Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Case Review: Little in Almost Every Way
by Dustin Sklavos on July 26, 2012 3:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Mini ITX
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Cooler Master
Noise and Thermal Testing
Now we get to see just how well the Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced's modest cooling system really holds up. It should be a foregone conclusion this isn't an enclosure for any kind of serious overclocking, but hopefully it should be able to hold up reasonably well with a 65-watt dual core Sandy Bridge processor.
Summer is beginning to pick up in California, and with it, ambient temperatures go up. Ambient hovered between 24C and 25C during testing with the Elite 120.
Thermals aren't stellar, but they aren't awful either. Remember that this case is smaller than the other cases save the SilverStone FT03 Mini, which is both more than twice as expensive and more particular about the components it supports (SFX power supply, slot-loading slimline optical drive). SilverStone's design does boast a vastly superior cooling system, but you'll pay for the privilege.
The CPU fan has to work a lot harder to get those temperatures down, too. Our testbed fan, the SilverStone NT07-1156, actually has a switch that allows you to limit how fast it spins. Given that the CPU is peaking at only 56C or so, there's probably enough headroom to relax the CPU fan speed a little to reduce system noise.
Unfortunately the stock fans, however silent Cooler Master wants to advertise them as, make a decent racket. This is really the achilles heel of cases this small; while a better quality fan could probably take some of the edge off, the copious ventilation does nothing to minimize system noise. The only way you're going to get the Elite 120 to run quiet is to substantially limit the fans and possibly outright replace the front intake.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
65 Comments
View All Comments
Guspaz - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
It might be nice to see a review of the Shuttle XPC SZ77R5. I'll admit it won't drive a purchase decision (I've already got one), but it's a pretty impressive piece of kit. Somewhat similar in size to the case reviewed here, but with a better use of space due to a custom-sized PSU and motherboard, but at the same time, it still officially takes third-party mini-itx motherboards, unusual for a Shuttle.It's not perfect. Top-mounted videocard power plugs and the drive bay assembly require some effort to fit in the case, and there is a BIOS bug that causes the default "smart fan" to fail on the i7-3770k (despite a recent BIOS promising to fix this), but it does seem to be quite an improvement over the case reviewed here in many respects.
philipma1957 - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
To follow up on the review.the 1 usb 3 vs 2 usb3 was a dumb move.
the review called that correct.
the case is very nice for 2.5 inch drives.
the small trays are good.
I am going to put a fan based psu in it .
then play with the small side fan. it is really too loud.
Termie - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
Thanks for taking a closer look at the mini-ITX designs out there. This is a nice one, at a fantastic price point. Looks a whole lot like a Silverstone Sugo knockoff, but that's ok - I love my Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E, but I know that SS sometimes gets away with charging a lot (too much?) due to the lack of competition. It's just a shame that CM didn't replicate SS's excellent thermal design. Seems like a silly design flaw that could have been avoided with better intake air flow.Two corrections: you say that the Elite 360 was one of your favorite micro-ATX cases. I actually use it as my HTPC case, and it is indeed a very novel case, but mostly because it is ATX, not mATX. Just thought you might want to update that. Also, you inadvertently left in some text from your GD-07 review in the testing methodology section.
nubian1 - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
Can't really say I like the look of this case and it has a big issue for me, It is not water cooling friendly. My main desktop is ITX based using the Silverstone SG05-450 with a corsair H60 in push/pull. The only advantage I see for the Elite 120 is that you can use a full sized power supply.thok - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
Without 5.25” and front connectors but therefore cleaner looking Fractal Design Array 2 => http://www.missingremote.com/sites/default/files/F...philipma1957 - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
The entire point of this case is it uses full size parts.many people want the dvd/blu ray and the full size atx. No logo in a rack and the face looks fine.
Grok42 - Friday, July 27, 2012 - link
Very sweet looking case and on my short list for my next build. I'd love to see it compared to the Lian Li PC-Q16B which I can't find any reviews of at all. These are the only two cases on the market that don't have 5.25" bays.Who uses low density optical media anymore except maybe to install the OS once. With OSx, Linux and Win8 USB flash drives take care of that as well.
Solandri - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
I was shopping around last year for a SFF mini-itx case which could take 3 HDDs minimum, preferably 4 for use as my home RAID file server / virtual machine host. The only cases on the market which fit were pre-made NASes (e.g. Synology, QNAP, HP) which don't have the CPU power I wanted. I couldn't figure out why nobody seemed to make such a case. There were multiple cases which looked like they could take 3-4 drives if the manufacturer had made it just a little taller or just a little longer. But most of them seemed designed for single- or dual-drive desktop use as a primary computer. Why limit your case to only desktop use to save a half inch in height or length?I ended up buying a Shuttle case and wedging in a 4-drive tray in the empty space suspended by velcro cable ties. It works but I have to be careful moving it. I would've preferred something more like this Cooler Master - with an integrated 3-4 drive rack and something which could take my motherboard of choice (I wanted ECC RAM and a 5th SATA port for a small SSD boot drive).
bobbozzo - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
Chenbro has made 3 cases like that. My friend has one of the earlier models; he had a SATA backplane fail but it's otherwise been OK as a NAS server for the last few years.Most vendors are showing the first 2 models as discontinued, but the 3rd is available on Amazon and other sites for under $150:
http://www.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_cat....
bobbozzo - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
They have 4 hot-swap SATA bays, btw.