Cooler Master CM-690 Chassis - RC-690-KKN1-GP
Cooler Master 690 without Power Supply

This is a well-built, and rather heavy case. After working with cheaper cases it was nice to have something that was obviously well thought out. The tool free, pull-out hard drive enclosures were a breeze to work with. The tool-less 5.25" holders are nice, but I still felt more comfortable with screwing the DVD drives in on the other side. It could still use some work, however. The cable holders are, IMO, just this side of useless, and seemed to do more in getting in the way of mounting the motherboard than anything else. Seeing as how they can't do anything you couldn't accomplish with a few zip ties, I'd just as soon get rid of them. And although the 120mm fan mount on the bottom of the case looks like a cool idea, that goes away as soon as you put in the power supply. With a 700W Rocketfish PSU, 6 SATA cables, and all the power connections required to make the whole thing work, that space was very much occupied, and even if I could have pulled everything away from the cage itself, there still would have been a mass of wiring blocking the air flow. I'm also not entirely happy with how the front panel is removed. True, you just need to grab the bottom and pull, but pulling on plastic like that makes me nervous that it could break eventually if you do it too often. Still, it is a very solid case, and about as good of a value as you could hope for in cases these days.
 
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This case is very well engineered and made. Be aware that this case is LARGER that most Mid towers and can hold a lot of hardware, which might be desirable for some. Additional connectors for USB, Audio and external SATA are conveniently, for me, located on TOP of the case. Power Supply unit is located on a bottom. My only minor complain is that the wires from front fan are short and I had to re-route them to be able to plug into mobo. Connecting the fan directly to power supply is not an issue, but in that case I would lose intelligence built into my ASUS mobo to monitor and adjust it's speed. Overall - I recommend this case, but again, be aware of it's size.
 
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This is a very well made case. Even the plastic parts are solid. It comes with a bunch of screws, has PLENTY of room inside (for 2 radeon hd4870s even) and keeps my parts well ventilated and cool. For the money this is a no-brainer. Don't spend hundreds when you get everything you need with this.
 
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I spent three weeks looking for the "perfect" case, and this is the case I decided on; and I LOVE it. This case is HUGE for a mid tower. It perfectly fits everything I need. Plenty of room for my 9800 GT vid. card (infact, would have enough room for 2-3 if I wanted to SLI). If you need a case with plenty of room, GREAT cooling, etc - this is the one to choose.
 
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First I've owned other Cooler Master cases, and second I read plenty of reviews so I knew what to expect. I understood that the cable slot (to pass your power supply cables behind the motherboard tray) would be too small to work with my power supply. I modified that condition with a dremel tool in minutes. That leaves my only complaint being, the way the power switch works - namely it doesn't clearly depress as I would expect. Other than that, this case is great! It has nice "Tool-less" features that work. There is plenty of room! And the cooling potential is superb! (I have 7 of 8 possible fans installed - with the exception being the bottom fan because my power supply is too long) The system I installed runs a pair of 8800GTs in SLI, so having good cooling was a requirement. So Overall this case is an excellent design, and I expect it to serve my needs for years to come.
 
