Cooler Master HAF XB EVO - High Air Flow Test Bench and LAN Box Desktop Computer Case with ATX Motherboard Support & Noctua NH-D15, Premium CPU Cooler with 2X NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fans (Brown)

There's a reason that mid-tower ATX cases were ubiquitous. Paying a little extra for a few features like a slide-out motherboard tray and removable drive cages really put you in a best-case scenario for assembling or working on the internals of your PC. You could even lay them on their sides and use them as desktop cases, and maintain all those advantages (ease of access to everything inside, easy to work on, etc.)The CoolerMaster HAF XB EVO is a nice case. But it disappoints at almost every turn. At first glance it appears that it will have superb access to all the inner workings of your PC, but in practice, that's just not true. It also appears to be able to take the largest of the graphics cards, but that's not really true either.Let's start with the motherboard tray. It's removable, but you have to take the top panel and both side panels off, unscrew four thumb screws (which you can't really get at with your thumbs, so you're using a screwdriver anyway). Then you have to remove all of your expansion cards, and unplug EVERYTHING, and finally you can awkwardly tilt the whole tray/motherboard assembly just right - without dropping it - and avoiding smacking your HUGE CPU cooler on anything and wiggle it out the top of the case. That top opening looks huge until you try to get your motherboard out. The whole thing is tedious and awkward. Why they didn't have the motherboard slide out the back on a tray is beyond me.Next the division of the case into upper an lower decks seems to make sense and it certainly makes for a visually neat cabling view into the top of the case (though, I still don't know why people want to have the guts of their computer on display). But it causes everything on the lower deck to be almost inaccessible. The marketing info on this case says the drive cages are removable. And, yes, they can be removed, but not without a LOT of effort and completely removing almost everything else from the case. For instance: the left-side rear drive cage can only be removed if you remove the motherboard tray first so you can get at the screws. That's just plain bad design. Speaking of bad design: that same drive cage is big enough to hold 3 drives, but it can only hold two because they placed it wrong. There are two board-stand-offs above the cage that screw into the upper deck and just waste space, while the lower portion of the cage is inaccessible because of the rails that hold the side panel on. If the designer had flipped this cage, putting the stand-offs on the bottom (which would raise the cage), the full 3 drive capacity of the cage would have been available.Let's talk about "tool-less design" for a minute. I hate tool-less cases. Invariably they have cheap plastic one-off parts that if they ever break, you'll never get a replacement. And since they're cheap plastic, they break. All to replace a simple screw. If you instead made the drive cages removable - actually easily removable (not like this case) - putting a few screws in is no big deal. And shock of shocks: screws work really well, almost never break, and are easily replaceable. All of that brings us to the failure that is the front 5.25" drive cage. Is it easily removable? No. Is it easily accessible? Yes! Is it tool-less? Not really. One side of the cage is tool-less. The other is not. Of course, that other tool-required side of the cage is completely inaccessible without removing everything but the kitchen sink. So, you're left with the decision of: should I just secure my 5.25" drives on one side only with this cheap spring-loaded plastic thing or should I disassemble the whole world so I can get two screws into the other side of this cage? For an optical drive, securing them on one side (even with their cheap plastic crap) is generally sufficient. The drive slides in and snaps into place. But if you have any accessories that are not full sized 5.25 optical drives, like a front panel card reader or USB port expansion unit, since they don't go full depth, they will only engage one pin on the tool-less springy thing and will need to be secured on the other side with something (a screw). Why, oh why, CoolerMaster did you not just make the whole cage easily removeable?Well, how about those hot-swap drive bays? I do love me some hot-swap bays. But these are the cheapest implementation of hot-swap bays that I've ever seen. The swap doors are so cheap feeling and thin plastic, I just know they're going to break. And the ports on the back of the swap bay are some of the most frustrating to plug in SATA cables! Ugh. I think I lost a knuckle or two getting them connected. WHY ARE THE CONNECTORS POINTING STRAIGHT UP AT THE UNDERSIDE OF THE MOTHERBOARD?!? Why not have them point back toward the power supply?!? In an inspired moment of genius, the power connector socket is on a length of wire, so connecting that was super easy!Now lets talk about the elephant in the room: your graphics card. That shiny new RTX 3080 that you've waited years to get because of the chip/card shortage... It doesn't fit. OK, that's not completely true, you CAN get it in there, but not how you're thinking. You would think that you would just take the top panel off the case and drop your new GPU in there. Boom! Done! Not so fast. My Gigabyte RTX 3080 is 320mm long. The CoolerMaster case says it supports GPUs as long as 334mm. So you'd think it would just drop right in the top with 14mm to spare. NOPE. The top opening is about 5mm short to fit a 320mm card into. And because the card is so big and blocky, you can't angle it in from the top. You might be able to do so from the top if you remove the front fans and slid the card out through the fan hole as you drop it in - - - but in CoolerMaster's infinite wisdom the fans are screwed in from the INSIDE of the case. So once that GPU is in place, you're not getting to those screws, so you couldn't put the fans back (which is another horrible design choice - why aren't the fans attached from the outside?). But there is good news: if you remove the side panel and all of your other expansion cards, you can angle the CPU card in from the side and slide it into place and get it installed. That's certainly not ideal, but it's not bad, all things considered. I just hope reading this will keep someone from having their blood pressure spike when their GPU doesn't fit in the top like any normal human being would think it should when the case manufacturer says it will fit.Let's talk about this stupid bump on the top of the case. Why is it there? Is it to make sure that you can't ever put anything on top of the case so that you have a HUGE chunk of desktop real estate wasted with this monstrosity of a case? Is it so I can gaze lovingly down through the grill and look at all the dust accumulating on my expensive hardware? I don't know about those, but I do know that my CPU cooler barely fits and the bump in the top allows me to add another fan to the CPU cooler (Noctua NH-D15). The fan sticks up above my cooler because it is sitting on top of my RAM. Either way, the bump gives me a little more clearance. But it doesn't give me enough clearance to add a 200mm fan that the case is designed to use. It does beg the question: why make it a bump? It's ugly, inconvenient, and had to have more manufacturing cost that simply making the whole case 15mm taller.OK, let's give some praise where praise is due. Most of the case is high quality. The steel is not thin/bendy and the frame is stiff. All of the pieces/parts fit well together. The finish on the case is nice and did not instantly scratch up or show fingerprints all over it. It's not the ugliest case I've ever owned, but it is a far cry from the prettiest. It is way bigger than it needs to be, and that is only exacerbated by having to place it on top of my desk rather than hiding it under my desk.I think if this style case went through several generations of development, it could turn into a great case. But this design is immature, lacking in the refinement given from lots of feedback.Oh, and if you believe the marketing-speak that you can use this case for a "test bench" computer, forget it. If I had to swap out parts in this case frequently, this case would end up like the FAX machine in the move "Office Space". Do NOT buy this for a test/bench PC.Overall, I cannot recommend this case to anyone. I can't think of who or what use-case scenario would be ideal for this case. If my video card would have fit in my old mid-tower case, I would go back to it in a heartbeat.

