Introduction

It did not take Coolermaster long to develop a successor of their high end chassis, the Cosmos, launched late last year it featured a “spacey” design with innovative HDD bays, many tool less features and provisions for cable management, combined with enough room to house up to 5x120mm fans it provided sufficient cooling for all dual video card, quad core systems out there. What could they improve with this new revision?

To be honest, the Coolermaster Cosmos S is not a improvement “per se”, however it’s an enthusiast version of the original model, providing even more cooling (and gaining one of the first Triple-SLI ready tags from NVIDIA) and it has changed looks from silver to black.

The large box features photos of the product inside and a huge logo with the S in the spotlight.



Normally when we open a chassis' box we find some hard foam and plastic bag around the case to prevent damage during transport, it’s not worth photographing as those provisions are quite standard, only when we notice packaging issues do we point them out.

Coolermaster has gone one step beyond any other case manufacturer out there and wrapped their case in a strong cloth dust free bag, overkill for sure, but it does scream “high end” product right from the get go.




And there’s a plastic bag around the case, inside the cloth bag too… Coolermaster wants the Cosmos S to reach its new owner in mint condition.




Specifications

The specifications are similar to those of the original Cosmos, unsurprisingly, but there are enough differences inside and out to clearly distinguish the two, and we’re not talking about the color.



What has changed? Let’s recall the Cosmos specs:



So what we got here is actually a total overhaul of the interior design, coupled with a large fan in the side panel. The chassis is now in aluminum making the whole noticeably lighter and easier to carry. The amount of exposed 5.25” bays increases, but the standard amount of HDD bays decreases from 6 to 4. Cooling wise we already mentioned the side panel fan, but there also room for one more 120mm fan at the top. You get a total of four fans included with the Cosmos S versus only 3 in the previous version.

Let’s compare size and take a closer look ->

Size comparison

The outside dimensions of the Cosmos S are identical to its steel brother, thus our chart remains unchanged, you can reference the results of the Cosmos in the picture below.

Compared to a 1m80 human, here’s how the cases stack up in height and width:



The high end Coolermaster cases are known for their depth, the Cosmos S ranks at the top, and is ideal for use with long VGA cards (8800 GTX…)



Look Outside

There is little doubt Coolermaster means “Sport” by using “S” in the name of their new product, the Cosmos S comes with red racing stripe, black grills and brushed black aluminum side panels. The top panel is made from plastic which has piano black finish (and attracts thumbprints easily).



The “S” version does away with the front door, instead we get meshed grills over all 5.25” bays, fresh air can be pulled inside the case from the whole front panel of the case.



With the camera flash we can see the outline of the 200mm fan inside the left side panel:



The top panel has the same grill pattern as the front and side panel



The I/O panel of the Cosmos S is a sight to behold, it’s the flashiest and most sophisticated we have encountered yet, you get 4x USB 2.0 ports, HD audio in/out, firewire and eSATA for easy access at the top.



But let’s close the small sliding door and focus on the star of the show, the power button:



This isn’t your ordinary push button; in fact you can’t push it in at all. It’s touch sensitive and works by induction, if you put your thumb on the button, the system powers on. We couldn’t find any reset button, there is a hidden HDD led under the shiny surface which lights up red.

The power button is very sensitive, just casually sliding over the button will trigger it, so if you plug in your USB thumbstick or attach that eSATA device and you happen to touch the button with any part of hand/arm the system will react. Default action in Windows XP for “power button” is, you guessed it, power off! While it hasn’t happened a lot during our testing, we did experience one or two unfortunate shutdowns of the OS when we were trying to use the I/O panel.

Maybe hiding the power button deeper in the front panel will prevent these unwanted “button presses”. Also you can’t power on the system with anything but your finger/hand, a ballpoint or other objects won’t work.

If your pet touches the button with the soft spot of its Paw the system will start too, any other part and it doesn’t trigger (yes we tested this ;-)); interesting to know.

The rear of the case hasn’t changed a lot:


Cosmos S on the LEFT – Cosmos on the RIGHT

The provision for water cooling tubes is in the same spot, the plastic rims are bigger on the S with custom black grill.

