Cooler Master HAF XM Gaming Case Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
2,094 words · ~10 min read
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welcome to my belated unboxing of the half XM case from Cooler Master
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featuring apparently with a sticker see
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it's a good thing I did this late because otherwise this sticker wouldn't have even been here high-speed USB 3 and
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2 and 1/2 in SSD support this is an Enthusiast midtower with easy access
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latch design and three-way SLI and Crossfire support the half series is so
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popular stands for high air flow which
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is good for gaming and generally parts
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that need air flow which is computer stuff which goes in there it's computer
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case Rich IO with two USB 3.0 ports supports two x dock so those are
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external quick easy hot swappy Bays that
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are actually work really really well I've seen these before on previous Cooler Master chases uh in terms of
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other features they list on the front supports up to eatx and I haven't seen
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how many PCI slots are supported but I suspect based on what I know about
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previous half cases it it's got more than seven 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 yes so it
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supports xlx as well sliding PSU cable
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cover for improved Cable Management front 200 mm red LED fan six tool free
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hard drive SSD Baye top compartment with rubber pad so you can like throw your
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keys in there and not worry about scratching it up supports 2 and2 in SSD
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times one behind the motherboard tray smart that's how I mount my ssds on my
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case 8 plus1 expansion slots and you know what let's just open this bad boy
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up and have a
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look case unboxings are fun because
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basically ow it shocked me okay that part wasn't fun oh that hurt got me
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really good stupid
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packaging that's what that's what the problem is it's the styrofoam rubbing
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against the cardboard and the plastic doesn't help the problem and this isn't
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the kind of Styrofoam I like anyway I like soft foam this is hard foam but
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hopefully it'll survive and make it to you anyway our sure did so there's your
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Corners your Corners are one of the most important part so as long as you got
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lots of padding in the corners it might make it there're okay get rid of that
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get rid of that okay anger fading I'm
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feeling good now all right so let's start with the outside there's the
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manual three 5 and 1/4 in Bays two of
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those quick swaps so you can throw a 3 and 1/2 in see from the sides just by
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throwing actually here let me go get a hard drive hold on a sec so hard drive installation easy
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peasy you just throw it in there and it kind of locks into place it's actually
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like the smartest thing ever I love cooler Master's hard drive mounting
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thing once it's in there it's not going anywhere very smart and then to install
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it you just slide it back into place and
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lock it in just like that is also compatible with 2 and2 in dries if I didn't say that before I can't remember
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cuz we cut the footage and I don't know what I said anymore so in terms of front
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IO there's your two front USB 2 ports front audio two front USB 3 ports there
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is your fan control and an indicator LED for it your
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power button nice and big in case you have trouble finding that and a reset
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button which I'd say is too big because you might accidentally press that
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there's that rubber pad thing if you wanted to I don't know store your keys
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in the top of your case for whatever reason yes that is a Hello Kitty key and
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yes I like it so get over it I've had people question this before and uh I am
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I am totally into the Hello Kitty key it's actually a gift from uh from
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cameraman we were at the uh slick uh
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screwdriver no just throw it oh okay
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yeah we're good we're cool everything's fine didn't cut my ARM open too bad okay
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let's go ahead and loosen these at the back here actually I'm going to turn
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this so that you can get better Lighting on it anyway so we're going to get this
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case opened up because I can't quite figure out some of the external features
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without having a look at the side so four thumb screws which are just a
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little tight from the factory otherwise I would have been able to remove those
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just fine so since you won't put them on machine tight uh you won't have to worry
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about having to pull out a screwdriver every time you open the case because they are tooless they are thumb screws
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so let's go ahead and open up this guy right here I have a feeling this is
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going to be something B so ah yes okay
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so there are your filtered meshed vented
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that's the high air flow style there is your 200 mm Cooling fan that apparently
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has room for like another one which is
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awesome so you can put up to two 200 mil fans in the top or you can do a triple
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120 and it looks like there should be room to actually water cool that that
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stuff that's oh that's incredible so yeah look how much room there is I mean
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there's all this space here and then you got a little bit of space on the other
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side so yeah triple rad triple rad ready with no problems whatsoever let's go
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ahead and throw that in there maybe put
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that thumb screw back into place I mean you won't access this often so I don't
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mind this being based on a thumb screw and not on like some kind of toolless
