Computex: Cooler Master – new cases, coolers, headset, mouse and more

In time for Computex, Cooler Master announced two new cases that the company demoed back at CeBIT, alongside a few new CM Strom products which included a new headset and a new mouse. The company was also showing off a new CM Storm chassis, some new 80 Plus Platinum PSUs and a new CPU cooler, plus a few secrets that we can’t really tell you about, yet.

The first new chassis is the Silencio 650 which is a new low-noise model that not only features noise dampening padding, but also a built in fan controller and an air duct that can be closed to further reduce any noise if a fan isn’t fitted at the top of the chassis. One unique feature to this chassis is the hard drive switch which allows the user to manually switch between to drives in a dual boot scenario, something that can be very useful, or a pure gimmick depending on your needs. You also get an SD card reader and a pair of USB 3.0 ports as well as a single hot-swappable drive bay at the front of the chassis.

Next up we have the Elite 120, which again was on display at CeBIT. We were told to expect very aggressive pricing on this mini-ITX as it should launch at around €45 which has to be considered pretty good for this chassis. Note that full-size ATX PSUs will be protruding slightly out of the back of the Elite 120, but shorter length PSUs should fit just fine.

There isn’t much to say about the upcoming Silent Pro Platinum apart from the fact that Cooler Master is getting ready to take on the competition when it comes to top-of-the-range power efficient PSUs. That said, we were once again told to expect aggressive pricing here, especially for the 1000W model.

Cooler Master’s latest CPU cooler addition is called the V4 and it features a vertically mounted vapour chamber as well as a pair of heat pipes. This is quite different from Sapphire’s Vapor-X, although it’s not entirely easily to see the vapour chamber in the pictures. Note that there’s a rear fan too, but the sample had been manhandled and as such the mounting had broken on this early sample.

CM Storm was showing off its new Recon gaming mouse which is a new ambidextrous model that should appeal to those that prefer a “claw” grip.

It offers 800 to 4000 DPI and it’s of course adjustable on the fly. It has nine programmable buttons and a multi-colour mouse wheel for those that fancy that kind of stuff.

Another new product from CM Storm is the Ceres-400 headset which is a new budget gaming headset from the company. It sports 40mm drivers and an in-line volume control and microphone mute button. We tested the headset briefly and can’t say that we exactly were impressed and we’d go for either of CM Storms earlier headsets over the Ceres-400.

Lastly we have the upcoming Scout II which features an overhauled design inside-out. The chassis retains the carrying handle from the original Scout, but it now features a more rounded design with the front ports behind a sliding cover. The eSATA port is gone, but two USB 3.0 ports are present. Internally things have changed too, with fewer 5.25-inch drive bays and more 3.5-inch drive bays. The way the 3.5-inch drive bays have been designed is similar to that of the CM690 which should appeal to those with long graphics cards. Note that the water cooler fitted inside the Scout II here is a prototype being developed in-house by Cooler Master, although the final product might differ a fair bit from what you see here.

We got good news for those of you that are fans of Cooler Master’s ATCS cases, the company is working on a new model that should be unveiled at CES, but sadly we can’t say more than that. The company also has a couple of other new cases in the late planning stage, as well as a few other interesting products that we sadly can’t tell you about for the time being.

Kitguru says: A busy year ahead for the Cooler Master team.

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