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Internal
Features:::...
With
the side panel removed you'll fall into one of two
camps, you'll either love what you see or you'll hate
it. Fans of removable drive cages, clip in fan mounts
and rail fitted drives are probably sat horrified
at what is essentially a very basic interior. The
drive bays are riveted in place and your drives mount
using the good old fashioned screw method.
On
the plus side, fixed drive cages don't have the same
tendancy to vibrate that their removeable counterparts
do. Also they can be made to stretch from the very
top to the very bottom to accomodate more drives,
in our case up to four 5.25" units and up to
five 3.5" units, quite a boast for such a relatively
compact case.
That
large mass of wires you can see dangling from the
top of the case actually connect to the top mounted
external connectors via a small dedicated PCB.
External
View
The
Fire Wire connector is of the type that plugs into
your motherboard which was unfortunate because the
test board I used (an MSI K8T Neo) has none. Instead
it has a hard-wired port at the back which can't be
used this way.
Internal
View
Although
if you'd sooner opt for better cooling, then these
connectors can be swapped out in favour of an additional
fan which fastens directly in its place. The fan and
mountings are supplied in the box.
Fan
Fittings
At
the bottom of the case's front panel are a couple
of 80mm fans which draw in air through a series of
vent holes situated behind that large external styling
pillar and then blow it across your hard disks.
Airflow
here is quite restricted and not particularly impressive
but it does claw in enough of it to cool the drives
if they need it while being impressively quiet when
the case is closed.
According
to Cooler Master the Wave Master has been thermally
tested and approved with Western Digital's 36.7GB
Safari 10,000RPM hard drives.
As
you can see below, the wires from the front panel
electronics run through the same cavity that the fans
operate in so once you've plugged them into your motherboard,
avoid the temptation to shove the slack back the way
it came or it may just find its way into the fan blades
and either stop the fan spinning or at best make a
noise.
The
single rear 80mm exhaust fan probably shifts enough
air to comfortably keep pace with the front two intakes
making for a well balanced airflow. It's possibly
sited a little high to help cooling your graphics
card and a little low to get the trapped hot air at
the top but cases this size can rarely get by without
some minor compromises.
And
for those who care for such things, the Wave Master
comes with a removeable motherboard tray, not something
I care much for in a full tower case but a definite
asset when your working in the cramped interior of
a mid tower. It's held in place by four thumb screws
which undo from the rear.
I
was surprised at how rigid the whole tray is even
when removed from the case. A couple of corner braces
help keep the angle while the aluminium it's made
from is chunky enough to rule out bending and vibration.
Like
the side panel, the motherboard tray slides metal
on metal which can make it grab and stick a bit as
you slide it in and out. A few hard nylon runners
or Teflon pads may well have made for a nicer experience.
There are seven expansion slots to work with and each
has a blanking plate secured with a thumb screw which
is a nice touch.
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