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Introduction Features and Specifications Photos: The Chassis The Insides Installation and Setup Verdict and Conclusion

A mainstream chassis from Coolermaster that has enough features to satisfy even the gamers ... meet the Centurion 590 

 

INTRODUCTION

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It was only last month that Coolermaster released their Cosmos S chassis, and what a storm it made amoung gamers and enthusiasts across the globe. It's one of those chassis that just oozes with quality and features ... ideal for gamers and enthusiasts alike. It was a superb chassis, winning numerous awards from hardware sites around the net, including ours ... we gave it our CPU3D Editor's Choice award. When it comes to high-end, high quality chassis for the enthusiast market, there's no doubt ... Coolermaster really knows their stuff.

But what about the mainstream market? ... shouldn't Coolermaster be dominating this profit making market too? Well, yes of course ... they've been busy this year with a whole new range of chassis for the mainstream market. In fact, I've heard that Coolermaster will be releasing Chassis bundled with their own power supplies too. Now that will add extra value for money and definitely attract both budget and mainstream users.

 

 

In this review we'll be taking a look at the Coolermaster Centurion 590 Chassis. It's designed for the mainstream market and offers an impressive feature list, enough to attract even some of the most modest of gamers and enthusiasts. Take for example the totally screwless design, a total of 7 x black mesh 5.25" drive bays, there's even 2 ready-cut holes for watercooling. For air cooling, you have 2 x 120mm fans included, one located at the front for the 3.5" HDD module unit, and one located at the rear. The chassis also has room for mounting upto 4 x 120mm fans for superior thermal performance and air-flow. There are 2 located on the top of the chassis and 2 on the side panel.

The build quality is very good. The bulk of the chassis is constructed from good quality steel that's Electrically Chromate Coated (SECC) rather aluminum. However, it does have a brushed aluminum front panel with black mesh, which makes it look very impressive. The lock n' load system for installing 5.25" rom drives is very easy to use, and what's more it's totally screwless. It also uses a similar screwless design for installing addon PCI/PCIe cards too. But having said that, you can't get away from those screws ... you still need to use some screws for mounting your 3.5" hard drives into the HDD module unit.

 

 

What I like about the chassis is the fact that the section for mounting the power supply is located at the bottom of the chassis. A feature usually found on some high-end enthusiasts chassis. This allows easy access to your power supply, and if your power supply is modular ... it's perfect, allowing you to add/change your cable configuration at anytime.

On the front of the chassis, the brushed aluminum front panel can be physically removed. This allows easy access to your 5.25" drives bays for cleaning and maintenance. For connectivity you'll find 2 x USB2.0 ports, mic and headphone jacks and a firewire port. There's also the usual power-on button, with HDD and power LEDs. 

 

           

 

Can the Coolermaster Centurion 590 dominate the mainstream market? ... just as its bigger brother, the Cosmos S has done in the enthusiast market. Are all the features enough to attract the would be buyers? We'll be installing a full size ATX motherboard and power supply to see how spacious it is, and also we'll be seeing if we will encounter any problems during installation.

OK, let's not waste any more time and take a closer look at the Coolermaster Centurion 590 Chassis.

 

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Introduction Features and Specifications Photos: The Chassis The Insides Installation and Setup Verdict and Conclusion