A Closer Look - Inside

To open up the chassis, simply push down the two aforementioned plastic levers in the back. As the doors are hinged, they swing open once released - which on its own already looks pretty menacing, but the fact that they are made of glass further adds to that. You may remove the doors easily, which we have done to show you the interior, as the panels are equipped with metal pins that hook into the hinged metal plate. These glass panels are definitely the most intricate pieces of the updated chassis.


The interior is divided into two compartments, with the bottom holding the PSU and two hard-drive cages. Turning the Cosmos II around, there is a huge opening in the motherboard tray through which you can easily access the backplate of the CPU cooler without removing the board. There are plenty of openings to route cables through, and due to the size, there should be enough space for even the biggest graphics cards and CPU coolers.



The bottom compartment comes equipped with two more fans, which push air across the hard-drive bays located here. As you can see from the opposite side, the drives are placed into two cages. Above that are some additional drive bays next to seven large grommet-covered openings. All silver elements within the chassis frame are actually aluminum, while the black parts are actually steel.


Just like with the original Cosmos II, you will find a total of eleven hard-drive trays within the chassis and are also able to install two more 3.5" drives in the hot swap bays underneath the external 5.25" drive bays. Cooler Master is utilizing the same tool-free locking mechanism for the larger bays as in the Cosmos II, which actually works extremely well. You may also install a 140 mm fan on the hard-drive cage below the external bays to create a push/pull configuration in combination with the 200 mm unit in the front.


In the rear, things are a bit simpler. The PSU bay is lined with foam to reduce vibrations from this area. Above that are the 10+1 slots, with each cover held in space by a thumbscrew. At the very top is a 140 mm fan with a Cooler Master label and 3-pin connector, but an attached Molex adapter gives you the most in terms of flexibility. Interestingly enough, no other fan inside the case comes with such an adapter.


You may remove the hard-drive cages in the bottom to make space for a 240 mm radiator instead. To do so, you will also have to remove the plastic cover that holds the fans in place.


In the top, you will find another 120 mm fan with only a 3-pin connector, bringing the total number of cooling units within the Cosmos II 25th Anniversary Edition to five. You may add two more 120 mm fans here or opt for two 140 mm units instead.


You will find a whole bunch of cables within the Cosmos II. While most of them are for common functions, like I/O and case, there is a whole set of them for the fan controller and fan LEDs. The box contains enough such cables to fill the entire case with LED-equipped fans, even though Cooler Master has equipped the 200 mm unit in front with blue LEDs while leaving all other units without any.