COOLER MASTER Elite 120 Advanced Black Appearance: Aluminum & Polymer front, Case body: Steel Alloy Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case

Pros: Sturdy designed. Supports full size power supplies and graphics cards. Plenty of internal connectors, including SUB 3.0 front panel connector. Built in cable routing channels help kept the internal clutter down. Includes two 2.5 HD mounting trays for a truly screwless construction.

Cons: Only comes in one color.

Other Thoughts: This is a great case to work with. It supports both 2.5 and 3.5 hard drives out the box. Additionally, being able to use full size power supplies and graphic cards is a joy. The supplied case fans are quiet while moving a large amount of air. This case works equally well as either a media center PC or gaming system.

Pros: Used this little case to upgrade from a MI-008 because I wanted a 2 slot graphics card and a little more room for cable management. Bought this with a Corsair CX430, MSI GTX650 ti Boost Twin Frozr and finished it off with an ASRock Mini ITX motherboard, i3 2100t, 3.5" HD and 5.25" DVD burner and all is running perfectly. Cable management IS possible in this case. It took a ton of zip ties and some creative adapters, but I've managed to get everything looking great and moving a lot of air with the stock fans.

Excellent build quality, perfect accessories, nicely packaged. Good stuff, indeed.

Cons: None.

Pros: plenty of tie down points for cable management and included accessory kit had more than enough plastic zip ties.

Cons: none... and that is only because i planned as far ahead as i could while utilizing youtube and forums. if i had to choose one though, it would probably be the stock fans.

Other Thoughts: build components:

AsRock FM2A85X-ITX, AMD A10-5800K, samsung 120G SSD, seagate 1TB HDD, asus dvd-writer, geil 8GB (4GBx2) 2133 ram, and coolermaster geminII cpu cooler.

only hiccup i had was the cpu cooler required a backplate for mounting which the motherboard is not compatible with, i apologize for not taking any pictures but trust me on this. my solution was utilizing additional rubber grommets (on the underside of the motherboard) which served as a separator between the nuts and the motherboard for mounting the cooler to the motherboard. the geminII has two orientations for AMD which turns the cooler 90 degrees, one of these two orientations will allow you to utilize normal ram dimms. see GEL38GB2133C11DC for reference, that is the dual channel set i utilized. fortunately the cooler did not interfere with any other components with this build.

i also replaced the intake fan with a cougar (cf-v14hb) which came recommended by a friend of mine and i re-purposed the stock intake fan as an internal 120mm fan (if you see unboxing videos on youtube you will see where it is mounted) to promote air flow. if you choose to do this, do not forget to mount the fan prior to the motherboard. if you wait until after you set the motherboard you will not have the room to do so.

i installed all components before mounting the PSU and initially utilized twist-ties (leftover from garbage bags) to manage cables. once I did a mockup with the PSU mounted and was happy with the cable management i then utilized the plastic zip-ties for finalization. this saved me from having to cut a perfectly good zip-tie after forgetting to bundle a loose cable.

this is a, slight, overkill build i did for my dad who is only going to utilize it for random web browsing and (mostly) burning CDs from our lossless NAS library. i doubt he will ever stress the system but i am confident it will be able to handle whatever he may throw at it.

also, remove the bracket the side 80mm fan is attached to. it will give you a bit extra room for making any necessary motherboard connections and from there you can decide if you want to utilize it or re-orient it for exhaust or intake.

as Curt on an earlier review stated, the plastic feet will cause the unit to slide on most surfaces and scratch them up as well. his solution was to use Shepherd vinyl bumpers. i was able to find the exact ones at my local homedepot and they work PERFECTLY without the use of any modifications. HIGHLY recommend you pick some up before the case arrives. goto the home depot website and search for: 100062406 .

i realize this is a long review but i quickly realized information is your best friend when messing with mini-itx builds.. and i hope at least one person finds this useful

Pros: Small dimensions, USB 3.0 ports, whisper quiet fans, feels solid.

Cons: Plastic (not rubber) feet, side chassis fan can only be used in one position and may get in the way of connectors, and some sharp edges.

Other Thoughts: It's a fairly middle-of the road product, and at its price point it is acceptable. If buying this product, be prepared to make a few slight modifications; adding rubber feet and dremelling (is that a verb?) a few small holes on the opposite side of the case to mount a fan.

Pros: none

Cons: way to small, extremely difficult to put in a mobo and power supply,graphics card does not fit in it and did i mention it's too small?

Other Thoughts: not worth the money as cheap as it is

Pros: Perfect size case. I just built my first Mini-ITX system and love it! It takes a full-size power supply. I am running the ASRock E350M1/USB3 motherboard and the Corsair CX430 power supply and it went together without a hitch besides no USB3 connector on that motherboard for the front USB3 port but that motherboard does have a rear usb3 on the motherboard so that helped.

Cons: None.

Pros: Using this for a HTPC/Server. Installation was a breeze.

Cons: I have this case in a closet, but it's kind of ugly and not super small.

Pros: what a bang for $$ this case is, so well thought out.

Cons: don't be silly

Other Thoughts: was easy to route cables for nice clean air flow. yup i'm hooked lol.

Pros: small and great fit for everything I am doing. Wrote a long winded review giving 4 eggs a few days ago...

Cons: front panel USB 3.0 connector died within 1 week if it ever worked at all.

Opened a ticket with coolermaster and they said they would send me a new part...part of the process is to upload invoice and serial number... then they replied wanting the invoice and serial number. ... uploaded again and now a week later and still "waiting to be assigned"


color me a NOT happy coolermaster customer at this point.

Pros: Great build quality. Comes with good instructions and plenty of extra accessories (zip ties, hard drive mounts etc). Small size is a plus, although slightly longer than I expected (all dimensions are listed however). Is pretty much exactly what I expected and a great deal at 50 dollars.

Cons: I wish it included a USB 3.0 to 2.0 header adapter but that's more against the motherboard. Thumb screws arrived overly tightened but can be loosened with a screwdriver.

Other Thoughts: Space is fairly tight, but if you do a little bit of planning all the cables can be routed well and leave ample room for air flow.

I'm running an ivy bridge i5, full sized ATX psu, GTX 560ti, optical drive and one 3.5" HDD and I was able to feed everything fairly neatly and maintain lots of room for the front fan to move air.

Even after this I still have room to slide in another 120mm fan onto the HDD cage for better airflow. The case does come with some long plastic mounting pins for that purpose.