The Price of Everything, or the Value of Nothing?
Written: Feb 09 '03 (Updated Feb 13 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Near perfect quality, great features and styling. A standard for computer cases.
Cons: Price.
The Bottom Line: If any computer case can justify a $250-300 price tag, this is it.
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| Brian_Igo's Full Review: COOLER MASTER COOLER MASTER ATC-110SX1 (SILVER) AL... |
Let’s dispense with the obvious first. This is a $255 computer case-and that’s if you shop around. The suggested retail is close to three bills. Neither price includes a power supply. And it goes on sale about as often as George W. Bush is accused of soaking the rich.
Obviously, this is a computer case that would bring a tear to the eye of the Pentagon officer in charge of hundred-dollar hammers and $3,000 coffee makers. But is the Cooler Master ATC-110 an artifact of 90’s geek conspicuous consumption like a seven hundred dollar cell phone? Or does the sticker shock make it easy to overlook a level of function that justifies the price like the Herman Miller Aeron chair.
The answer is yes to both.
Taking the good points first, the functionality of the ATC-110 is superb. I’ve learned over a decade of screwing around with PC’s to approach cases with a sense of dread. The worst were cramped and poorly laid out, with sharp edges at the end of every internal surface waiting for a blood sacrifice. The included power supply inevitably had the reliability and performance of a seventh-grade science fair project. (Buy a $40 case from your local shop today and you’ll discover nothing has changed.) The best cases were only less horrible in one area or another. Not one came close to getting everything right until I opened my ATC-110 for the first time.
I could literally fill pages listing all of the little details that Cooler Master got right. Here are the highlights: There isn’t a single edge sharp enough to even scratch yourself on anywhere in this case, not even behind the screwed-on front and top panels that most owners will never remove. The motherboard tray slides out for easy service, as on most mid-market and high-end cases. But the tray on the ATC-110 is big enough to handle even the largest ATX motherboard with room to spare. All but the cheapest cases now use thumbscrews to retain the side panels and motherboard tray. But Cooler Master goes one step further and uses the same jumbo-sized screws on all seven peripheral card slots, which most users will get the chance to use far more often than the motherboard tray. It is proof that out of sight should not mean out of mind.
You can mount up to five hard drives in the front of the case, four directly behind a pair of 80mm cooling fans. If they were crammed into a drive tower like sardines, as is the norm, there would probably be room for eight. But Cooler Master allowed room for a lot of cooling air to flow over the drives. There is also room for two 3.5” external drives for a floppy and a Zip or LS-120, and four 5.25” bays for optical drives.
Yet the ATC-110 is only a quarter-inch taller than my old generic case that had three fewer total drive bays. A lot of computer and case makers try to sell the image of performance by the height of the case. At 19” (484mm) tall the ATC-110 fits into the average range for a mid-tower case. The popular Chenming Dragon case, with just one more 3.5” and 5.25” bay, stands over seven inches taller than the ATC-110. (That’s enough room to mount a CD-ROM by mounting it standing on its end.) Contrary to the image of performance the most important dimension for a case is the depth. At 21” (535mm) this Cooler Master has enough room to route wiring and drive cables without restricting airflow or the room you have to work. The Dragon, while better than typical cases, is two inches shorter and that makes a huge difference. I worked on a friend’s Dragon recently and felt claustrophobic after using the ATC-110.
This intelligent design carries over to the aluminum construction. To start, the ATC-110 isn’t 100% aluminum. The motherboard tray is made of stamped steel, as are the guide rails it slides in. Given the heft of a fully loaded motherboard these days (and its sure destruction if it gets twisted) this is a smart decision.
Equally smart but less obvious is a quarter-inch wide steel strip beneath the left edge of the motherboard tray. Its there just so three of the thumbscrews holding the tray in can seat into steel. Cooler Master seems to have chosen a high quality aluminum alloy, so it would take some ham-fisted work with a screwdriver to strip the threads in aluminum on the other side of the tray. But if that should happen over the life of the case, the tray will still be secured with the screws attached to the stronger steel plate.
