Cooler Master Centurion 5: Simplicity Meets Functionality

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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