Next, a look inside ->

Look inside

Each side panel of the Cosmos S can be removed without screws, pull up the handle at the rear of the case and the panel falls open, easy access to the internals in a matter of seconds.



The right panel is your standard black brushed aluminum affair, Coolermaster no longer uses the noise reduction foam on the panels inside the Cosmos S, understandable as one of the new side panels has a huge 200mm fan attached to it.



On their specification sheet at the site they clearly mention that if you have a larger tower CPU cooler, you will run into problems fitting the side panel with the fan, the manual also explains how to remove the side panel fan, it requires a bit of screw-work but it’s a one time affair.



The inside of the Cosmos S is quite different, the previous version had those 6 custom hard drive bays and bottom fan feeding fresh air to the VGA area. The “S” version has no fancy HDD bays, but a 4in3 device. There is no VGA air duct either.

Cosmos


Cosmos S


We do get the same handy 5.25” bay device tool free installation “clips” which just need to be pressed in to secure the device. This work flawlessly with full length devices as DVDRW; extra screws are required for half-length units like Fan controllers.


The HDD bays sit in the bottom of the 5.25” bays, but can be moved to any place you like:



The hard drives are screwed tight in the bracket, then the bracket is mounted on rubber rings onto two plates which are then in turn screwed tight into the 5.25” bays.



The PCI brackets are held in place with thumbscrews, a tried and working solution for easy tool free installation, without issues for dual-slot VGA cards.



Cooling

In the photos above you have already spotted the 200mm side panel fan, and 120mm rear exhaust. There are two additional 120mm fans in the Cosmos S, one is located in the 4-in-3 HDD bay:



The other is located at the top, where there is now room for up to three 120mm fans:



Optionally you can add a 120mm fan at the bottom of the case, there is already a dust filter present to keep out any unwanted particles:



The top panel is held in place by one thumbscrew, once removed it gives you access to the 3x120mm mounting holes, you can install fans in/outside the case, there is enough clearance for 120x120x25mm models.



Even with a DVDrom installed you still have room at the top to fit a fan or radiator.



A closer look at the available space:



The Cosmos original design incorporated water-cooling friendly options, the Cosmos S goes one step further and gives you the possibility to mount a triplex120mm radiator without the need of dremel; further prove this case is build for extreme enthusiasts.

A demo shoot with 3x120mm fans at the top panel:



If you water cool all your internal components, VGA, CPU, chipsets, you need some airflow around the CPU socket and general motherboard and VGA area to keep things cooled down, that’s where the 200mm side panel fan comes in, providing a tremendous amount of airflow to all components inside the case.

Time to install some hardware ->

Installation

The Cosmos S is a large case, made to fit E-ATX motherboards, using a standard ATX system gives you plenty of room to maneuver inside, the extra tool less features make installation a breeze and it will be over before you know it.

Most time will be spend with the hard drive bay which requires quite a bit of screws (4x per HDD, 4x for the bay).

The Cosmos S doesn’t come with a fancy goodies bag as the original Cosmos, which even had a custom screwdriver set:

Original Cosmos goodies bag contents:



No the Cosmos S has a rather standard looking content package, a detailed instruction manual, cable guiders and a bunch of screws:



Wait, there’s a cable there in that photo, an 8-pin extender cable, that will come in handy for hooking up your motherboard while keeping the cable hidden.

In the original Cosmos review we tried to route our cable like this:



But this prevented the side panel from closing properly. We are happy to report that the Cosmos S does allow you to route the 8-pin cable through the back as there is more room and better placed cut-outs and holes.

Another small change to the product design is the power supply area; the original PSU setup was like this:



If you install your PSU with its fan facing downward, allowing it to draw fresh air from outside the case, you might end up with one dusty PSU. Coolermaster must have thought the same:



Pictures say more than words; here’s the installed shot of the Cosmos vs Cosmos S

Cosmos


Cosmos S


You can notice cable routing improvements in several areas, the large 24-pin ATX cable is now hidden at the back and with the 24-pin pass-through on Cosmos S (for the touch sensitive power button) you don’t need a very long PSU cable to do it either. The 8-pin is now properly routed too. The 2x6-pin for VGA are also out of sight; The SATA cables make a return as the original Cosmos had their connection at the right side panel, here they are slightly more visible.

