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FPSLabs Home: Cooler Master CM 690 Review

By: Oscar Meade - Published September 26, 2007 at 4:58 AM EDT - Writer Archive
You are looking at the best bang-for-buck chassis we've ever reviewed at FPSLabs. Ever. Cooler Master shows how it's done when you stuff as much features into a case and manage to maintain an extraordinary value.

Category: Case
Manufacturer: Cooler Master
Product: CM 690
Gallery: Click Here
Price: $59.99

Introduction
When reviewing cases we try to look for what works and what doesn't. Cooler Master has brought a certain aesthetic design that enthusiasts commonly look for when choosing to upgrade their PC chassis. Cooler Master's niche revolves around pleasing their customers by offering innovative designs beyond expectations. The Cooler Master CM 690, or the 690 as we'll refer to it throughout this review, has some of the best and worst qualities we've seen in a case of this size and price class. If you look back through our Catalog system of past reviews, you'll generally notice that we really commend designs that offer standout features that actually work. If it doesn't, we'll say it no matter how good the rest of the specs are. It's our duty to show you what to expect when building a system inside this case and what peculiarities you might run into while using this case on a day-to-day basis.

Specifications

Test Setup

Hardware Configuration

  • Case: Cooler Master CM 690
  • Power Supply: Antec TruePower Trio 650
  • Motherboard: DFI Lanparty 939 nForce4 Ultra
  • Processor: AMD Opteron 146 2.0GHz (Overclocked 2800 MHz)
  • Hard Drive: Seagate 320GB SATA
  • Hard Drive: Seagate 300GB SATA
  • Hard Drive: Maxtor 250GB SATA
  • Video: eVGA NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express
  • Memory: OCZ Dual-Channel PC4000 Gold Edition VX 1024MB
  • Optical: Lite-ON 52x CD-RW
  • Audio: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
  • Cooling: Zalman CNPS9500 CPU Cooler
  • Cooling: ThermalRight HR-05 Chipset Heatsink
  • Display: Samsung Syncmaster 710N 17" LCD

Software Configuration

  • Motherboard BIOS: NF4LD406 BIOS Update Revision A (2006/04/06)
  • Chipset: NVIDIA nForce4/500 Series 6.86 32-bit WHQL Certified
  • Operating System: Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
  • Video Driver: NVIDIA ForceWare Release 162.18 32-bit WHQL Certified
  • Audio Driver: Creative SB Audigy 2 Series Driver 02.09.0016
  • Test Software: Orthos Prime v20060420
  • Test Software: Futuremark 3DMark 2006 1.1.0
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User Comments

1
106% Ranking 106% Ranking 106% Ranking 106% Ranking
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Cooler Master some of the best cases when it comes to bang for buck.

The Centurion 5 though is a more popular case.
Go Read a Book =)
2
64% Ranking 64% Ranking 64% Ranking 64% Ranking
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Good review, looks like a great case for the price!
3
38% Ranking 38% Ranking 38% Ranking 38% Ranking
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i have this case and it's awesome. lots of room and yea it does get really heavy when you put all your stuff in it. i even added all the fans to the empy vents and cools my E6600 (2.4ghz) which is set to 3.1ghz and the temperature only went up 1-2 degrees celsius.
4
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I'll probably be upgrading soon, I'll definitely keep this case in mind.
Samuel "_Loaded" Hollifield
5
34% Ranking 34% Ranking 34% Ranking 34% Ranking
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I bought this case once I saw it on Newegg. I was pretty impressed... changing out fans was kind of a pain in the ass and I can't get my floppy to sit right with the screwless crap. The power supply sitting on the bottom is usually considered a pro but it's annoying when you have to run the processor power cord all the way across the mobo -- very hard to put it out of the way. The final problem I had was the cable-management system crap that the case came with gets in the way of the IDE ribbons so you have to take a few of those out.

Very pleased though, lots of room for expandability and it really pushes air.
=]
6
13% Ranking 13% Ranking 13% Ranking 13% Ranking
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niiice case
wha?

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