Product Reviews

The Cosmos S is the successor to the Cosmos 1000. It looks almost identical, but Cooler Master has addressed most of the concerns that users had about the 1000.

The full-height front door has gone and there are 10 removable 5in mesh panels. We're also glad to see that the ugly plastic venting has been replaced by more black mesh on top. Everything is now made from aluminium, saving around 3kg.

Instead of exposed ports, a sliding panel conceals four USB2 ports, FireWire and eSATA ports plus headphone and microphone mini-jacks. In front of this is a touch-sensitive power button, but there's no reset button. The left side panel has a grille that hides a huge 200mm fan for cooling your graphics

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card. It doesn't have speed settings, but this and the other three 120mm preinstalled fans can be connected to motherboard headers where the BIOS can control speeds based on temperature.

The 1000 had six transverse hard disk trays with no cooling, while the new case has a single four-disk cage that sits in line with the seven 5in bays and has a 120mm fan on the front. We found the cage fitted too tightly into the case and was difficult to remove and reinstall. Handy push-button release mechanisms mean you can add or remove optical drives in seconds.

The power supply sits at the bottom, where there's a grille and removable air filter, but these are useful only if your power supply has a fan in its base. It's a shame that there's no removable motherboard tray, but with a standard ATX motherboard and a huge Radeon HD 3870X2 installed, there was still around 130mm of clearance between the front of the graphics card and the rear of a standard-length optical drive.

The Cosmos S includes several improvements over the 1000, but the switch to aluminium increases costs and leads to flimsier build quality. Cooling is very good, though, and there's room for dual graphics cards. However, at over £150 without a power supply, it's only for those with plenty of spare cash.