We had been impressed with Coolermaster and the exhaustivity of new products shown the previous years. However, this year, we were a left hanging even if we were able to see some more beautiful things.
Regarding casings, the manufacturers his hopes for the whole of 2008 rest on two products. The first one is obviously the Cosmos S, an improvement from the Cosmos that we had reviewed it last year and really appreciated. On the menu we’ve gotten aluminum, the inevitable lateral glass as indispensable as ever since the Antec SX1030, to admire the casing’s interior and a railings on the front to facilitate the air flow (at the cost of more noise...). Available in a version harboring NVIDIA’s colors, the price should remain quite high since we’re talking about $250. It should be available very soon.
On the other end, the Centurion 590 should be available at a low $59. The equipment-quality-price ratio appears to be excellent for an entry level Coolermaster with no less than 9 5"1/4 bays (never seen before at this price) and no less than 2 x 12 cm fans included (announced at 1200 rpm for 17 dBA). It’ll also be possible to add two more fans on the lateral panel. The Centurion design is of course preserved and still a winner !
On the heat sink side, we discovered the HyperZ 600, a multi socket and passive heat sink. We noted the relatively important space separating the fins, that guarantees a low resistance that’s crucial to allow air flow from the natural convection. It can receive, however, two 12 cm fans. Obviously massive, it integrates 6 heat pipe and aluminum fins (lighter, cheaper and more suitable to spread heat). However we fear some incompatibilities with motherboards that have capacitors too close to the socket because of the design of the universal fixing system. Expected to launch early May at around $45, it’ll have to face strong competition from Scythe and others. It’s around this time that the V8 will also be available. Introduced during the CES, it’s based on 8 heat pipes and a fan in between the heat sinks. Thus Coolermaster remains one of the rare ones to continue the "out of proportion" race for its cooling system, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Finally, we’ll mention that, as with other manufacturer, Coolermaster has many ESA certified products. ESA is NVIDIA’s initiative that allows the monitoring and setting of all PC components that run Windows. From what we gathered, it remains quite complicated when it comes to power supplies and water cooling kits.
