First Impressions
For whatever reason Cooler Master decided to send us the 690 without the actual product packaging. They should have since our 690 arrived with damage to the left side panel in an upper corner. You'll see that it prevented us from closing the side completely since it was impossible to screw in place. We love it when a case is well protected by plush styrofoam and air bags that line the entire interior. Fortunately, this seems to be an isolated incident as we've since received additional review samples from Cooler Master relating to enclosures that were shipped without damage. Jumping straight into the aesthetic elements of the case you'll notice there aren't any doors or gaudy design decisions that stand out. For the most part it follows its Cooler Master Stacker brethren by providing multiple expansion bays and an absurd amount of cooling options. For a mid-tower predominantly constructed using steel it isn't too heavy when empty, but fully loaded you're looking at around 38 pounds. Unfortunately while the paint job is as standard as they come, it still shows fingerprints, but only under direct lighting as shown in these snapshots.


Beside the Cooler Master decal lie the power and reset buttons along with the activity LED's. Although our LED's didn't work, it wasn't a big deal since the included 120mm blue LED fan (and the noise) would alert anyone of the computers on/off status. This may or may not be an odd placement for these buttons depending on your computer setup. If you've got your rig on the floor then it'll be quite the pain to have to reach down every time to power on the system. The power and reset buttons themselves feel perfectly clicky and must be pressed towards a certain angle in order to prevent accidental reboots or shut downs. If you have your system on your desk, you might have to stretch often to reach the external peripheral ports at the top of the case. Perhaps a design mimicking the recently debuted HP Blackbird 002, which this case somehow reminds me of, could be looked at for v2 of this case. Moving on you'll notice the two 140mm or 120mm fan capable air inlets on the left and the 80x15mm fan slot on the right. We always love it when case manufacturers make their designs friendly towards different sized fans. It's something more, if not all case manufacturers should strive to do, so kudos to Cooler Master on that front. What is a bit peculiar is the inclusion of the 80x15mm fan slot. You aren't directly blowing air on a hot component, so what's the point? It doesn't exactly line up with either the bottom of the CPU socket zone or the PWM area, so what's the point? Nonetheless, it's a nice extra feature that doesn't really let the dust bunnies in due to the multi-layered design of the the chassis and the motherboard itself.


The 690 is what you'd call a true mid-size tower, as opposed to say the recently reviewed Antec Sonata III, which is more of a mini-size tower due to it's extra-compact setup perfect for home offices and dorms. Not so with the 690. This case is meant for the enthusiast bent on putting some pretty high-end components in his or her rig. From the get go we can tell you that the longest NVIDIA video cards on the market today will fit perfectly in this case, even in SLI configuration. 'Round back the 690 offers water cooling tube ports for 1/2" diameter systems. Again, an excellent feature for those of us who don't feel like messing up our cases while attempting to get some sweet tubing holes drilled. You might be asking yourself if those purple clips are a part of another unreliable exotic PCI device retention mechanism. Well, you're right, but more on that later. Note the multi-fan size capable slot on the back taking up the top side as the power supply unit is relegated towards the bottom of the case. If you'll look closely you can see the PSU bay is actually lined with protective insulation to minimize rattling from the PSU fan. These details might seem ho-hum but in reality you're starting to notice the trend of extra details packed into the 690. Both top fan slots (also multi-fan size capable) offer built-in dust filters that help cut down on the amount of dust entering the case. That's the thing about the 690, it's really fantastic that there are so many spots for fans, we just wish that the actual inclusion of them physically onto the case wasn't so rough, especially when compared to the NZXT Zero reviewed a while back. Nevertheless for the price you pay you'll understand why some corners may have needed to be cut.


This is where you can see the top external peripheral connection ports. Cooler Master has wisely included the three major connection types in USB 2.0, FireWire, and eSATA. Unfortunately we found that the two USB 2.0 ports are spaced a bit too close to each other and both our Kingston DataTraveler thumb drives collided with one another. Nevertheless, it's nice that they are there. We just wish Cooler Master would have picked a better location that would prevent dust from accumulating in the ports. On the plus side you are able to disconnect unused cables with the exception of the eSATA panel connector if you aren't using them. Since we're using a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS we can't even use the front panel hookups so we dumped the microphone and audio jacks altogether. We sincerely wish manufacturers would offer this feature, even if it isn't intended to be a feature because every bit helps when it comes to cable management. The bottom of the 690 also offers another fan slot which should prove extremely useful for SLI/CrossFire setups and overall airflow across the entire system. We're only testing what fans come with the case since we like to keep it fair here at FPSLabs so stick around for the thermal performance in a few pages.


The actual case feet are some of the nicest and most well-integrated we've ever seen on a case of this size and class. No scissor slide-out feet here, you get full sized Shaq Diesel-sized footprints that don't stick out and tar up the aesthetic design. We know that messed up corner is an eyesore, but remember, you shouldn't be worried over whether or not you'll receive your case like this, it really is an isolated incident. You may not like the looks in the first place, but there is simply no denying the insane amount of features the 690 offers for the $59.99 price as seen on our Price Grabber search engine. When we received the 690 and began to study the user manual we assumed the case would probably retail for approximately $129.99 to around $149.99. When we found out that it was half that we were stunned. It's extremely rare to find such a feature-rich system at such a low price unless it's been out for a very long time. Then again, deeper analysis into the case can reveal why a chassis such as the 690 can afford the low price.