Coolermaster stays on the case

COOLERMASTER is a prime example of what Taiwanese companies have aspired to in recent years.

Having pretty much out-manufactured the rest of the world, the industrious people of this fascinating island have, in recent years, wised up to the wonders of marketing.

It's gotta hurt when you slave away to build stuff just to see someone else make more money than you do from your products.

To take the Coolermaster example in hand, the firm began putting the brand out there and backed up the marchitecture with innovative products.

For Coolermaster its all about coolers, cases and PSUs and the outfit has refreshed parts of its line-up for this year's sweaty gadgetfest.

First up, check out this monster cooler.

It's due soon, looks utterly outrageous and, if you're geeky enough to have your PC in a clear perspex case, then you'll have this mother on display in your living room.

The case we found under wraps in a back room and managed to take the shot below of is also upcoming. It's pretty mainstream and priced accordingly but takes advantage of some of the innovations Coolermaster made in its higher-end boxes, some of which we outlined here last year.

In use this thing - called the Centurion Silent - is... um, silent. We heard not a whirr from any of its fans. You can see how the large case fan lines up directly with the CPU. Both case fan and CPU fan are big enough to revolve more slowly and therefore quietly. That black thing to the left is the cushioned side panel which further adds to the noise reduction. You can bet the designers hate it when you fire up a DVD drive, though.

Coolermaster has high hopes for this case as it will ship at a low-end price, though we couldn't confirm exactly what that will be.

To round stuff off, here's Maggie - yeah she said she'd kill us if we use this - holding an upcoming power supply. The Ultimate range is the world's first-ever 80 Plus Silver Certified high wattage power supply, apparently, claiming an 88 per cent efficiency rating. It comes in three flavours, 700, 900 and 1100 Watts. µ