WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.040 Do you know what Cooler Master thinks? They think your life's too easy. 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:07.200 They think you don't make your life harder if you had to build your own PC case. 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:11.520 Which is why they made the cube, which is conspicuously named, 00:00:11.520 --> 00:00:15.440 I don't know why they called it a cube. It's not cube shaped. It's not even, even when it's built, 00:00:15.440 --> 00:00:19.520 rectangle, box, rectangle, it's not a cube. 00:00:19.520 --> 00:00:24.360 Let's not let that distract from the fact that it is a flat packed computer. 00:00:24.360 --> 00:00:30.080 It's supposed to be a build as you go experience. It's gonna be step by step, just as I take it out. 00:00:30.080 --> 00:00:31.400 And also cool, there's, 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:36.640 yo, this is Lego brand Lego. That's very cute. 00:00:36.640 --> 00:00:41.720 A Pico ATX case. Can we just switch to a Lego building video? 00:00:41.720 --> 00:00:46.800 So right here in the box, we have printed instructions as well as some build suggestions. 00:00:46.800 --> 00:00:50.120 We got a liquid cooler. So I guess we should try and aim 00:00:50.120 --> 00:00:54.040 for the fluidly liquid cooled mode. 00:00:54.040 --> 00:00:59.960 Well, Kaplaners, Kaplaners, I just don't make the case. Kaplaners like one of you just quit halfway. 00:00:59.960 --> 00:01:05.080 And here are the instructions. I am also interested because they have a QR code here 00:01:05.080 --> 00:01:09.080 for a video manual. And each step itself actually has a QR code as well, 00:01:09.080 --> 00:01:13.000 which is pretty cool. And it links to a playlist. They have a full YouTube playlist 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:16.960 with each individual video for each individual step. That's pretty cool. 00:01:16.960 --> 00:01:20.000 These steps are numbered strangely. 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:24.880 And I thought, oh, one motherboard, okay. So it's one, two. 00:01:24.880 --> 00:01:28.240 And then you go to step two, which is one. 00:01:32.160 --> 00:01:33.840 Oh, God. Three. 00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:38.960 One, one, two, one, two, two, two, three, three, one. 00:01:38.960 --> 00:01:42.680 A GPU one, but it's not following the ver... Cooler master. 00:01:44.800 --> 00:01:48.280 You put in so much effort to make this simple. And this is garbage. 00:01:48.280 --> 00:01:54.080 This is just nonsense. Well, let's start. So start, mount motherboard on motherboard tray. 00:01:54.080 --> 00:01:59.920 So we'll take out our motherboard tray. The nice thing is that they give you these very clear 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:04.440 markings that are all pressed in all over this backplate. 00:02:04.440 --> 00:02:08.680 They have some pre-installed motherboard standoffs. They pre-install everything for what it looks like to be ATX 00:02:08.680 --> 00:02:13.640 because we have some ones down here. We don't actually need those because we're doing a micro ATX build. 00:02:13.640 --> 00:02:19.640 So we're just going to move one of these into the slot right here for this micro ATX, 00:02:19.640 --> 00:02:22.760 just to get that last little mounting point in the right position. 00:02:22.760 --> 00:02:25.960 One thing that would be nice to see is just, maybe some labeling on these bags, 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:29.760 just to make it a little bit clearer when exactly I need to use them. It's a lot of screws. 00:02:29.760 --> 00:02:33.160 You're definitely not used to getting this many screws with your computer case. 00:02:33.160 --> 00:02:36.840 Okay, we've got, we've mounted the motherboard. What's the next step, cooler master? 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:41.320 Mount the PSU on motherboard tray plus motherboard tray. 00:02:41.320 --> 00:02:48.740 Is this just an adapter bracket? No, we got ATX, FFX, the instructions are not useful. 00:02:49.540 --> 00:02:54.700 So this little bracket is going to go on the end of the power supply like this. 00:02:54.700 --> 00:02:58.180 It can support SFX and SFXL power supplies as well. 00:02:58.180 --> 00:03:02.980 This is a really fun exploration. I'm sorry I'm doing a rough job of hosting it 00:03:02.980 --> 00:03:06.660 because it's very confusing. It's very unusual, 00:03:06.660 --> 00:03:10.060 but definitely the most interesting PC build I've been able to do in a long time. 00:03:10.060 --> 00:03:13.660 So what this bracket does is it gives us these two little notches on the side. 00:03:13.660 --> 00:03:18.820 You see right there and right there. And what that allows us to do is to take our choice 00:03:18.820 --> 00:03:22.540 of three mounting positions for our power supply. 