Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced Black and White review

PC Cases and Modding 228 Page 9 of 9 Published by

teaser

Final Words & Conclusion

 

The Verdict

When you place the regular CM 690 II Advanced chassis and the Black and White Edition edition next to each other, you might think that they are exactly the same features wise.

That's not the case, we agree that at first sight it might seem that way. But there's plenty different and changed. Obviously the color styling, which is horrid for photography in a white studio ;)

Cooler Master 690 II Advanced B and W

Secondly, the side panels are now fully closed, bringing a little more style to the product. Obviously the frontpanel has been updated, it now has USB 3.0 connectors, but that is at the cost of eSATA. On the inside we have different lit fans (white LED), we see a much better mainboard tray gap for easy access to the CPU cooler bracket.

The grommet holes have been improved, I think they are a little bigger as well, which definitely helps with cable management. That is roughly what is different in along the bigger lines though.

Other than that, it's a CM 690 II Advanced with all the positives we mentioned in our previous review as well. For a mid-tower there is plenty of space inside, and sure, especially with liquid cooling taken into consideration this chassis has a trick or two up its sleeve.

There is decent enough room for proper cable management (not optimal though), the CPU cooler gap, the utility panel located on top of the chassis with a SATA HDD/SSD dock (only the advanced editions have this), the swappable 3.5" drive trays, the easy to install ODD slots... it's all really either impressive or handy for sure. Also, we like the fact that the majority of the chassis is completely tool less, pretty much anything is either easy to install or remove.

So it remains a very good chassis, the one thing we would have liked to see is some sort of fan controller though. Slowly but steadily we say that 100 EUR chassis' should have these as standard.

guru3d-toppick-150px.jpgWith the CM 690 II Advanced Black and White edition case, Cooler Master updates a chassis that really already is very very good. The small upgrades improve the product and make it a little more suited for the demands of 2012, the USB 3.0 ports are especially appreciated of course. Much like the initial model, we still adore the SATA HDD/SSD X-Dock as that's just an incredibly handy feature.

The CM 690 II Advanced series remains a classic, the Black and White Edition updated it a notch. Yup we still love it, think it's a top pick product and as such can recommend it.

Share this content
Twitter Facebook Reddit WhatsApp Email Print