensions (mm) 344 x 665 x 704 (W x D x H)
  
• Material Steel, tempered glass, aluminium, plastic
  
• Available colours Silver with black
  
• Weight 23kg
  
• Front panel Power, reset, 2 x USB 3.0, 4 x USB 2.0, stereo, microphone
  
• Drive bays 3 x external 5.25", 2 x external 3.5" 11 x 3.5"/2.5"
  
• Form factor(s) E-ATX, ATX, micro-ATX
  
• Cooling 1 x 200mm/140mm/120mm front fan mount (1 x 200mm LED fan included), 1 x 140mm/120mm rear fan mount (1 x 140mm fan included), 1 x 200mm or 2 x 140mm or 3 x 120mm roof fan mounts (1 x 120mm fan included), 3 x 120mm internal fan mounts (2 x 120mm fans included)
  
• CPU cooler clearance 190mm
  
• Maximum graphics card length 385mm
  
• Extras Removable dust filters, four-channel fan controller