Cooler Master 413: Not just your Ordinary Mid Tower Casing!
Bartman1973's Blog
Today, we will experience a mid-tower casing from Cooler Master - The Elite 431. This is said to be a mid-tower casing that can fit micro ATX and full ATX motherboards.
The chassis comes with a side window. The window is big enough to show what’s inside and adding fans with LED will make your setup more attractive.
The front of the chassis is pretty simple but you will see that all the functionalities are there. From the top we can see that there is one USB 3.0 ports, a couple of USB 2.0 ports, the power and reset button, mic and headphone sockets, along with the HDD LED. There are 2 usable 5.25” bays for your optical disk drive or maybe a fan controller. Beneath the 2 5.25” bays is where you can see the HDD dock. You can just easily remove the cover and insert a 3.5 inch SATA disk. There are also a couple of 3.5” bays for your card reader or maybe some 3.5” fan controllers.
The top of the chassis can cater to 2 x 120mm fans to provide for hot air exhaust being generated when the system running full blast. Upon looking at the rear of the chassis, we can see that the power supply will be mounted on the bottom. There are also 2 holes which are intended for your water cooling setup.
This is what we will see upon removal of the side covers.
Cooler master wanted us to have less interaction with our screw drivers, given the tool free locking mechanisms for both the 5.25” and 3.5” inch bays. They also included a 120mm fan as an intake and will blow cold air in to the hard drives. A molex connector and sata connector is present on the hdd dock. You need to attach the molex from the power supply and a SATA cable which you also need to connect to the motherboard to make the dock operational.
For people who want to try on different heatsinks for their processor, replacing them will no longer require removal of the motherboard as a big square hole was added to the chassis. You only need to remove the side panels to replace your heatsink. A filter is also present on top. This is a washable filter that can easily be removed and returned if you find dust accumulation.
Going thru the cables, we can see the USB 3.0, USB 2.0 and audio connectors. The power, reset, HDD LED and power LED are also present.
Setting up will not be a problem. Using a huge heatsink will not even pose any issues as seen in the picture below. Powering up will reveal that the fan in front comes with blue LED which adds to the casing’s looks.
After searching my favorite PC sales websites, I was shocked to see that the price of the chassis only ranges from 2200 to 2400 (Philippine pesos). At this price, this is already a steal with the features it has to offer. The bottom line: this is a very good casing option if you are in the hunt for a cheap but feature packed chassis.