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latch mechanism speaking of tooless latch mechanisms on the side you've got
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more cooling fan spots you know what I'm just going to have to check what those
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are they look like 140 mil just SEC and we figured it out it's dual 140
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or single 200 mil which means so far you've got a 200 mil in the front two
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200 mil compatibility in the top and 200 mil comp ability on the side giving you
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massive well high air flow so there's your
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uh handle on the side for opening up the case and there's your more mesh and
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whatnot you clean that off if you want to otherwise you can you know just be
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gross and not clean it that's fine too bit of a bulge here which gives you more
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room for graphics cards or CPU coolers see where that's positioned that are
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tall and take up space all right moving inside to the case we're going to oh
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actually flip this around first so we can take off the other side panel we can
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figure out how to do that there you go so they give you more space for cable
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management in much the same way as they do on the other side keeps things
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symmetrical and makes it so you're going to be able to do a really nice job of
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managing the cables inside this case because there's lots of space here more
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space from the side panel which means you run like 24 pin cable you're going
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to be able to cross stuff over that no problem lots of room here for all the
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cables that are going to come out of your power supply and then a couple of
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spots here so there's your eight pin there's your uh your opticals as well as
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that front hard drive hot swap there's your VGA cables and this is for your
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front panel audio because motherboard manufacturers insist on putting that
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connector over there why do they do this I don't know uh this one you can
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probably use for your like front panel connectors like your power switch and all that good stuff from the other side
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we can also see a few interesting things so there's our six 3 and 1/2 in sliders
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which use that same mechanism I showed you in the front where it's really easy
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to inst 3 and 1/2 in Drive there's that 200 mm red LED fan in the front it's
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going to look pretty sweet in the dark and there's an adapter for a fan which
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apparently fell off something okay that
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seems like it's not supposed to be there very large CPU cutout so you're going to
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be able to install your CPU Cooler even if your motherboard is already installed
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in the case and there is that 2 and 1/2 in SSD mounting point on the back here
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so that's uh not going to be in anybody's way if you wanted to have a
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system where you basically basally couldn't even see any of the drives that
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would be the way to do it you wrap your SATA cables right around here and then
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they can go right into that drive at the back very very cool stuff all right
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terms of accessories let's have a look at what we got
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here that's right I can unbox things one-handed and then unbag them and then
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pour them out who needs two hands
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anyway so there's screws
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standoffs cable o lots of cable ties I don't think I've seen anyone include
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this many cable ties before very good stuff Cooler Master way to go black
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cable ties too that's the best time more
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screws speaker okay then moving right along
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this guy right here can be repositioned which is nice you just undo these
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screws and a one and
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two and you can slide it so that it'll allow you to bring up the cables where
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you want and hide the cables where you don't want to see them glad to see this
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is modular I've seen this kind of stuff attempted in the past but it usually
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ends up looking kind of cheesy Cooler Master has the right idea with this one
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though you can actually hide the cables if you have a non-m modular power supply
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and it'll actually look really really clean love it power supply is mounted on
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two rubber standoffs right here as well as with a filtered intake on the bottom
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so you're not going to have any dust accumulating in your power supply we've
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got those eight PCI slots that I mentioned here as well as that auxiliary
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one for things like I don't know an extra fan controller or whatever else you want to mount in there I already
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covered all of the uh yes the
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rubber Cable Management holes such as this one this one and this one very soft
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rubber in here which is really nice means you're not going to accidentally warp them out of place and then have
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them stick there like we saw with the original fractal design Define R2 which
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had a very hard rubber that was uh not very good and then we've got aha one
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power in and two SATA datas for those
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front uh slidable Drive mounting cages
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there's our tooless 5 and a/4 in base
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and I think that pretty much wraps it up
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oh hold on there's a screw here oh cool
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look at that you can actually remove this top 3 and 1/2 in uh cage so you
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could install like video cards that are like 2 and 1/2 ft long if you really
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wanted to and of course the included 140
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mm fan in the back all the cooling options are included thank you for
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checking out my unboxing and first look at the half XM from Cooler Master don't
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