00:03:22.540 --> 00:03:27.100 I guess it's going to basically allow us to have a little bit of extra height if we want to put a top radiator in 00:03:27.100 --> 00:03:31.420 because we do have to route this custom cable 00:03:31.420 --> 00:03:36.900 so that it comes out the back of the plate. Oh, that is really cool. So this really, that's how this works as a test bench. 00:03:36.900 --> 00:03:40.460 That's kind of neat. So I see how this could cause some issues already. 00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:44.660 Basically, if you had a longer GPU, like we have a relatively short GPU, 00:03:44.660 --> 00:03:50.220 but if you were, say, getting like one of those large, like 4080s or even the 4070s get pretty big. 00:03:50.220 --> 00:03:54.260 If they extend in front of here, you're going to lose the ability to access 00:03:54.260 --> 00:03:57.940 a lot of these ports. It's going to go like right there. If you are going with this case, 00:03:57.940 --> 00:04:01.860 it might be worth considering an SFXL power supply, but I guess we'll see how much of a problem 00:04:01.860 --> 00:04:05.500 it actually ends up being when we get there. It's in there. 00:04:06.460 --> 00:04:09.700 It's got a little wiggle, but it's a computer. What's going to happen? 00:04:09.700 --> 00:04:13.340 Now we go into the next layer. And as we follow down the layers, 00:04:13.340 --> 00:04:16.940 we can see in the box that we have front panel and mounting rear panel. 00:04:16.940 --> 00:04:21.340 Oh, that's kind of neat. They come with two of the PCI brackets and already removed. 00:04:21.340 --> 00:04:25.100 That's actually surprisingly convenient because that's how it always is. 00:04:25.100 --> 00:04:28.460 And especially because you never use the first slot because that's going to be your SSD now. 00:04:28.460 --> 00:04:33.340 You're only really looking at the second and third slots for most mounts. I like that saving me a little bit of a step 00:04:33.340 --> 00:04:35.700 after adding so many steps. 00:04:36.780 --> 00:04:39.940 So I get the idea that it's like, okay, shipping an empty PC case 00:04:39.940 --> 00:04:43.620 means you're shipping just a lot of empty, just air. It's all empty in there. 00:04:43.620 --> 00:04:47.780 But because this is disassembled, it requires like every bit of it 00:04:47.780 --> 00:04:50.860 to be that much more rigid so that it's easier to work with 00:04:50.860 --> 00:04:56.820 without warping or bending. And that makes this whole thing a lot heavier. 00:04:56.820 --> 00:05:01.780 So how much are they really saving on shipping? Because that's the other big expense for shipping is weight. 00:05:01.780 --> 00:05:05.780 No. Damn it. It's micro ATX. 00:05:05.780 --> 00:05:10.260 I have to take out this. I have to take out the top PCIe bracket. 00:05:11.020 --> 00:05:16.300 I'm so embarrassing. So let's go the front panel, the next step. 00:05:16.300 --> 00:05:21.460 Ooh, it's mint green. So I've been informed that this is the Macaron edition, 00:05:21.460 --> 00:05:26.660 which is a fancy one that comes with three different colors. And I imagine they're all dessert themed. 00:05:26.660 --> 00:05:32.140 This is really cute. I love this. On the front panel, we have a 20 gigabit per second USB type C port 00:05:32.140 --> 00:05:35.260 and two five gigabit per second USB A ports, 00:05:35.260 --> 00:05:42.860 as well as a combo jack for audio. And a slightly unsatisfying power button. 00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:47.500 Look at, look at that cable. Plenty of length that's gonna make it easy 00:05:47.500 --> 00:05:51.260 to reach wherever you want to go. This probably is also what they use 00:05:51.260 --> 00:05:56.820 for like normal sized cases. Cause like look at how much, look at how much play we got. 00:05:56.820 --> 00:06:01.060 I like how there was one screw type for every part of this case, whether that's mount to your motherboard 00:06:01.060 --> 00:06:04.440 to put in your GPU to put the case itself together. 