Building With The Evolution BO
The fan power splitters are included with Cougar’s Evolution BO installation kit, as are two plastic grommets that protect the hoses of external liquid cooler from the rough edges of knockout holes.
Hardware installation requires no special considerations, with only two of the included thirteen brass standoffs needed to supplement those already stamped into the motherboard tray. Optical drives slip into place, and can be removed by flipping the lever on the forward edge of their retention mechanism.
The finished build looks great with Samsung’s SSD sticking out of the top and Plextor’s rewritable Blu-ray drive in the second bay. Unfortunately, our optical drive wouldn't fit easily into the top bay because a huge bundle of wires feeding the Evolution BO’s top-panel ports, jacks, and controllers got in the way. A combination of extreme force and finesse might have worked, but ten minutes of fighting was enough for this editor. The top 5.25” bay is best used with lower-profile devices, such as controller panels or 3.5” bay adapters.