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Like my reaction to so many things the Cool Master 690 is a double edged sword. First the good. The case is very roomy easily fitting a 600 Watt power supply, several Sata devices, a full size ATX board and an Nvidia 9800GTX. Appearance wise the 690 takes a back seat to no other. It looks great in its solid black (solid and mesh steel) and chrome attire. There were no real sharp edges to worry about either though that is almost a given now on even the most modest solutions. Amongst other nice features are both Sata and USB external connectors. Nice blue LED fan in front which is whisper quiet. Lots of room for devices. Plenty of places for optional fans. Comes ready for your water cooling solution. Buy dot com is great with speedy shipping! So what didn't I like? Well for one the external connectors are all on top of the case. This can be a problem if you are fitting the case in a computer center or other such area where the top of the case becomes virtually inaccessible rendering the connectors useless. Secondly while the front and rear fans where extremely quiet, the noticeably cheaper side cover fan was a buzzing nightmare. Luckily it served no real purpose for so I simply removed it. Lastly the case is only half screwless. I assume the anticipation was that you really only needed to secure one side of you high speed DVD and HDD devices but I am not sure why. In order to firm up the other side you have to resort to screws. Also the front is a snap on cover, hard to get off almost to the point of fearing you will break it in the process and not a snap to get back on. It made me wonder why Cool Master did not use some better thought in this regards and resorted to some very archaic design elements. So much so that while I was building up the box I commented to myself several times that this case reminded me of everything that I have hated about PC building (some 50 or so units) in the last 15 years. Ok so all that being said. I really do like the case. Putting it together is not necessarily fun but once you go through the process you end up with a very attractive and whisper quiet (save for the side fan) box. So I have given it one thumb up and a four overall.
 
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This case is really sharp, and well built, a ton of fan mounts, 8 in all i think, most off them will take an 80mm-140mm fan, only issue I had was that my power-supply cable(24-pin) was too short "ps mounts at bottom of case" and the motherboard mounts at the top. I ordered an extension 24-pin, but finally decided to get a new power-supply. It is worth every penny, plus free shipping....You can't beat that!!!!!!!!!
 
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No complaints except for... -->No screws for mobo provided. -->The plastic clips that hold each HDD front cover are weak and flimsy. I broke two of them while removing or putting back covers. --> Side case fan is noisy (running it at 100% though) -->Front of the case is hard to remove and required a good amount of force. I'm overall satisfied with the case though.
 
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The shipping was lightening fast. I used the free shipping option and it was on my doorstep in NY in 2 days! The case is a perfect size. It easily accommodates my very large OCZ Vendetta 2 cpu cooler. It holds up to 5 140mm fans. 2 on top, 1 on bottom, and 2 on side panel. I added 2 140mm Yate Loon fans on top as exhaust and 1 on the bottom as intake. The cooling and ventilation are superior. I have an e7200 cpu oc'd to 3.9Ghz with idle temps of 36c and load at 55c! My 8800gt oc'd to 750Mhz idles at 42c and full load high 50s! Buy this case. This is by far the best price I found, especially since I was able to use GCO.
 
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Mid tower case with a good amount of room inside it compared to a lot of the other mid tower cases on the market. There are five external 5 1/4 " drive bays that are all mesh covered for ventillation (there is an ventilated drive cover and mount for mounting a floppy drive in one of them but its inside the case pressed into one of the 5 1/4 drive bays). The covers have to be removed by removing the front of the case first and are a bit of the tight side so be caseful to bend the removal tabs just snough to remove them. If you bend them too far they will not return back to their normal position. A good amount of force is required to remove the front of this case but dont be aftaid .. you wont break the front. It's pretty sturdy. The internal HDD mounts are a nice touch and are mounted 90 degrees from that you may be used to. Tyey are a bit on the flimsy side so be careful and follow the directions on the included pamphlet to see how to mount them. One thing to note... because the rear power and data connections of the hdd (sata is mostly used nowadays ) are so close to the right side panel you definitely should get the data cable that has a 90 degree bend. Those makes the clearance not an issue at all. The only real odd part of the case / part that i do not really like are the power and reset switches. They are mounted almost at a 45 degree angle at the junction of the right side and front of the case. A bit inconvenient and they DO require a fair amount of force to get them to work. The three fans included do a good job although they are not silent. I have an Abit IP35 Pro with an Intel E6850 cpu and a cooler master 550 watt power supply and the internal temps run between 26 and 32 degrees celcius( idle to loaded fairly full )....not bad at all. There are also providions made for adding 5 additional fans. One additional fan in the left side panel, one under the bottom mounted power supply, two at the top rear and one on the right side panel to provide air from under the motherboard. ( nice touch ...but the botton and right side fans have to be exceptionally thin or its a no go. All in all i give this case between a 4 and 5.
 
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