Cooler Master MasterCase 5: Beauty is truly skin deep

The Cooler Master MasterCase 5 is the company's latest mid-tower offering. It boasts of flexible cooling options with a more-than-ample supply of air vents. Most importantly is the FreeForm modularity system of the MasterCase 5, a new design concept that's touted to offer flexible upgradability options. Let's find out more!

By Wong Chung Wee - 18 Aug 2015

Master Concept, Master Case

The new MasterCase 5 is the latest mid-tower chassis from an entirely new series by Taiwanese computer hardware manufacturer Cooler Master. Sporting a brand new MasterConcept design, it was “conceived in secret” with a “crack crew of industry veterans, super users, and case modding genii”.

Extrapolating on MasterConcept, the Maker Spirit was conceived, with the understanding that different system builders have varied needs in form and function. Therefore, the company is “committed to giving more choice and control” to system builders. At the heart of the new MasterCase 5 is the FreeForm modularity system, which allows its owner to upgrade the chassis to suit his needs using optional accessories. This is the unique selling proposition of the MasterCase series.

At a glance, the new mid-tower chassis may not look like much. Save for its pair of carrying handles, the MasterCase 5 has a non-descript exterior and it only comes in black. To be honest, it looks bland and uninteresting. But do not judge a book by its cover and there is certainly more than meets the eye. Before we drill down to the nitty-gritty, here's a quick look at the MasterCase 5's specifications.

Exterior design

The entire front panel is riddled with intake air vents.

The Mastercase 5 has a full wire mesh front panel, where behind it, are removable dust filters. There are two smaller filters in front of the pair of 5.25-inch drive bays; the larger filter piece runs the rest of the length of the front panel.

The front I/O panel is angled for easier access should you decide to place the MasterCase 5 on the floor, and it houses a pair of USB 3.0 ports and two audio ports - one for headphones and the other for microphone. The power button sits in the center while the reset button is at the end on the right. The front carry handle extends over and beyond the front I/O panel. The mesh cover, with outlet air vents, is removable.

Tipping the chassis to its side, we are able to slide out the dust filter of the bottom air vents. The front and rear metal stands are sturdy; they also have rubber pads for cushioning.

The side panels are free of any embellishments and they are secured to the chassis with thumbscrews.

The front and rear metal stands are sturdy; they also have rubber pads for cushioning.

There's also a fair amount of outlet air vents at the rear.

At the rear of the chassis, we can see the 140mm cooling outlet fan. There is a total of six expansion slots, and near the bottom, there’s a bracket for securing the PSU. There's also a fair amount of outlet air vents at the rear.

Interior design

The plain vanilla looks of the side panels are rather deceiving; at the bottom of each panel, there’s a curved groove that allows the panel to slide into place with relative ease. As with most other side panels, getting them into place involves some amount of jiggling. However, with the MasterCase 5, the re-designed side panels are extremely easy to install or remove. Together with the front and top panels, we took off the sides for a closer at its interior.

From the front, we can see the bundled 140mm intake cooling fan. The front of the chassis can accommodate a total of three 120-/140mm cooling fans; in such a configuration, the top fan will have to be shifted up and mounted with a bundled fan adapter. Also, when the 2.5-/3.5-inch drive cage is removed, a 240-/280mm radiator of a liquid-cooling system can fit at its front. It is evident the MasterCase allows for a wide selection of cooling options, and we shall examine other options, should the owner opt to accessorize the case.

The rear outlet fan can be repositioned. This is in the event when cooling fans or a radiator is mounted at the op.

At its rear, there’s a single 140mm exhaust cooling fan. You can also replace it with a 120mm one. An interesting point to note is the mounting grooves of the rear fan as they allow you to reposition the fan to your heart’s content. This is unlike the usual practice of having fixed mounting holes where the position of the fan cannot be changed. We can also see the six expansion slots of the case.

There's a large cut-out at the motherboard installation area. Noticed the rubber grommets to its right?

On the inside, there’s a large cut-out that takes up almost half the area where the motherboard is supposed to be mounted. This allows for CPU coolers to be swapped with ease. Speaking of which, the MasterCase 5 can accommodate CPU coolers of up to a height of 7.5 inches or 190mm. The rubber grommets are thin but they allow for cables to be passed through with ease.

The pair of 2.5-inch drive trays are removable. Each of them is also sold as a separate piece of accessory.

Perpendicular to the motherboard mount area, we see a pair of 2.5-inch drive trays; they can also be installed at the rear of the motherboard mounting panel. Also, each tray is sold as a separate accessory by Cooler Master. As the PSU is house is a separate compartment away from the motherboard, there are rubber grommets at the panel, which allow for the PSU’s power cables to be threaded through to the motherboard and other components.

