Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced review - Features

So as stated, looks do deceive a little as most certainly a thing or two have been improved on revision II of this chassis series.

We are happy to report that Cooler Master kept the classic looking matte black style, The updated design is also primarily a steel chassis with only the front and top framing made out of plastic. What we love is the all-black interior and rear-panel, rugged-looking gradients to the exteriors.

The motherboard tray comes with pretty nice cable-management, we really dig the opening behind CPU socket for easy cooler access on the motherboard tray. The CM 690 II Advanced comes with modular 3.5" HDD bays with 2.5" and a 1.8" HDD/SSD adapter. And as simple as it really is .. we just really like a utility panel located on top of the chassis with a SATA HDD/SSD dock, just slide in the HDD and you can exchange data. The chassis will ship with three fans installed, room for eight more and there's a possibility for the installation of two, yes I am not kidding, two radiators for liquid cooling.

Let's have a quick peek at some of the features as advertised by Cooler Master, for this really affordable mid-tower chassis.

Full Tower Like Capacity
Categorized as a mid tower chassis, the CM 690 II is the first-in-its-class to house up to 3 cards, with the advanced edition to include a bonus card retention bracket. The internal has enough space for supporting up to 2 radiators for water cooling units. Needless to say, this chassis will have no problem fitting in larger CPU coolers such as V10 and an abundance of hard drives.

Cooling System
With the potential to be a graphics rendering machine, CM 690 II has a new oversized steel mesh, with filters provided on the front, top and underneath the chassis. It allows more free flowing air to pass in and out of the unit as well as protecting the fans from collecting dust. This is complemented by the ability to place up to 10 fans within the chassis. Not forgetting the enthusiasts, we have a top and bottom internal-mount radiator design for those extreme systems.

User-friendly Design
The Cooler Master quality build is also reflected in the easy-to-use features. We have enhanced the cable management with even tidier cable routing. Installing a new CPU cooler is easier now, with the newly added retaining hole and the tool-free drive bay design is now a must-have for any chassis.

CM 690 II Advanced Edition Features
The CM 690 II Advanced includes an external HDD dock, meaning you can now access files from a drive without an external enclosure or the need to open up the case. In addition, to keep your system future-proof, it also comes with a 1.8”/2.5” drive cage for smaller SSD drives. Advanced edition also features a revolutionary steel GPU retention bracket that can be reinforce the weight of up to three graphics cards while providing an option fan mount on the bracket, yet ensuring that heavy and long graphics cards have additional support.

But let's head onward to the product gallery, showing all ins and outs of this mid-tower chassis