Cooler Master Cosmos C700P review - Final Words & Conclusion

Conclusion

The new Cosmos C700P is a very nice and incredibly appealing looking product. It stays within that nice and familiar Cosmos tradition & feel, yet offers tasteful looks and subtleties. Sure, the 299 Euro/USD price-tag might seem high, but you'll know where that money went into the second you lift it up ;-) This is quality, a sturdy build that can last you a life-time. It's innovative as well, the modular innards allow you to reverse the motherboard towards the other side, as well as switch the side panels along with it. The two bends in the curved tempered glass look amazing, and the new LED RGB implementation was done tastefully and in an intricate manner.

The Design

The Cosmos C700P as such can be classified as an enthusiast PC chassis for a similar user. Good to see is that the new chassis is a little smaller in height, it now actually fits under your desktop being 65cm in height (typically your desktop is at 70 cm). That said, the C700P will serve a very specific kind of end-user, the guys and girls with the XL-ATX motherboards and massive gaming rigs that need some brutal airflow. It also is a chassis for the liquid cooling aficionado, these are your LC options:

• Top - 120mm, 140mm, 240mm, 280mm, 360mm (requires removal of ODD cage)
• Bottom - 120mm, 140mm, 240mm
• Front - 120mm, 140mm 240mm, 280mm, 360mm, 420mm (requires removal of ODD cage)
• Rear - 120mm, 140mm

The airflow is good, the fans remain on the noisy side though, even at the fan controller low RPM mode you can still hear them a bit. I'd advice replacing the fans or perhaps connect them directly to your motherboard for better PWM based regulation. The merely two FAN RPM modes are too little for my taste. When it comes to space you'll have plenty. Nice to see is the implementation of USB ports including a new 3.1 ports. The primary feature remains to be the sheer looks of the case though. You can't argue taste as it is the most subjective thing and does not make the job of reviewer any easier. Some will hate the silver elements, and others will love this chassis for its looks. I like that the C700P is darker compared to the previous models. And hey, if the aesthetics suit you, then really it will not get much better than this. Each and every little aspect of the chassis has been thought through really well. The design of the chassis has been made to make your life a little easier while combining the best features an enthusiast crowd seeks in a chassis. The Cooler Master design team thought through it all with nice cooling options yet all with dust filters, the fan and light controller the signature Cosmos carry handles,  USB 3.1 integration and a relatively tool free design. The side panel doors and window works terrific. You can open / close them with ease at the front side. The tolerances are perfect, heck you could even slam a tempered glass side panel door closed and not worry about it. 

The Less Cooler Stuff

The fan controller has only two modes, low and high. At its lowest settings the fans used in the chassis are still too noisy for a 2017 product. In the end I think you will be rewiring the fans to the motherboard fan controller and likely will give them a lower RPM. That still offers decent airflow. When you tweak RPM manually the system goes from moderately noisy, towards silent. But that is at the cost of airflow of course. So I am not a big fan of the fans. Also perhaps RGB lit fans would have been the way to go? Another thing I stumbled into is the embedded fan and RGB controller. You can connect three additional fans and that's it. LED strips wise you get one extra connector, so that perhaps feels a little limited. Storage options however are a concern. It feels weird to be able to install only two HDDs into a 299 EURO chassis that is tagged as super-tower. Ten HDD is money and real-estate wasted, but come on, at least four would have been decent right? It is the same with the two SSD trays at the backside, one of them is occupied by the FAN/RGB controller leaving you with just one dedicated 2.5" SSD mount where you can hide an SSD. Now you can tuck away an SSD anywhere of course or even hang them under a HDD on the tray, but still it just doesn't feel right. You can however optionally purchase more trays separately. 

The Innards

The chassis innards are clever, we mentioned the ability to be able to reverse it all already. But at one point I do hope that Cooler Master will realize that the number of modders versus the number people that simply want to buy a normal PC ratio likely is 1:99. So while nice, I do not expect the moddable factor to be important or significant enough. Reversing stuff however is a fun option to have. We love the space for everything and the shielding albeit simple and screws based, works brilliant as you can hide away your colossal amount of two HDDs and the PSU. The biggest XL-ATX motherboards will fit as well as the smallest Mini-ITX ones, also the most lengthy graphics card will fit and CPU coolers can have a height of up-to 198mm, so these are all great tolerances. There's space for extravagant liquid cooling, the drive bay you can remove. The motherboard tray also has a massive cutout and there's simply enough space left for cable routing through the grommet holes, all in that all-black painted interior. With the three included fans you can create a serious amount of airflow, but at the cost of them being audible. You decide how fast you want to run them with the help of the fan controller with a LOW and HIGH RPM mode. As mentioned the default number of standard SATA HDDs and SSDs supported, for a chassis in this class, is bit embarrassing though; that is my honest and unbiased opinion.

Final Words

The Cosmos C700P is a, if not the, true adversary within the Cosmos genre. The C700P breathes and oozes that Cosmos feel we have been appreciating for many years now, and it doesn't disappoint. The second you lay your eyes on it, you know it's a Cooler Master Cosmos, CM does that well. Aside from its price level the chassis offers excellent features, requirements, looks and sheers space. Honestly, it's a tiny bit too noisy for my taste, but that is easily fixed. Perhaps some LED inside the chassis would have been nice as well. And sure, I dislike the skinny storage configuration though, two SSDs and two HDDs and you ran out of space. You could add an SSD in the 3.5" tray under the HDD but even then, at 299 USD/Euro you'd expect at least four HDD and some more SSD mounts at the very least. Ah well, that however is where my nagging ends though, as the C700P to date is one of the more impressive chassis we have tested to date and is a product that has been brought into the needs and requirements of the year 2017. The photos hardly do the product any justice. The new Cosmos C700P is priced at 299 euros / 299 USD. If your eyeballs just popped out consider this, it's only 13.59 USD per kilo :-) It is what it is though, a premium ultra-tower chassis with aluminum and tempered glass elements and included LED RGB system. It offers great build quality and aside from my moaning here and there (comes with age), really there's no reason to dislike it at all as this thing is a beauty. Cooler master will offer optionals like a cover for a chimney build, you can also purchase another glass side panel (although that would expose cabling really). And yes, at 6 bucks a pop extra HDD trays. Cooler Master successfully brought the Cosmos line on another level and into the year 2017, and my gosh, it really is a beauty.

Really nice.

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