The Case, PSU, and OS

Case: Cooler Master Cosmos CSX 1000

If you’re looking for a high-end case that’s roomy, easy to work with, and flexible you’ll certainly want to put Cooler Master’s Cosmos 1000 series at the top of your list. This is one of our favorite cases.

What makes the Cosmos CSX 1000 so great? The fact that it’s a dream to work in. The case is completely tool-less. Hard drives rest inside six removable hard drive trays. To install or remove a HDD, simply unscrew the thumbscrew and pull out the tray. It’s that simple. Optical drive installation is also a snap. Simply slide in the drive, and push a blue button inside the chassis to lock it into place.

Getting in and out of the case is also a breeze. Cooler Master provides a lever on the back of the case; to open it up, simply pull the lever and the side panel pops off.

The inside of the case is quite roomy. Both conventional ATX, as well as larger extended ATX motherboards can be housed inside of the Cosmos and the lack of sharp edges will keep you from accidentally cutting yourself when working inside of the system.

The other defining characteristic of the Cosmos is its excellent ventilation. The case ships with three fans, two 120mm ventilation fans located at the top of the chassis, while a third 120mm fan sits in the rear of the chassis for exhaust. Cooler Master also provides ventilation holes in the bottom of the case for the power supply and any optional cooling you’d like to mount inside the system. Despite all these fans the system runs extremely quiet, you can hardly hear it when it’s in use. To help combat noise Cooler Master provides sound insulation.

I/O options are also pretty good. Cooler Master provides one external eSATA port on the front panel of the chassis as well as four USB ports, a Firewire port, and audio jacks for headphones and microphone. The case also supports liquid cooling.

As you can see in the pictures this isn’t your typical Cosmos 1000 case though. This is a limited edition CSX case with a custom paint job from Smooth Creations. BioWare’s RPG Mass Effect is prominently featured on the front and sides of the case.

PSU: Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 1000W

To be honest, before we received this system we’d never heard of Be Quiet and their Dark Power Pro line of power supplies. But we’ve certainly got no complaints with their Dark Power Pro 1000W. It runs quietly and boasts some impressive specs. The PSU has six different 12V rails, all delivering 20A of power to the 12V rail, 24A on the 3.3V rail, and 28A on the 5V rail. This is more than enough power to run a 4870 CrossFire setup with a quad-core 9850 processor. Another aspect of the Dark Power Pro 1000W is that it’s a modular power supply, helping with cable management inside the case.

OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit

To finish off the system AMD sent over a copy of Vista Ultimate x86 OEM. The Ultimate Edition is Microsoft’s fully-featured version of the OS, with features such as DreamScene, which allows you to run full motion video as your desktop background. Ultimate also includes support for features such as system image-based backup and recovery, as well as encrypting file system with Windows BitLocker.