Comdex 2002

Written by Harry Lam and Edward Chang

November 25, 2002

Cooler Master

Cooler Master had a very nice looking kiosk set out for them, showcasing their system coolers and their cases.  I got the opportunity to talk to one of their reps and they gave me a good presentation about their products, especially their new products.  I know that some other staffers at TWL have pretty good ties with Cooler Master, but I was surprised that their Marketing reps recognized our site right off the bat.

Nice looking display

New Products

Cooler Master unveiled 3 new cooling related products at Comdex this year, their ARC-U01 and CRC-U01, which are aluminum and copper ram heatsinks, respectively.  In addition, Cooler Master also is unveiling the HAC-V81 XDream, which is a new affordable HSF designed for the AMD Athlon platform.  It features a copper core and also a variable fan speed control dial mounted on a PCI bracket.  I also talked to the Cooler Master reps if they would ever implement a TMD fan on their heat sinks, and they said that the technology is still to early as even the YS-Tech models have had sporadic reports of failing.

Ramsink goodness

Their new HSF unit

Cases:

Cooler Master unveiled two new set-top cases at Comdex, the ATC-610 and the ATC-630.  These are set-top cases designed for use in home theater systems, like putting a computer right next to your TV and VCR (and having it used as a DVD, DivX, MP3 player, etc).  Both of these cases are designed to accommodate micro-ATX motherboards.  The ATC-610 has dimensions of 423x140x445mm (Width x Height x Depth), and the ATC-630 has dimensions of 335 x 110 x 425mm.  For reference, a standard DVD player (or anything of that sort, receivers or even some VCR's) is about 430mm.  The ATC-610 allows support for 4 full size PCI brackets, while the ATC-630 only allows for low profile PCI brackets.  The ATC-610 supports all standard ATX power supplies while the ATC-630 offers a 200W Flex ATX PSU (P4 ready).  Just looking at these cases gave me some pretty good ideas on how to use them (my main idea was using one of these as a DVD player / emulator box in conjunction with my ATI Radeon AIW).

Cooler Master also showed off quite a few of their tower cases, most notably the ATC-220, which had some pretty neat lighted etching on the transparent acrylic door.  Their marketing reps also showed me some of the new technologies that they're putting into their cases, such as a fan duct directly over the CPU (as many OEMs like to do), claming a significant drop in temperatures with the duct.  Although Cooler Master cases don't have as much wide-spread appeal as other manufacturers such as Lian-Li or Chemming, I've always personally been a fan of their balance of aesthetics and good engineering.

Nice, sleek, well-designed

Two 5.25" bays underneath the faceplate

One 3.5" bay, as well as USB and Firewire

Check out that etching on the middle case

It's a pretty compact little thing

No 3.5" bay, but headphone and speaker jacks are added