00:06:04.440 --> 00:06:08.620 That just simplifies my life so much. And I more companies should do this. 00:06:08.620 --> 00:06:12.620 It's very annoying when you get like a computer case and you have like four different types of screws 00:06:12.620 --> 00:06:17.220 and you're not really sure what each one's for cause they don't label the bags cause they're lazy. 00:06:17.220 --> 00:06:20.740 Cooler master went the extra mile here and I appreciate that. I guess to screw this in, 00:06:20.740 --> 00:06:24.300 we need to take off this front panel, which is magnetic 00:06:24.300 --> 00:06:28.140 and it has a removable dust filter. 00:06:28.140 --> 00:06:33.860 Nice, easy to wash. I like that that mesh itself seems pretty dense 00:06:33.860 --> 00:06:38.460 and like a lot of it is wasted on the fact that it's a circle structure instead of like a grid. 00:06:38.460 --> 00:06:42.260 This is pretty dense cause they're matching the circle design that's on the front of here, 00:06:42.260 --> 00:06:45.780 which is just like, there's a lot of extra space. Before we get any further, 00:06:45.780 --> 00:06:49.740 we're just going to put in our CPU and RAM real quick. Yo, we got a Star Wars. 00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:53.860 We got a lightsaber SSD. Hell yeah, let's go. 00:06:53.860 --> 00:06:58.300 B-D-D. Whoa. Ha-cha! 00:06:58.300 --> 00:07:03.260 I'm just going to plug the front IO in while I'm here. All right, we got everything wired up. 00:07:03.260 --> 00:07:07.580 So now we're going to move on to the next step, which is going to be the bottom panel. 00:07:07.580 --> 00:07:10.780 Mmm. At the bottom, we see a fan filter made of the same material 00:07:10.780 --> 00:07:16.140 as on the front panel, but this one is magnetic. And we have rails for up to a 240 millimeter rad 00:07:16.140 --> 00:07:21.500 or what looks like maybe a 280. Also, we have mounting points for hard drives. 00:07:21.500 --> 00:07:25.380 There's going to be a couple of legs that I believe go on at the bottom here that we're yet to get to 00:07:25.380 --> 00:07:30.480 in our construction journey. So we're going to move on to the top panel. 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:34.220 On the top panel, we have more of that minty freshness 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:38.660 as well as another layer of, wow, that is going to be pretty restricted for air flow. 00:07:38.660 --> 00:07:42.140 It's just like the front panel. And I think this is actually going to be a bigger issue than I thought. 00:07:42.140 --> 00:07:46.100 Circles at the front that are going to be blocking stuff. Then a layer of dense mesh in the middle. 00:07:46.100 --> 00:07:52.100 Then another series of cutouts on the backhand. I think the reason they did this was to add extra modularity 00:07:52.100 --> 00:07:58.420 so that this could be used in multiple different locations. Like this could be the top or the bottom panel. 00:07:58.420 --> 00:08:01.900 This could have just been the fan rails and this could have been completely unobstructed, 00:08:01.900 --> 00:08:05.860 which would benefit both air flow and probably also fan noise. 00:08:05.860 --> 00:08:10.380 And now we got to get our radiator out. Corsair and a lot of other companies 00:08:10.380 --> 00:08:13.460 include the pre-installed fans now. It's so much better. 00:08:13.460 --> 00:08:17.820 These ones I have to do myself. And we'll screw in this top panel real quick. 00:08:18.700 --> 00:08:24.140 Oh boy, a computer builds. But I lack a sense of urgency when I do them. 00:08:24.140 --> 00:08:27.340 And they take really long. Stay at home. Don't build a computer. 00:08:30.100 --> 00:08:32.500 Yeah. My girlfriend was in that. 00:08:34.940 --> 00:08:40.540 It's not that. Just because I let you be friends with her, 00:08:40.540 --> 00:08:42.380 it doesn't mean it's our girlfriend. 00:08:43.780 --> 00:08:45.300 We're all dating Shay now. 00:08:46.780 --> 00:08:51.780 The feet, they just clip in. And if you're having trouble getting them all the way in, you just get them one at a time. 00:08:51.780 --> 00:08:56.580 Yo, we got SSD and hard drive. We can mount a hard drive on the bottom, 00:08:56.580 --> 00:09:00.980 on the backside of the motherboard background. We have mounts for two and a half inch drives 00:09:00.980 --> 00:09:04.820 right there and there. Or a three and a half inch drive going along this way. 00:09:04.820 --> 00:09:08.660 So this case actually supports four, three and a half inch hard drive mounts, 00:09:08.660 --> 00:09:12.020 which is awesome. I also like this integrated handle on the back. 00:09:15.020 --> 00:09:20.100 Could you imagine? That's what we get for supporting not just full ATX, 00:09:20.100 --> 00:09:24.100 but also even EATX. You can see we have a little bit of extra space right here. 00:09:24.100 --> 00:09:28.340 If we have a smaller power supply that we can get an EATX motherboard in here. Honestly, quite spacious, 00:09:28.340 --> 00:09:31.300 especially for the size, for its compact size. I like this thing quite a bit. 00:09:32.020 --> 00:09:35.860 It's pretty charming. I will say that actually in the backside of things, 00:09:35.860 --> 00:09:39.460 you do have a decent amount of space for cable management. 