Conclusion
The Cooler Master CM 690 offers a chassis that is perfectly designed for the budget conscious consumer who seeks a deliciously feature rich case. We said it before and we'll say it again, despite the monstrous mistake of being unable to install old school ATA/IDE hard disk drives and the exotic PCI retention mechanism being practically useless, this chassis still provides an impressive amount of value. Cooler Master managed to pack so many small touches into this case that it's hard to ignore the potential this case has for housing your system long term. If you want to pack in some of the longer video cards of today, you'll have no problem installing them. Just make sure you keep an eye on those temperatures and if they are uncomfortably toasty, add in another 140mm fan for starters.

Pros
+ Lots of space to work with
+ Capable of housing multiple fans across multiple sizes
+ Ability to customize 5.25" drive bay installation at will
+ Included routing cable clips help lessen wire mess
+ HDD mounting mechanism wonderfully easy to use
+ 5.25" optical drive installation method is the easiest we've encountered to date
+ Superb external port variety with USB, FireWire, eSATA
+ Cable management chore is alleviated by overall design
+ Water cooling friendly
+ Built-in screw holder ingenious
+ Price!

Cons
- External peripheral connection ports exposed to dust
- USB 2.0 ports too close to one another
- Internal routing clips too close to motherboard
- External fan mounts are a bit unpolished
- Relatively noisy machine, especially under load
- ATA/IDE hard drives are blocked and cannot be used
- Exotic PCI device retention apparatus completely useless
- Side panels may be too stiff

Rating
9 out of 10

The Cooler Master CM 690 shows us what happens when manufacturers attempt to come up with new designs, especially when it comes to securing PCI devices. Although this and the anti-IDE HDD bay are pretty big mistakes on the part of Cooler Master, the insane amount of features at this price range is unheard of. Yes, it doesn't exactly sit well with us that not all of the devices work as they should, but for the most part Cooler Master definitely has an ace up their sleeve and the Cooler Master 690 is it. We understand that the Cooler Master CM 690 is certainly a great looking case but these physical faults and the fact that it came in dead last in every single thermal performance test prevents it from scoring any higher according to our Rating Criteria. The thing to note is that it wasn't extremely far behind and any thermal problems can easily be cured by adding an additional fan. Overall the Cooler Master CM 690 is a excellent case. If you're looking to build a high-end performance system filled to the brim with features inside a sub $100 chassis then look no further than the Cooler Master CM 690.