Its also worth noting that both the side panels and motherboard tray, and even the cover plates for the unused drive bays, slide into place with silky ease but have a secure fit once in place. A common failing of cases is manufacturing tolerances that are either too loose to be secure when fitted, or too tight to be removed and installed easily. Cooler Master strikes the perfect balance between the two at every point, leading me to believe this is the benefit of a stringent quality program during manufacturing rather than a fluke.
Despite the much lower tensile strength of aluminum, the ATC-110 is as stout as any steel case I’ve seen. The removable side panels are thick enough to resist dings and the top panel is thicker yet. Most of the strength of the ATC-110 comes from its internal framework of four 2” (50mm) and 2.25” (60mm) wide billet aluminum beams, and the front plate that is carved from a 0.375” (10mm) thick billet plate. All this is held together by more rivets and screws than I’ve ever seen in a computer case. I’ve read claims by other ATC-110 owners that you can sit on the case without damaging it. (If you want to know if this is true you’re welcome to pull up a seat on your $250 case. I’ll take a pass.)
There are mounts for four 80mm fans, the two intakes behind the mesh grille on the front panel, a rear exhaust and a top exhaust. But the cooling of the ATC-110 isn't exceptional. There are two problems: The exhausts are restricted by the grilles cut into the case, and Cooler Master chose mediocre YS Tech fans. These fans are the worst of both worlds. They don't move enough air to offer optimum cooling, and make too much noise for silent operation. I've replaced the stock fans with Panasonic Panaflo's and lowered the case temps by five degrees centigrade without an increase in noise.
I’ve found there is little middle ground in opinions on the styling of the ATC-110. Computer users who live by the ethos of “form follows function” despise the door. They also correctly note the close fit of the door to the front panel makes it impossible to use devises with protruding knobs or switches, like the Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum control panel or the Vantec Nexus fan controller and system monitor. There is also the issue of opening a door to change a CD, which is a pet peeve for some people.
But the biggest complaint I think you can make about the door is that it substantially adds to the monolithic appearance of the case. If you can see the beauty in a Sub Zero refrigerator then this is the computer case for you. But I have to confess that I bought this case planning to modify its appearance. I’d still buy it without that inspiration, but its greatest aesthetic appeal for me is what it can become. (For an idea of how well the ATC-110 responds to modifications, please check out the gallery Falcon Northwest Exotix cases at http://falcon-nw.com/exotix.asp)
One thing that can’t be debated is the level of finish inside and out. There wasn’t a single flaw in the finish of my case and Cooler Master made an effort to include some delightful designing touches, such as a cutting a pattern of diamond-shape holes in the brace for the motherboard tray and polishing the beveled edge of the power and reset buttons. They even include an OEM style, color-coded I/O plate. Though with the small number of current motherboards using the standard layout this is a feature few buyers will be able to use.
There is only one inexplicable flaw I was able to unearth in the ATC-110. Cooler Master chose to use press-in standoffs to mount the motherboard in the tray. I’ve yet to meet a computer technician or hardware enthusiast who preferred this arrangement to screw-in studs, and the ATC-110 won’t change any minds. The strength of the motherboard tray means it’s not a functional flaw. But it stands out because it’s so obvious and because Cooler Master got everything else so right.
Writing about the ATC-110 is pretty easy. Deciding how to rate it is not. By any measure this easily the best computer case I’ve ever laid my hands on. Cooler Master deserves huge kudos for the quality of the design and construction, and the near-perfect attention to detail. If any computer case is worth $250-300, this is it.
But it’s still just a box that keeps the working parts from falling onto each other. Here is a short list of what $275 will buy at Newegg.com: A 2.6GHz Pentium 4 processor, or a top-quality 19” CRT monitor (Viewsonic P95 ), or a gigabyte of quality DDR333 memory, or a 180-200GB hard drive. Is any case worth that much money?
How you answer that question depends on style vs. performance, or if you don’t mind spending the money to answer “Yes to all the above.” In the end, the ATC-110 is priced $50-100 too high for me to recommend without reservation. At $180-230 it has genuine value. At $250-280 the best you can say is its not the PC equivalent of a hundred-dollar Pentagon hammer.
-Brian Igo
Recommended:
Yes
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