Cooler Master Centurion 5: Simplicity Meets Functionality
by Purav Sanghani on September 1, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
External Design
The entire front bezel is composed of a mesh grill, which includes the drive bay covers. This allows air to move in and out and create a cooler atmosphere inside the chassis. Cooler Master has also added air filters on the backside of the mesh grill to keep dust from entering.
Click to enlarge.
The top half of the bezel is composed of five 5-1/4" drive bays, all with mesh covers. These can be removed to install drive bays by detaching the bezel (there are four screws to be undone before the bezel can be taken off). Since the manual stated nothing about the screws, it took a bit of time for us to figure out that we had to unscrew the bezel, unlike other cases that have easy pull-off bezels.
Click to enlarge.
Below the 5-1/4" drive bays is the single exposed 3-1/2" drive bay, which is ample for simple rigs with a single floppy drive.
The bottom fourth of the case consists of the Power/Reset buttons, Power/HDD LEDs and the auxiliary ports, which includes two USB ports, Headphone and Microphone jacks, and a single Fire Wire(IEEE 1394) port. They are all clearly labeled on the front panel as well as on their designated connectors on the inside.
Click to enlarge.
The side panels are the simple "slide-back-to-remove" type. Both side panels are identical in that both have a machined out array of slots, which is positioned at mid-height towards the middle of the panels. We assumed that they were put there for added air circulation, but we don't believe that they will have a great effect, if any, on thermal conditions of the case. Both also have indentations at the back to grip them when sliding them back.
Click to enlarge.
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Mday - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link
One of my primary concerns with these reviews stil remains. Though the quality appears to be improving. Probably due to editor involvement. Anwyay, here's the concern: no where in the article did it mention who actually made this case, the fan or the power supply.PuravSanghani - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link
LocutusX: That is correct, in place of the NorthBridge results for the Centurion we have entered our results for the single nForce chip and left the Southbridge results for the previously benchmarked cases. This change results from the switchup of our testbed motherboard.LocutusX - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link
What are you referring to when you listed South Bridge temps? I believe the NF3-250 chipset doesn`t have a South Bridge.Phiro - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link
Hey now, I liked that Spider man case!ggnl - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link
"Some of these had clean, elegant designs that were extremely attractive, while a handful of others were designed with themes that were extremely unattractive and did not appeal to AnandTech readers at all.From the comments posted, we came to the conclusion that the majority of our readers, instead of having a fancy-looking product lacking the features that they need, would rather have a case with a very simple look and with only those certain features that they can't do without during their regular use."
You win today's Stating the Obvious Award. Congrats!
In any case, thanks for listening to your readers. We very much appreciate the non-butt-ugly case reviews.
Deinonych - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link
That case is available in blue and red in addition to the silver (I like the blue, personally). In addition to the toolless drive bays, I like the fact that it's quiet. Add a low-noise 80mm fan like the Nexus (17.6 dB) or Papst (12 dB) and the noise levels would drop even more.goku21 - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link
Not a fan of this case. I do like the meshgrill in the front, but the silver added into it turns me off. I like my case to be a single color.The other thing I didn't like about this case is that it's a mid-tower case.
On the plus side though, the tool less drive bay features are cool.
PuravSanghani - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link
Degrador: The order of those specs were wrong. The 120mm is rated at 13dBA and their 80mm is actually rated at 25dBA. This has been fixed in the article. Thanks for pointing that out. :)SilthDraeth - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link
I know another site has reviewed the Cooler Master Praetorian, but I would like Anantech to review it. I like the look of it better than the Lian Li cases,and from everything I have read/heard it is very sturdy, and an exceptional case, as long as you replace the stock fans.Can you try to get a Praetorian for review?
mongoosesRawesome - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link
For nearly the same price, you can get the aluminum Cooler Master Praetorian (w/o the 350 watt power supply). Why would anyone get the Centurion 5?