Pros-Horizontal motherboard tray-Almost all directional fan cooling with front radiator support.-side handles making it easier to carry "Case is LAN oriented".-Not too flashy no peak windows offered on purchase/tempered glass/plastic. Most today have side peak windows with elimination of a side fan just for show.Cons-DISCONTINUED-Cooler Master literally has the best design in this case, and considering it still is the only box on the market that supports ATX form factor not being a skeleton case, I really wish they would have continued the legacy and made updated revisions on it.-Needs removable dust filters for all 4 sides that cover the entire case.-Needs fan and cooling support on the bottom of the case just like the top got- Needs updated USB ports 3.1 -Case had been discontinued.This is the best case I've seen on the market completely eliminating Graphics processing unit sag and with a heavy hard-core aftermarket Central Processing Unit heatsink there's no sag to that either causing more heavy duty cooling directly on my chip because of weight.The fact that this case has almost all directional fan cooling is nuts and even better being a cube and having a fan directly mounted above in the middle is nuts. Hot air rises and that is what makes this computer case king, perfect airflow.Still very sad this case is discontinued and to this day the HAF XB is still way ahead of its time.

The manual calls for a 200mm top fan. But not any fan will install correctly, because the mounting holes are not correctly positioned for a standard 200mm fan. They are set in a rectangle measuring 180x110mm. The Noctua NF-A20 PWM is the one available fan I found that accommodates this spread. It’s pricey for a fan ($36) but it will save you having to modify the top panel. They didn’t even have the correct fan when they took product pics. Zoom in and see…Otherwise it’s a decent case. The MB tray won’t be easy to remove with cards installed, as it lifts out instead of sliding out the back. Probably impossible with a full-length card like the RTX3090. Drive bays that are referred to as “removable” are not “easily removable” and the interior is overall not as modular as I’d want a bench-test case to be. If I designed it, I would have opted for a lever-lock system for the drive bay removal. However, the server-style swappable 3.5” drive trays are nice, and it accommodates two 5.25 drives in front, with tool-less install.This case is a departure from my usual full-atx builds. Once my system is finished, I will do some temperature comparisons and add them to this review.Temperature report:Top Fan: 200mm @900rpm staticFront Fans: 120mm x2 (included) controlled by BIOSRear Fan 120mm controlled by BIOSCPU: Ryzen 5600x (stock cooler) Idle: 37c Max at load: 80cGPU: Radeon RX 6650XT Idle: 32c Max at load: 62c (Hotspot)So overall not bad temps considering there's about the same interior space as a mid-tower case.

