Four ATX Cases For High-Capacity Water Cooling, Reviewed

Features
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Big radiators need lots of space that most enclosures simply weren't designed to offer. We're using Swiftech’s latest triple-fan cooler to test the fitment and performance in four cases supposedly set up to accommodate high-end water cooling setups.

Building With Cooler Master's Cosmos II

Adapter brackets allow the Cosmos II to support a second radiator in place of its lower drive cages. Cooler Master also adds an extra-long (approximately 12”) eight-pin EPS12V extension cable to the expected screws, standoffs, and cable ties in its installation kit.

Because its trayless backplanes only support 3.5” drives, we were forced to install our 2.5” SSD onto a drive tray without a backplane in the central drive cage.

External drives are secured via push-button latches. Also seen in the photo above, the side panel hinge brackets are slotted to allow easy panel removal.

Cooler Master’s installation kit contains most of the Cosmos II’s standoffs, but two standoffs are factory-installed. An extended collar on each of these special standoffs fits mounting holes tightly to positively locate the motherboard.

Cooler Master is one of the few companies to properly use the two-year-old internal USB 3.0 front-panel header. Most of its competitors are living in the far-more-distant past, though the feature is matched by one other product in today’s round-up.

As with Azza's competing Hurrican 2000, the Cosmos II is designed to support fans above the chassis top, and a radiator beneath it. This is how that installation would look, assuming the builder prefers to have these fans mounted as exhaust.

Unfortunately, our radiator requires the fans to be mounted directly to it, creating clearance for its integrated water pump and reservoir. That combination requires 2.3” of mounting space, and the Cosmos II has only 1.8”. Our installation ended here.

Why bother featuring the Cosmos II if we couldn’t test it? Cooler Master sent the case in good faith knowing that triple-fan radiators fit, and it does support most triple-fan radiators. It simply doesn’t fit this triple-fan radiator.

With that said, our invitation clearly stated, “We plan to use Swiftech's H2O-320 Edge HD to enable an easy transfer of the cooling system between cases,” complete with a link to Swiftech's product page. Instead, we’ll let our picture story describe the Cosmos II features that other builders might wish to employ.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
41 Comments Comment from the forums
  • EzioAs
    Too bad we can't see the full build on the cosmos II. Maybe cooler master should have sent the storm trooper instead
    Reply
  • wolfram23
    Should have put the rad in the bottom of the Cosmos II by removing the HDD trays. Seems like it should fit there.

    Also, Swiftech makes a sweet kit although I can't imagine the size of the triple rad. Using the Edge 220 myself, love it. Fits in my Antec 900 II.
    Reply
  • wolfram23Should have put the rad in the bottom of the Cosmos II by removing the HDD trays. Seems like it should fit there.Also, Swiftech makes a sweet kit although I can't imagine the size of the triple rad. Using the Edge 220 myself, love it. Fits in my Antec 900 II.The Cosmos II only accepts a 2 X 120 rad in the HDD compartment. Its too bad that toms wasn't able to complete the build in the cosmos II. Maybe within the end of the year, Cooler Master will introduce the Cosmos S II and fix all those enthusiast complains that i read.
    Reply
  • hellfire24
    i would take Switch!it's a personal choice no offence to others they are great too.
    Reply
  • theuniquegamer
    The Nzxt switch 810 is a good overall case. Too bad they can't fit the rad to cosmos ii . May be they should try the svgtech h80 triple rad air cooler .
    Reply
  • theuniquegamer
    The Nzxt switch 810 is a good overall case. Too bad they can't fit the rad to cosmos ii . May be they should try the svgtech h80 triple rad air cooler .
    Reply
  • Crashman
    theuniquegamerThe Nzxt switch 810 is a good overall case. Too bad they can't fit the rad to cosmos ii . May be they should try the svgtech h80 triple rad air cooler .Guys, I'm collecting suggestions for future uses of the left-over Cosmos II.
    1.) Yes it supports STANDARD 3-fan radiators. It just couldn't be compared to other cases if it had a different cooling system.
    2.) It can probably also be MODIFIED to fit the radiator used in the article.

    So, do you have a custom system suggestion? or are you looking for a modification article? Like I said, I'm taking suggestions. Thanks!
    Reply
  • EzioAs
    For the Cosmos II, try doing a full build with a standard 360 rad in the top and a 240 rad in the bottom compartment with a 3960X cpu and 2 LCS 7970 from powercolor to show the lowest temps and highest overclock on custom watercooling build. Maybe do an extreme build guide or something like that with the cosmos II. Just a suggestion
    Reply
  • acekombatkiwi1
    If you want to stick with Swiftech gear use the 240 edge kit down the bottom with a Swiftech 360 QP up top.
    Reply
  • koogco
    It seems a bit silly to use a rad with bits tagged on the end, since most good cases would be designed without those bits in mind. I can see the apeal of using something that is almost like closed loop, but using one of the optical-bay resevoirs with built in pump might have put you fairly close aswell.
    I would like to see what else you can do with the Cosmos II, perhaps a 240+360rad built with just that case as others suggested.
    Reply