The ODD is secured at the 5.25-inch drive bay with a latch.

In keeping with the MasterCase 5's spirit of flexibility, the entire 5.25-inch drive cage is also removable. To install an ODD, simply slide in the device from the front and secure it with a latch at the side of the bay. The bundled accessories and mounting screws were packed neatly into a paper box that fit right into the 3.5-inch drive cage. Unlike the ODD drive cage, the 3.5-inch drive cage is removable and can be shifted to accommodate longer graphics cards or liquid-cooling radiators. The cage has drive adapters to fit 2.5 and 3.5-inch drives. According to the manual, the MasterCase 5 is able to fit graphics cards that measure up to 412mm in length (with the 3.5-inch drive cage in place), which should suffice since even the most powerful graphics cards are seldom longer than 12 inches (30mm) these days.

As we cross over to the PSU segment of the chassis, we see rubber-padded rails to guide the PSU and also cushion it from vibration. There are also the outlet vents, which we saw earlier, for the cooling fan of the PSU. One unique design feature of the MasterCase is the clear segregation of the PSU and other installed PC components, which includes the motherboard, CPU, RAM and graphics card.

There's a removable drive tray, which is located near the front of the chassis.

In order not to waste space, there’s a removable mounting tray for a 3.5-inch drive cage, just beyond the PSU installation area.

Here's a view of the rear of the motherboard tray. Look at how neatly bundled the cables are!

To the rear of the motherboard mount area, we see the mounting options for the 2.5-inch drive adapter, just below the cut-out. There’s much attention to details, in terms of cable management, where we see the existing cables bundled neatly with Velcro bands. The bundled cables are tucked snuggly into a shallow recess just after the rubber grommets. Let’s proceed with our installation process with our usual components; we also fielded a pair of Samsung SSDs.

Installation

The motherboard installation was easy and fuss-free. Moreover, stand-offs on our review unit were already installed to accommodate our ATX board. Next, we installed our graphics card and secured it with two thumbscrews. The PSU installation was a break from norm as we had to remove the PSU bracket from the case and attach it to the PSU. Following which, we had to slide the PSU from the rear of the chassis, with the rubber-padded rails to guide the unit inside and cushion it from vibration.

The plastic drive adapter of the drive cage allows for the tool-free installation of a 3.5-inch HDD as it has four rubber-padded, non-threaded screws that fit into the corresponding screw holes of the HDD. The rubber pads provide both grip and dampening effect.

Using the drive adapters, we mounted the 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives at the 3.5-inch drive cage. Installing 3.5-inch drives is a tool-free affair, requiring users to only latch the drive onto the adapter itself.

The drive adapter can also fit a 2.5-inch drive, but they would have to be secure in place using mounting screws.

However, 2.5-inch drives would need to be secured to the drive adapter with additional screws. After both drives were secured in their adapters, they were slid into place at the drive cage.

Looking at the amount of cables from the PSU, it might not be such a good idea to install drives behind it.

Here's another view from the rear of the motherboard installation area. Seeing how the power cables bunched up at near the front of the chassis, we feel that it might not be a good idea to install a drive at the drive tray there as ventilation will almost certainly be negatively affected.

However, if you really have to make use of that space, you would have to use the mounting tray. We remove the tray for a closer look. The 3.5-inch drive cage will slide into place from the front of the tray.

The drive cage is installed from the front of the tray, and secured with three mounting screws.

It's recommended to slide the 3.5-inch drive cage onto the mounting tray and secure the cage from within the chassis.

We hit a little snag here; after we put the drive cage onto the mounting tray, we couldn't get the entire unit back into the chassis. Therefore, the removable mounting tray should stay in its place, and the drive cage has to be secured to the tray from within the chassis.

Here's a look at the front and rear of our finished product.

As we mentioned earlier, we would avoid using the space behind the PSU due to cable clutter from the PSU itself. After securing the side panels, we had ourselves a well-ventilated, mid-tower chassis.

Accessories installation

The happy story didn’t end here as we were armed with MasterCase 5 accessories that can be purchased separately. The accessories allowed us to exercise the FreeForm modularity design concept in order to customize the chassis to suit our needs. Here's a look at the accessories that users can purchase separately to add additional capabilities to their MasterCase 5.

Liquid cooling bracket, and the top mesh cover
2.5-inch drive bracket
3.5-inch drive cage (two versions; one that fits up to three drives, the other can accommodate up to two drives)
window side panel (this was the only accessory that wasn't supplied to us)

On the left, the liquid-cooling bracket, and on its right, is the top mesh cover. They are sold as an accessory set.