I bought this case specifically to use with AMDs new APUs. The build quality is good and the case weighs about 10 pounds empty. The quick connect bays are good if you are someone that moves files around a lot. This is something that I will be doing as the use for this computer will purely be HTPC. Now let's get into the good and bad.Good:The front can accommodate a 280MM radiator no problem especially in the case of the Cooler Master Nepton 280.The shortness of the case means you get excellent air movement.The top panel can accommodate a 200MM fan.The MB tray is removable.The 2 floor system makes your system look clean.It has a PSU shroud (sort of)It fits in my Home theater cabinetThe BadCooler Master cases are famous for being dust magnets and this one is no differentThe 200MM fan port only supports the Mega Flow fans from Cooler MasterThis case was released 5 years ago.The 80MM dual ports should have been configured as a 120MM portThe PSU is bottom mounted(You have to orient it to pull air from the bottom and it has a filter.The cons can all be turned into positives.For the dust issue get some magnetic Silverstone 120MM filters for $3.99 right here on AmazonThe 200MM fan issue was solved by using a Mega Flow fan I had in another PC but you can buy them here or at other retailers.Cases have moved away from 5.25 front bays and I got this so I could put a Blu Ray DVD drive and a Scythe fan controller in the slot. Especially ifyou are using a 200MM fan as most of them are 3 pin.There are some 4 Pin B gears for $8.99 on Amazon that have a range of 500 to 3000 RPM that are tolerable at low speeds.Specs:CPU: AMD R5 2400GMB: Asus X-370 PrimePSU: Corsair TX850MCooler: Cooler Master Nepton 280L (2x Phanteks 140MM)RAM: Gskills Ripjaws 3200MHZ 8 GB 2*4 GBBoot: Adata 256GB NVMEData: Sandisk SSHD 750GBData: Adata 120 GB SATA 3 SSDDVD: Samsung 5.25 Bluray WriterFans: 200MM Mega Flow Fan(top), 120MM Depcool cooling fan (back) & 2x80MM Bgears fans (bottom)

I spent an age looking for a case with a 5.25" bay, for a Blu-Ray drive.This has one - according to the pictures.But it doesn't in real life! The 'pop out' piece of fascia just isn't there!Debating whether to return it, or use an external drive for the occasions where I need to use one.Cheap case, cheaply made.You can do better!

Just in case you are buying it for the optical disk drive slot, the product sold here doesn't have one. The photos in the listing are not accurate. Google the name of the product and you will be able to see what it actually looks like, or look for a listing with "ODD" in the name. I sent it back, so I can't really comment on other aspects of the product.

So to start off, this item took around 20 days to be shipped to my house (which is not a remote area in any sense), just so you are aware of.Installing was trouble-free, this case is just what to be expected from this price range. It came with a lot of scratches on the side and front panel, but they were not very noticeable so I got over it.The fan that came with the case is just AWFUL. It's VERY noisy idling and has a weird sound at full load, as if the fan is gonna spin out of its frame.Lastly, if you were going to buy this case, make sure you buy 2 extra case fans to put at the front (or 3 since the pre-installed rear fan is absolutely garbage) because this case is, like everybody else is saying, HOT (pretty sure I can cook egg on top of this case after playing some game)!1 star for ease of installation, 2 for the look

The case itself is pretty good, I actually quite like it. I had terrible timing with my purchase, the day it arrived the price was reduced by 20$...Anyway, that's not my real issue.The problem with this case are the SSD mounting slots. I have 5 internal drives - 3 SSDs, 2 HDDs. The case has enough mounting slots to accommodate this, which was one of the reasons I bought it, there is even space for another SSD for a total of 6 drives. HOWEVER, the big issue is that installing an SSD requires the proprietary Cooler Master mounting bracket. The case has space for 4 SSD mounting slots, but only comes with 1 bracket, making 3 of the 4 mounting slots completely useless - WHY?!It's possible to order more, they are only 5$/each, but Cooler Master North America doesn't ship to Canada, only to the US - WHY?!Cooler Master Europe has the brackets as well for 5 EURO/each, and they ship to Canada. But shipping is 35 EURO, plus I'm sure I will have to pay import fees as well. So just to mount my SSDs, I will have to pay another 70$, which is basically the price of another whole case - WHY?!This is a pretty good case completely ruined by terrible non-access to essential and proprietary accessories. As usual, Canadians are getting shafted with shipping/pricing options.