00:09:39.460 --> 00:09:44.340 But the nature of this kind of front mounted power supply 00:09:44.340 --> 00:09:47.540 here, you kind of have to round this like little corner 00:09:47.540 --> 00:09:50.580 in this tab and it's just gonna be a little bit of a pain. 00:09:50.580 --> 00:09:56.420 It's not a ton of room, it's maybe an inch of depth. Cable management is probably not this case's strong suit. 00:09:56.420 --> 00:09:59.780 It's always kind of hard to hide cables when your PSU is right there, 00:09:59.780 --> 00:10:03.460 as opposed to somewhere at the bottom where you can round them up to the back and then just kind of sneak out holes. 00:10:03.460 --> 00:10:08.060 It feels like we're nearly there. We just need this front panel and this back panel to go on. 00:10:08.060 --> 00:10:12.420 So it comes with two different types of panels. You can get a mesh panel or a glass panel. 00:10:12.420 --> 00:10:16.540 It comes with both. So you can choose which side you want it on, if you want it on the back to hide your cables 00:10:16.540 --> 00:10:21.060 or if you want it on the front to hide your cables. I'm airflow focused. I like that stuff. 00:10:21.060 --> 00:10:26.020 So say you're using the mesh panel, you can actually take this and mount your radiator to it, 00:10:26.020 --> 00:10:29.340 or maybe a couple of fans if you want to get some direct air right to the GPU. 00:10:29.340 --> 00:10:31.340 So I think you would take this bracket, 00:10:33.060 --> 00:10:36.940 put it on here. You can just toss the radiator in like that. 00:10:38.580 --> 00:10:41.980 Nice. We can also actually take this whole GPU out and use a vertical bracket. 00:10:41.980 --> 00:10:45.860 It's really impressive how many options they've provided in this case, 00:10:45.860 --> 00:10:50.620 while still making it flat-packed, you know? Like surprisingly modular. 00:10:50.620 --> 00:10:54.620 And I guess we're gonna use our tempered glass panels gonna go on the back. 00:10:54.620 --> 00:10:57.420 Whoa, look at that. 00:10:58.420 --> 00:11:02.580 There's so many different colors. Wow, this is the macaron colors 00:11:02.580 --> 00:11:06.260 that they were talking about. Neat. 00:11:06.260 --> 00:11:10.500 What is this? There's so many mysteries yet to be found in this box. 00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:11.900 Shove this on the back. 00:11:14.540 --> 00:11:17.620 Come on, squish down wires. The problem with having detents 00:11:17.620 --> 00:11:22.900 is that if you have too much outward pressure, they'll just pop off really easy. Obviously still easier to get them on and off in general. 00:11:22.900 --> 00:11:25.900 So in here, we have all of the accessories with which you can customize. 00:11:25.900 --> 00:11:33.020 I guess you gotta go with the white on the edges, but I could just swap them out like that if I wanted. 00:11:33.020 --> 00:11:36.460 Get rid of that filter up there, maybe. And they also have a couple of other things 00:11:36.460 --> 00:11:40.980 like we have this tiny little gem here where you can run a cable through it. 00:11:40.980 --> 00:11:45.340 And you can put in things like a headphone hook. So look at that, you can just hang it there. 00:11:45.340 --> 00:11:50.340 Or if you use two, it's a controller hook. 00:11:51.020 --> 00:11:55.060 Incredible. And they come with a second handle, so if you wanna have two handles 00:11:55.060 --> 00:11:58.900 or you can just replace the one. So you can get that little hint of mint green in the back. 00:11:58.900 --> 00:12:04.260 Overall, as a building experience, it was actually pretty fun. Very nifty being able to put together a flat-packed case. 00:12:04.260 --> 00:12:09.780 I am worried about the noise and the airflow coming from these really dense and thick panels. 00:12:09.780 --> 00:12:13.380 And I think that some of Cooler Master's claims about environmental sustainability 00:12:13.380 --> 00:12:20.260 are really gonna be offset from the extra steel that's required in building this thing. 