Review: Cooler Master HAF XB
Published by Marc Büchel on 18.01.13Page:
Front
Overview |
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| As most of you might know HAF stands for
High Airflow which implicates that Cooler Masters makes use of
components that allow for an increased airflow compared to cases from
other manufacturers. Therefore it's a small wonder that you'll find big
areas which have been built from perforated metal. One doesn't really
need to take a closer look at the front to see that it has been
optimized for the two 120 millimeter fans which have been placed right
behind it. Well visible at this point are the two USB 3.0 ports and the
power and reset button. Furthermore there is the connector for the
headphone and microphone. Basically the HAF XB offers two floors to put your hardware. In the ground floor you can find a hot swap cage, which is able to carry two 3.5 inch or two 2.5 inch drives. Right next there are two bays for 5.25 inch optical drives. Shifting you focus more towards the back of the case reveals the second hard drive cage, which is only capable of handling 2.5 inch drives. Furhtermore in this part of the case you find the space for the power supply. A closer look at the first floor shows that there is plenty of space for your motherboard as well as your other precious hardware. If you're familiar with hard drive carriages from Cooler Master than you're aware, that you had to bend them to place a hard drive. Nowadays there is click mechanism to put the drives into the cage. You can move the left side of the carriage so there is more space and afterwards you simply slide it back and that's it. |
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Back
Overview |
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| Next to the usual slot bezels, of which you're going to find seven in this case, there is space for two 80 millimeter fans, which has been placed on the right hand side of the PSU. Basically the back of this case is quite unspectacular. Both side panels as well as the top cover are being kept in place by two thumbscrews each. In the case of our sample one screw thread wasn't perfectly manufactured but we think that the final product will be flawless. One thing we don't understand is the fact that there are seven slot bezels instead of eight. In case of a testbench the likelihood that somebody is going to install four dual slot graphics cards is high compared to a standard ATX midi tower, therefore we would have expected to find eight bezels with this case. |
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - Left side |
| Page 2 - Preview | Page 6 - Top / Bottom |
| Page 3 - Front / Back | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - Right side |
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