Product Listing

Cooler Master Cosmos 1000

By Vincent Chang - 25 Sep 2007

Exterior Design Part 1

Exterior Design Part 1

Dark as the night, the Cosmos lives up to its name with a black, highly reflective front door that we spent quite a few moments staring into. Surrounded by silver edges, it reminded us of a certain Apple device. The door itself is held in place by magnets, a design seen previously on other Cooler Master products. Like those chassis however, the Cosmos suffers from a similar imperfection of having just two screws on the door for the hidden magnet to attach to. This means that the door is liable to swing open if you tilt the chassis forward. Thankfully it's a minor quibble that only presents itself when moving the case but it is also an old issue. Given that it appears again on the Cosmos, it probably means that Cooler Master is unlikely to rectify it anytime soon. Overall, it is a pretty solid and thick door, though slightly inferior to the build quality of that other behemoth chassis, the Thermaltake SwordM. But that's another level of build and construction altogether so we're still plenty happy with the Cosmos.

A black, highly reflective surface covers most of the front door bezel, symbolizing the darkness of space perhaps?

Like the other heavyweights in Cooler Master's stable of chassis, four USB 2.0 ports are found on the I/O panel for the Cosmos. The old and new are found together, with the FireWire port sharing space with the eSATA port.

This sporty looking air vent is the exit point for the exhaust fan located at the top of the chassis. For once, a screwdriver is required to remove the plastic cover for cleaning and installation of the two supported 120mm fans found there (but note that only one fan is included with the chassis).

What Cooler Master did bring over from its other designs is allowing the user to change the orientation of the door. This means that the door can be removed from its original hinge easily and then 'converted' to swing open using the other hinge, effectively changing the opening direction of the door. So you can place the Cosmos on your left, right or any other preferred location to suit your needs without having it open in an awkward direction. This is a real boon for many prospective users as it is one less hassle to grapple.

Seen in previous Cooler Master designs, the orientation of the door (whether it opens from the left to right or vice versa) can be swapped easily from its default to the other side. All one needs to do is to hold down the plastic latch mechanism here to release the door and it can then be mounted on the opposite side.

Behind the door we find the usual meshed design for the drive bay bezels. These meshed faceplates are similar to those found on the Cooler Master Stacker and easily removed when you need to install a drive. In fact it is even easier on this new case. The Cosmos supports up to five 5.25-inch external drive bays and you can convert the lowest bay to fit a 3.5-inch external or internal drive if you choose to. The lower bottom front bezel consists of a large single piece of mesh that's more for aesthetic purposes since it's blocked internally behind it, so don't be expecting air vents and an intake fan here.

As you may expect from a large full tower chassis, the Cosmos supports up to five external 5.25-inch drives, with one of them convertible to fit an external 3.5-inch drive.

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