Introduction
Awesome Aluminium
Our very own Craig took a look at the aluminium Cooler Master Wave Master back in September 2003, here. The silver coloured version of the chassis impressed him enough that he proclaimed: "The Wave Master is priced at around the £120 mark which in my opinion is a cracking price for the case. Exceptional build quality and superb cooling for such a little price. The special 3D design of the case is very eye catching and aims to impress with the blue illumined bezel. It is certainly worth the money!".
Good stuff from the masters of understated aluminium style. Tarinder also had a close-up look at the silver Wave Master as part of AMD's Athlon FX-51 press kit and he had similar plaudits for it. Two recommendations meant I was keen to get hold of one for myself, the price and capacity seemed to fit the computer systems I use and the styling was definitely to my taste. Rumours of a black version surfaced soon after and that made me put the purchase off long enough to wait and see what it was like. When stock appeared in the UK, I was pretty sure I had to have one. A busy schedule meant I put it on the back burner, but the opportunity recently arose to evaluate one. I couldn't turn it down, an eval unit is definitely the best way to try before you buy, reviewer's perks as it were.
So here we are today with a review of the same case Craig had a look at, with a slight feature upgrade, in classy black finish. Before I start, just a quick rundown of the features the case has to offer. Aluminium construction to a quality standard is a given, slide out motherboard tray, three 80mm cooling fans with the option to convert to four, blue light illumination and top mounted expansion ports round out the basics.
So is the box tagline shown in the picture above true? Let's find out.
