| CoolerMaster Cavalier T1 Review |
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| Written by Sam Bruce | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monday, 30 October 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cooler Master has been at the forefront of the market in designing quality products to enhance the
performance and aesthetic appeal of Home PC's, and have become very successful at it. Now bringing
together two of their most popular products, the Wavemaster and the Musketeer, Cooler Master delivers the
Cooler Master Cavalier.
Having a strong emphasis on style and design, Cooler Master always brings a touch of class to the market with their products, in the past they have brought us some very innovative products, two of these have been drawn from to create the cavalier, these two products are: The Wavemaster, a stainless steel case with a stunning waved front panel and a lot of room for expanding and increasing your system. The Musketeer 1 and Musketeer 2, 5.25" drive bays, that display sound pressure, temperature, and other readings in stunning backlit analogue meters, like an old amplifier. Obviously, bringing to products of such high quality together, plus adding a bit more style into the mix would pay off. 
Included in the box with the Cavalier you get: Onto the Case Cooler Master, as always are out to provide something different from other manufacturers, and when you remove the case from its packaging you will definitely notice this. On first inspection, probably the first thing you will notice is the huge analogue dial on the front of the case, about twice as large as the size of the dials on the original Musketeers. This dial adds a lot to the overall design of the case. In terms of style, the case has the same flowing front bezel of the Wavemaster, but Cooler Master have changed this slightly, adding a strip of charcoal tinged Perspex, with the words 'Cooler Master' etched in, which quite frankly looks awesome. the other cool thing about the front door you will notice later on, is the fact that you can change which way the door opens, buy simply pulling down the spring that is located on the hinge side of the door, then moving the spring mechanism to the other side, and popping it in. This also becomes very handy when you are installing your machine because it is that much easier without the heaviest part of the case swinging freely as your are battling and trying to get your DVD writer into the case. Cooler Master have done away with the opening top panel for USB, Fire wire and Audio, that they used on the wavemaster, which for one, I am very happy with. I found on the Wavemaster, that it was always in the way, and whenever I wanted to put something large on the top of my case (i.e. Pizza Box, Beer Box, Tissue Box ;) ) it would get in the way. In lieu of the top panel, they have decided to place two USB ports and one Fire wire port on the left hand side of the case, and on the right hand side, a Microphone and Headphone jack, and the headphone jack even comes with a volume control. Now that is cool.
Both sides of the Cavalier are removable, which is very handy, but unfortunately, Cooler Master have decided not to put a removable motherboard tray in, which becomes apparent the first time you open the case up. But instead for ease of installation, you are provided with a large open area in the case, no excess power supply support rails, and tool-less installation brackets for hard drives and 5.25" drives. As well as this, the motherboard tray is marked with all of the different standards of motherboards, for easy mount installation if you don?t happen to know the spacings already. In terms of cooling, the case is provided with a 12cm fan at the back, and a 8cm fan at the front, which is pretty adequate. Both of these fans run at a speed low enough that they don?t create a lot of noise, which is quite welcome. Both of the sides of the case have holes on them to allow air flow. Cooler Master have also provided the extra bracket, that is starting to become more popular, that is just by the end of the power supply installation socket, that can be used to hold the power supply more securely if the power supply has the bracket, which reduces noise. The true beauty of the cavalier comes in the quick tool-less installation of drives. All of the drives can be installed by simply getting them in the right place, pulling across the plastic tab, and then pushing the lock plastic tab down to complete installation. It could no be more simple. Plus there is plenty of room behind the 3.5" drive bays, so you can tuck any cables neatly away to keep airflow at its best. Hooking up the front fire wire, USB and audio connections, are all easy to install, except for the audio headers. It can be difficult to find a sound card or motherboard that supports these, but if it does, all you need is the manual, and hook up the headers, these have all been kept separate, because there is no outlined standard yet. However, all the fire wire and USB cables are stuck together in their standard formations. To connection the sound pressure dial in the case, all that it needs is a Molex connector from your power supply to the front of your case, and to install the PCI bracket, that is supplied with the case so you can take signal from your sound card, into the bracket, which then sends the signal to the sound pressure dial, and then it will be bouncing away to the sound. After everything has been connected and everything is go, when you switch your PC on you are greeted with a bright blue illuminated dial, and also some bright blue LED's for HDD activity and power. Very funky indeed.
Overall Cooler Master have done it again, and it looks like they always will do it. the Cavalier is the classiest computer case I have ever seen, and it does not lack in the features department, like you might expect from a designer case. Cooler Master have hit the nail on the head again with this case, and with manufacturers such as Evocateur Design we are bound to see more offerings from Cooler Master in the future. My hat goes off to Cooler Master once again for bringing another superb product to the market. 
CoolerMaster Cavalier GalleryImages of the Cooler Master Cavalier                     |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 01 November 2006 ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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