The first accessory was the liquid cooling bracket and its accompanying mesh cover. This would allow for the installation of liquid-cooling radiators in the top panel.

We removed the original top mesh cover, as well as the plastic rear handle cover.

So in order to fit a 240-/280 mm cooling radiator of a liquid cooling system, we had to remove the original top mesh cover and the plastic cover of the rear metal handle.

Following which, we installed a water-cooling bracket, it was a tool-free affair as the bracket was held in place by four thumbscrews.

This is how the MasterCase 5 looks like after we installed the top mesh cover for the liquid cooling bracket.

After that, we installed the top mesh cover that covers the entire top cooling bracket. The entire radiator would thus be hidden and ensures a sleek and uniform look.

On the left, we have the 2.5-inch drive bracket. After turning it around, we slide in our 2.5-inch SSD and secure the drive with four mounting screws. On the right is our finished product.

For mounting additional 2.5-inch drives, we were supplied with a 2.5-inch drive bracket. We had to secure our 2.5-inch SSD to it with four mounting screws.

The 2.5-inch drive tray can be mounted below the cut-out at the motherboard installation area.

There are two of mounting positions, which are located below the CPU cooler cut-out of the motherboard tray. The bracket is easily secured with its thumbscrew.

The 2.5--3.5-inch drive cages that are sold as accessories.

The last accessories we were supplied with were two 3.5-inch drive cages with three and two drive adapters respectively. They were fairly easy to install as they had thumbscrews, so we didn't have to fiddle with any additional mounting screws at all.

We installed the 3.5-inch drive cage accessory.

We installed the three-drive, 3.5-inch drive cage below the one that was pre-installed. If we added them all up, the MasterCase 5 can accommodate a total of four 2.5-inch drives and five 2.5/3.5 drives for a grand total of 9 drives.

Conclusion

The only accessory we didn’t get was the windowed glass panel. In fact, for now, the panel was the only missing piece of the puzzle. This is because if we had installed it, our MasterCase 5 will be transformed into the MasterCase Pro 5! This is the magic behind the FreeForm modularity system. To some degree, it will allow owners of the MasterCase 5 to modify the chassis with future accessory upgrades to suit their storage and cooling requirements. The MasterCase 5 is an extremely well-designed mid-tower chassis as it has well-thought-out features to cater to the discerning system builder. The ample supply of air-vents is evident the designers of the MasterCase 5 take cooling very seriously; there’s sufficient of cooling options to cater for both air and liquid cooling systems. In terms of air-cooling, it is one of the first mid-tower casings we had come across that can accommodate up to three front, 120-/140mm intake fans.

The MasterCase 5 is simple in appearance but its true beauty runs skin-deep. It is highly functional and has ample selection of accessories for future upgradability.

On the surface, the Cooler Master MasterCase 5 appears to be a simple mid-tower chassis. After experiencing its design and features, only then were we able to understand the FreeForm modular system. Together with its accessories, the MasterCase 5 is able to break out of its stoic shell and allow the system builder to exercise his upgrade and customization options. The MasterCase 5 is available now for S$169, which is certainly fair for a premium mid-tower casing with its unique set of features. The MasterCase 5 Pro, with its added features, naturally costs more at S$209, but it's still reasonable in our books. That said, Cooler Master did indicate to us that it would be more economical for users who needed the extra features of the MasterCase 5 Pro to purchase that particular chassis outright. Purchasing the MasterCase 5 first and upgrading along the way with accessories to the attain the same features of the MasterCase 5 Pro would cost more in long run.

To sum up, the MasterCase 5 is a solid mid-tower chassis that offers good features and is user-friendly and easy to use and install. It's hard to find fault with the chassis but if we had our way, we would want the MasterCase 5 to come with more preinstalled fans and also have a PWM fan control hub thrown in. Since there are numerous cooling options available, it would be ideal if we had a control and monitoring system for the installed cooling fans. Additionally, though the MasterCase 5 looks smart, it could definitely also do with more interesting design flourishes for added visual flair.

With the big picture in mind, the MasterCase 5 is just a showcase for Cooler Master's FreeForm modularity system. We understand that these are just tentative steps taken by the company to streamline its chassis offerings. In the long run, the number of casing series will be reduced in order to reduce clutter and create clarity for the consumer - advanced users can then opt for additional accessories to spec their casing to meet their requirements. At times like this, perhaps less is truly more; with less product clutter, the end-user is able to appreciate what's brought before him.

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