00:12:20.260 --> 00:12:24.220 I don't really know the math about whether steel production or shipping is more carbon-intensive. 00:12:24.220 --> 00:12:28.140 Both of them are just carbon-intensive. When we were doing some research and prep for this, 00:12:28.140 --> 00:12:31.980 we found a review from Kickeroo that said removing the mesh from your panels 00:12:31.980 --> 00:12:36.860 can have as much as a nine-degree difference on your temps on their CPU rad. 00:12:36.860 --> 00:12:40.180 So that's why I was kind of like, let's not put the mesh at the top. 00:12:40.180 --> 00:12:44.740 I think that the mesh does help a lot though in terms of the looks. 00:12:44.740 --> 00:12:48.140 Like you can see on the front, we don't have the mesh. And it just kind of looks messy 00:12:48.140 --> 00:12:53.060 with that like cross-hatchet patterns on the inside of the build. 00:12:53.060 --> 00:12:56.740 And the mesh really serves to clean up that look when you have it here. 00:12:56.740 --> 00:13:02.380 But that's at the cost of nine degrees of thermal performance, which is pretty significant. 00:13:02.380 --> 00:13:05.860 There are a couple of things that we had problems with. You can see this top panel. 00:13:05.860 --> 00:13:09.700 There's like some paint chips that we already have. And then there was some weirdness with shipping. 00:13:09.700 --> 00:13:13.940 I don't know if that's really a QC problem, but something to note. 00:13:13.940 --> 00:13:18.500 Also the instructions are kind of wonky. I think that the step-by-step process in the box 00:13:18.500 --> 00:13:23.180 is really well thought out and very cool and very nice. And the videos that they provide are really helpful. 00:13:23.180 --> 00:13:26.340 The written instructions are kind of a dog's breakfast. 00:13:26.340 --> 00:13:29.900 And they could really, really be improved. Cooler Masters also released plans 00:13:29.900 --> 00:13:33.860 for 3D printable objects that you can download if you want to print anything that's compatible 00:13:33.860 --> 00:13:38.860 with these holes. So if you want more of these little hooks or anything you can come up with, 00:13:38.860 --> 00:13:42.300 you can borrow those plans and make something pretty cool. I love that. 00:13:42.300 --> 00:13:45.740 I think that's really neat. And the price of this whole kit in Kaboodle 00:13:45.740 --> 00:13:49.180 is $90 to $100, depending on the version, 00:13:49.180 --> 00:13:52.740 which is a pretty solid price. I think that it's a unique case 00:13:52.740 --> 00:13:56.740 and a unique building experience, and that should be factored into the price in my opinion. 00:13:56.740 --> 00:14:00.060 But obviously that's a really, really competitive price point. 00:14:00.060 --> 00:14:05.260 There's a ton of selection for good, capable cases at $90 to $100. 00:14:05.260 --> 00:14:12.580 So you have to really kind of be into the vibe of this whole look and the DIY aspects of it. 00:14:13.020 --> 00:14:17.420 You can get a Phanteks P400A case for around $100. I know Lee and Lee has a really great case 00:14:17.420 --> 00:14:21.520 for around $100 now. Like if you have worries about thermals, 00:14:21.520 --> 00:14:24.580 this might not be the case for you. I think it's really unique. 00:14:24.580 --> 00:14:29.580 I like its style, but it doesn't feel super competitive. 00:14:29.820 --> 00:14:33.900 If it was a $60 or $70 case, I think it would be really compelling. 00:14:33.900 --> 00:14:37.340 It offers quite a bit of compatibility and it's a really fun case to build in 00:14:37.340 --> 00:14:40.340 if you are somebody who's like a hobbyist, 00:14:40.340 --> 00:14:44.620 somebody who's already in the PC space. But I think at $100 it's kind of tough to recommend 00:14:44.620 --> 00:14:48.220 with the scene as it is. I would love to see Cooler Master continue this idea. 00:14:48.220 --> 00:14:52.320 I think it's really neat. It's really outside of the box. I like it, but I wanted to love it. 00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:56.460 But do you know what I think? You'll love subscribing to ShortCircuit. Thank you so much for watching. 00:14:56.460 --> 00:15:01.020 If you like this video, why don't you watch my video on the Fractal Terra? That's a much smaller case, 00:15:01.020 --> 00:15:06.300 but it's also very well built, a little bit more expensive. And it's the case that I actually personally own now 00:15:06.300 --> 00:15:08.300 because I loved it that much. 00:15:13.340 --> 00:15:14.180 No, keep rolling. 00:15:18.220 --> 00:15:20.220 Thanks for that.