It's tough to find any new PC hardware these days that could be described as "surprisingly affordable," but that seems to be the aim of Cooler Master's new Elite case lineup. The eight cases shown off at the company's headquarters range from basic black mid-towers to wood-accented, dual-chamber designs, plus a pair with curved glass wrapping around the front and sides.
These cases don't break new ground in design or features, but I was surprised when a Cooler Master representative told me they should all have MSRPs under $100, and that one of the curved glass models on display is expected to be just $69. But as he saw the look of surprise on my face, he quickly added, "But we're still dealing with the tariffs, so that's kind of like the global price."
So unless something changes between now and when these cases launch (I was told around September of this year), U.S. customers will almost certainly be paying more for these cases than most of the rest of the world. The company rep did, though, tell me that Cooler Master is working on ways to bring these cases to the U.S. while still keeping pricing low, while also letting me know that not all of the models shown will make it to the U.S. market.
Because of tariff uncertainty, most companies I've talked to here at Computex have avoided stating pricing for the U.S. market at all. Given that many products are often shown months ahead of availability, and many U.S. tariff details are still in flux, that's certainly understandable.
Still, it's impressive that Cooler Master is aiming at such low prices for the Elite case line, given how nice they look. But to be fair, there are some sacrifices to hit low price points.
The top panels of the curved glass Elite cases are plastic (although you wouldn't know by looking). And it's unclear if the RGB fans in the cases on display will be included in all models. I do, though, like the exhaust fan used in most of these cases, which has a module on the bottom that displays the fan RPM and temperature.
This readout was included on all of the exhaust fans on display in this line, save for the lower-end 300 and 500 series (which seem to have already launched earlier this year), so I hope the RPM and temperature display makes its way to the 600 series models.
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