Cougar 6XR9BB Gaming Computer Case Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,784 words · ~8 min read
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Today we're going to be unboxing a case from Cougar. This is from their 6X
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series. So it is the 6XR9 BB. It is a black case. Now we
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unboxed a power supply from Cougar a little while back, but this is the first
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case that we're going to be looking at from them. It is part of their gaming
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series. And uh as I mentioned in the power supply unboxing, um even though
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Cougar is a relatively new brand, you
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have seen many products on the market in the case and power supply categories
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from their parent company, which is HC, Compute Case. So they've been
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manufacturing cases for a lot longer
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than Cougar has been around. So, we're going to go ahead get this open and
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hopefully I haven't broken anything yet. There we go. Okay, so it comes in a
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plain brown box. You can see it is doublewalled for
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protection. And it also has a pretty
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good foam casing around it. So, you can
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see it's about an inch and a half thick on all sides, which means that your
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Cougar will arrive in 100% condition. I
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mean, unless you're shipping from like Canada to Beckistan or, you know, if you
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if you really if you really go really far out there, then uh yeah, you
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probably won't have too much success. But, uh, yep. Let's go ahead and pull
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off the scratch resistant cover. And then there we have
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it. I, uh, I saw this case initially,
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uh, around the time of, I believe, CES. So, it's been quite a while uh since
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I've heard about it and since it's even been on the market and
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uh leading up until the point where I've actually had a chance to have a look at
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it. So, the first thing I'm doing here is I'm just removing the masking tape
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and protective foam. So, they've gone ahead and they've put some some foam
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pieces in between the front door and the front bezel of the case just to make
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sure that it's not going to open and shut during transport and uh cause any
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problems for you there. So, let's go ahead and get all that stuff removed.
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All right. So, the front of the case is quite clean looking, actually. We've got
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1 2 3 4 5 six 5 and 1/4 in drive bays,
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which you can see can be easily removed with these uh latches right here. Uh
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there are Oh, that's kind of interesting. So, for the top two,
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they've gone ahead and removed the metal covers, but for the bottom ones, you'll
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have to go ahead and remove those yourself. They fit back in just like
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that. And then down at the bottom, you can see we've actually
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got here we are a filtered cover for a
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120 mm fan mount. So you can see there's mesh in the front then with a fan
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filter. So you can easily take this out, pop it off, clean it out, and then
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replace it. There we
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are. The rest of the front of the case, you can see there's more mesh once you
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close the front door. And this is actually quite nice. There's a bit of a
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brushed finish to the metal here. And then you've got some chrome accents. And
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so the front of the case looks very clean, very stylish. And then you have a
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front lock so that you won't have people turning on your Oh, actually no. The
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power and the reset are up at the top. So you won't have people opening up your
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drives if you want to lock the front of it. So there's a couple scuffs on the
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front, but those are actually okay. Those are they come off no problem.
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There's some glossy stuff here that I hadn't seen before. And let's look at
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what we got on the front. So, we have a power and reset switch, two USB 2.0
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ports, front audio, as well as an ESATA port. So, we pretty much got all of the
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essentials there. Then, moving along to the top of the case, we've got sort of
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more more mesh, bit of an angled look to it overall. And on the side, this
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actually kind of reminds me of the Cooler Master 830, the Stacker 830,
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which is a bit of an older case, but it's
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uh just reminiscent of that. So, it doesn't have a window, but the mesh side
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panel is actually quite clear. You can see through it very easily. So, I'm
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going to go ahead and sort of hold my hand behind it so you can see how clear
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it is. So, if you do put some case lighting inside this thing, you're going
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to have uh pretty good success seeing the components that you're trying to
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light up. All right, here we have accessories that are included. We also
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have internal cables and wiring. And let's just go ahead and sort of sort
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this out before we try and get too much further into this. We can have a quick
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look at the back of the case. Actually, pretty nondescript. Back here, we've got
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120 mm or 140 mm fan mount. We've got a
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space for the IO shield. We've got seven expansion ports as well as space for a
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standard ATX power supply. The case keys
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are fastened to the back of the case so that you will not lose
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them. And inside, let's have a look at what we got. So, we have four spots for
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uh 3 and 1/2 in drives. And then you can see there are also included mounting
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points for 2 and 1/2 in SSDs. So, you can either use the toolf-free mounts
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right here. And you can see these are quite flexible, but as soon as you put a
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hard drive in it, those will stiffen right up and they'll hold themselves in
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much better. I've seen mechanisms like this before. They are quite effective.
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You can actually remove the whole 3 and 1/2 in hard drive cage if you want. And
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uh I guess that would enable you to install longer graphics cards if you so
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desired. Uh what I actually do in my own case is I have a 2 and 1/2 in drive. I
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don't have any 3 and 1/2 in drives in my case anymore. And I have a two and a
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half inch drive uh velcroed out of the way. And then I um I've completely
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removed all the three and a half inch mounting bays in my case just for better
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cooling, more openness, and for better overall air flow. So we've got an
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included 120 mm fan in the front, although there is no included fan in the
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back. So it looks like Compucase uh Cougar rather has opted to go for a
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bottom front to top. There you see we
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have what appears to be a 140 millimeter fan in the top. Uh airflow design so you
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can add more fans. You're going to have your power supply running here. So most
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modern power supplies have a 120 or 135
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mm fan in the bottom. So you'll have air flow coming from the front of the case
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going towards the back. So you can add a fan here as well and then exhausting
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also out the top. Now, we've got toolfree mounting mechanisms in here for
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the 5 and a/4 in base, which you will pull to unlock. And then, actually, let
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me have a look at how this
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works. Oh, okay. Actually, that's that's really straightforward. Then, all you do
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Yeah. Oh, when you slide the drive in, it locks itself. That's neat. So, you
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can see there's a tab on the back. Shoot. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see that. Anyway, there's a
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plastic tab on the back here. So, as soon as you slide the drive in, it'll
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put the bolt into the side of the 5 and a/4 in drive. So, that's pretty neat.
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And then, let me see if there's anything else I want to talk about really briefly
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here. We've got PCI toolfree slot
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retention mechanism. So, I guess we can try to find out how those work as
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well. You might want to give me a minute with these ones. We figured it out.
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There are instructions right here because apparently Cougar knows that
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that's going to be difficult. So, all you do is you Whoops. Okay. Well, to put
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it in, you just press on the top of the PCI slot and then slip it in under the
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latch there. And then to pull it out, you do that. So, it's not that
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complicated after all. Usually, I don't use these toolfree PCI mechanisms anyway
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because whenever you have dual PCI slot cards, they're they usually don't work
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anyhow. So, yeah, there's not that much benefit to it. Basically, the inside
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lacks cable management a little bit, but I mean, you've
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got a covered side panel, so it's not windowed, so as long as you've got
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sleeved wires, things aren't going to stand out too much. And then you've also
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got a pretty snazzy looking front bezel. So, overall, I'd say the appearance gets
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a pretty good rating from myself. Here's
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all the hardware that needs to be included for mounting your motherboard,
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drives, and other things. And then last but not least, oh okay, they've actually
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included a 5 and 1/4 in to 3 and 1/2 in
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bay adapter. So just in case you still use a floppy drive or if you buy a 3 and
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1/2 in card reader or anything like that, they've gone ahead and included
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that. And uh hopefully that matches the
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uh front style. No, not quite. That's all right. So then you can install a 3
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and 1/2 in 3 and 1/4
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in media card reader or anything else you require. Thank you for checking out
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my unboxing and don't forget to subscribe
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to Lionus Tech Tips.