Time for stress testing ->

Test Setup and Test Methodology

Intel Test Setup
CPU	Intel Core 2 E6400 @ 2.8Ghz (from CSMSA)
Cooling	Coolermaster Hyper TX
Mainboard	Intel 975X Bad Axe (Modded by Piotke)
Memory	2 * 1Gb PC6400 OCZ
Other	XFX Geforce 8800 GTX Coolermaster Real Power M520 520W PSU 2x Western Digital 74Gb Raptor SATA HDD

Room temperature was 20°C during testing, ambient noise clocked in at 37.8dBA. Noise measurements were taken at 50cm from the front of the case.

Realtime HDR and Orthos were used to stress the Dual Core system; Core 2 Temp was used to monitor Core temperature (duh) and Speedfan to check the temperature of HDD and Motherboard. Rivatuner’s temp monitor checked the G80 GPU at regular intervals. Maximum values were recorded.

The Intel Bax Axe motherboard features several thermal sensors, the “mobo” values are those recorded by the sensor which can be found between the DDR2 memory banks, marked A in the overview:



Power On

The I/O panel is really the star of the show as you can see in the photo below, the red LEDs illuminate the different I/O headers, and you can also see the HDD activity LED lit up.



Taking a few steps back we notice the red LED fan. The brighter red light comes from our 5.25” fan controller we installed. Each fan in the Cosmos S comes with a 3-pin fan header as well as a 4-pin converter. Hooking them up to the fan controller was a piece of cake.



Onto the performance tests ->

Performance Tests

Our stress tests compare the cooling performance of the enclosure with the standard included fans to that of all previous cases we have tested with the same hardware since January 2007. We test with different fan configurations to measure the impact; we hooked up the 3x120mm and 1x200mm to a 5.25” fan controller which allowed us full control from 0 to 12v;

These are three test configurations we used:

• All fans at maximum speed (Front/Rear/Side/Top)
  
• Three fans at maximum speed (Front/Rear/Top), One disabled
  
• Two fans at maximum speed (Front/Rear), Two disabled
  
• One fan at maximum speed (Rear), Three disabled

These are the results:



The Cosmos S doesn’t fail to impress, performance or noise wise, it ranks near the top with different fan configurations, with component temperatures at all time lows!

If we take a closer look at the results of the Cosmos and Cosmos S you can clearly see this case is meant for extreme cooling:



The “S” improves component cooling all over the board compared to the original Cosmos, hard drive cooling gets the biggest drop, understandable as the original was lacking in this aspect. But also CPU cooling drops a healthy 6°C and VGA 5°C (at lower VGA fan speed!).

Noise wise the 120mm fans at ~1000rpm are noticeable in a quiet room but hardly disturbing, when you connect the side panel fan you will definitely hear it, as it’s the loudest source of noise in the case. Our single GPU test setup noticed a 2°C drop on the 8800 GTX while VGA fan speed was lower too.

Conclusive Thoughts

The Cosmos S, the Sport version of the original Cosmos delivers on its promise; it has a flashier exterior design, fancy new features and competes at the top end of component cooling performance. It is indeed true to the “Sport” tag Coolermaster gave it.

Expected to retail for $249 this high end EATX case is not cheap, and falls in direct competition with high end units from Lian-Li, Silverstone, Thermaltake and others. It can stand its ground feature and cooling wise. So your final choice will come down to exterior preference and/or particular features of the product.

Compared to the original Cosmos, which can be found for $180 and less, the price increase is quite steep, while the S uses more expensive material and has a more elaborate design process, the removal of the custom HDD bays can be seen as a negative, it reduces the standard amount of HDD that can be installed, and loses one of its unique features along the way. Nevertheless the addition of extra cooling power for dual/triple VGA setups is welcome, as is the expansion at the top of the case to accommodate bigger water cooling radiators.



Make no mistake: this case is at top end of the Coolermaster product range; only certain models in the Stacker series surpass it.

Coolermaster Cosmos S Recommended for



We like to thank Joost from Coolermaster for letting us spend more time with the review unit.