Thermals and noise to align with final launch.

There were a lot of challenges going into this build: A lack of magnetism, a lack of lighting on the show floor of a convention center, and some surprises in between. Cooler Master allowed us to build in the brand-new Cosmos C700P case – a modular chassis with an invertible or rotatable motherboard tray – live at PAX West. After being faced with some challenges along the way, we recruited Cooler Master’s Wei Yang to turn it into a collaborative team build. It was one of the most fun builds we’ve done in a while, and the pressure of time meant that we were both taking turns dropping screws and reworking our aspects of the build. This was a real PC build. There were unplanned changes, parts that GN hasn’t used before, and sacrifices made along the way.

All said and done, the enclosure is exceptionally easy to work within: Every single panel can be removed with relative ease, so we were able to strip-down the case to barebones for the build. Our biggest timesink was asking to invert the motherboard tray to face the other side, since that’d add some flare to the build. This process isn’t intrinsically difficult, but it does require removal of a lot of screws – after all, the entire case can be flipped, and there are a lot of structural elements there. The motherboard tray detaches by removing 4-6 screws on the back-side, followed by six screws in the rear of the case, followed by a few more screws for the shrouds. We got some help for this process, as the case is one of the first working samples of the Cosmos C700P and there’s not yet a manual for which screws have to be removed.

(The video for this one is a read-through of this article -- same content, just read to you.)

This year’s Computex featured the usual mix of concept and prototype cases, some of which will never make it to market (or some which will be several thousand dollars, like the WinBot). We particularly liked the “Wheel of Star” mod at Cooler Master, the “Floating” from In Win, Level 20 from Thermaltake, and Concept Slate from Corsair – but none of those are really meant to be bought in large quantities. This round-up looks at the best cases of Computex that are in the category of being purchasable, keeping cost below $400. We’ll be looking primarily at ATX form factor cases, with one Micro-STX co-star, with a few “needs work” members in the mix.

This case round-up won’t include everything we saw at the show and will exclude the more exotic cases, like the Concept Slate and the In Win WinBot, but still has plenty to get through. Before getting started, here’s a list of the relevant coverage of individual products and booths that are discussed herein:

We stopped by the Cooler Master booth at Computex 2017 to take a look at two of their new iterations of previous Cooler Master cases: the HAF and the Cosmos ATX towers. The HAF, or High Airflow, cases were popular mid- and full-towers a few years ago, and CM will be bringing that back with their new Master Case H500P. The former Cosmos cases are also being refreshed for 2017 in the form of the new Cosmos C700P.

The Cooler Master H500P brings back the HAF series with dual 200mm RGB fans at the front for intake (included), and will provide less noise and more airflow than traditional 120mm or 140mm options. Static pressure is theoretically lower, but we’ll test all that in due time. Front intake is available through mesh on each side and the top and bottom of the curved acrylic front panel. The H500P comes with the two 200mm RGB fans included at the front but is capable of housing another three 140mm fans at the top -- above the top chamber -- or three 120mm fans within the lower chamber of the top panel. A 140mm radiator or fan mount is also present at the rear.

This week's news announcements include AMD AM4 Zen chipset naming (rumors, technically), NZXT's new RGB LED 'Aer' fans, and a pair of cases from Rosewill and Cooler Master.

AMD's initial AM4 chipset announcement was made at PAX, where the B350, A320, and XBA300 chipsets were announced for mainstream and low-end Gen 7 APUs. The high-end Zen chipset for Summit Ridge was concealed during this announcement, but is now known to be the X370 platform.

X370 will ship alongside the Summit Ridge CPUs and will add to the lanes available for high-speed IO devices, mostly SATA and new generation USB. Most of the IO with the Zen architecture will be piped through the CPU itself, with what remains of the chipset acting more as an IO controller than a full chipset.

On December 5, we broke news on Asetek's Cease & Desist order sent to AMD, pursuant to the sale of its liquid-cooled R9 Fury X video card. Asetek previously won a suit against Cooler Master USA for its closed-loop liquid cooler products (CLCs), to include the Seidon, Nepton, and Glacer (Swiftech-supplied) lines. The patents primarily discussed are 8,240,362 and 8,245,764.

By judge and jury, CMI USA (Cooler Master USA) was found guilty of patent infringement of the pump-on-coldplate design and ordered to pay 14.5% royalties. Inability to pay-out on its ruled dues ultimately saw a royalties percentage increase to 25.375%, followed by banishment of all affected Cooler Master CLCs from US markets.

This article fully details the relevant legal history of liquid cooling companies, including the rise of Asetek & CoolIT, their patent lawsuits against one another, the recent lawsuit against Cooler Master, and the C&D against AMD's R9 Fury X.

Readers following our story on the Asetek vs. Cooler Master lawsuits may remember a call to attention regarding the Fury X's utilization of a CM Seidon equivalent CLC. Gigabyte's newest GTX 980 WaterForce card uses a 120mm CLC supplied by Cooler Master, with the pump mounted atop the coldplate (GPU block). This falls within Asetek's claims regarding its patent protection – and the company holds patents valid for GPU- and CPU-mounted pumps – and Gigabyte could reasonably be impacted by the resolutions set forth by recent lawsuits.

The recent banishment from US markets of Cooler Master's closed-loop liquid coolers has inspired us to research and document major CLC suppliers. In most industries – automotive, technology & computing, bike components – suppliers build a base product, receive input from a manufacturer, and then produce a slightly modified version of their core offering. Liquid coolers are the easiest example and the one about which we are talking today. This topic came about following some readers stating that they'd never seen an “Asetek” or “CoolIT” cooler on sale before.

Corsair, NZXT, SilverStone, Enermax, Fractal, and others sell liquid cooling products. These companies buy the pump, radiator, tubing, and liquid in an AIO (all-in-one) package from suppliers who specialize in the making of such items; the brands we know then provide varying degrees of product input to differentiate amongst themselves. NZXT, for instance, sells the NZXT X41 liquid cooler, a product sourced from Asetek but customized by NZXT. In this case, that customization includes software integration and variable pump speed control, alongside an RGB LED in the pump's faceplate. Even the CLC OEMs will source some of their components from the outside, like radiators.

First, a simple table to reveal suppliers of known liquid coolers in the industry, then we'll talk about how companies differentiate themselves. At the surface, all of this can look like a “sticker operation,” by which I mean it may look as if manufacturers put their “sticker” (logo) on a cooler and then sell it – but most folks do more than that when designing their variant of a product.

Liquid cooler manufacturer Asetek, the company that supplies many of the industry's best-known coolers by Corsair, EVGA, and NZXT, saw victory in a patent infringement case against Cooler Master (CMI) in 2014. In that trial, the jury awarded Asetek a 14.5% royalty on all Cooler Master liquid coolers sold in the US.

Listed on AMD's official R9 Fury X documentation is the liquid cooling solution. The PDF indicates that Cooler Master is slated to provide AMD's Fury X CLC, marked by part number “DCV-01647-A1-HF” in the document.

Cooler Master recently lost a lawsuit with CLC supplier Asetek, where a jury ruled that Cooler Master would owe Asetek a 14.5% royalty on all Seidon AIO coolers sold. We are yet unsure if the Fury X stock CLC will be subject to the same legal agreements as the Seidon AIO units.

For years now, the original Quickfire Rapid has had a “Stealth” version with side printed keycaps; although, I’m not sure how stealthy one can be with a keyboard that uses Cherry MX Blue or Green switches. With the release of the Quickfire Rapid-I, some (myself included) were disappointed to see Cooler Master not release a stealth version, but this appears to be changing as of late. Recently, Cooler Master posted the Quickfire Rapid-SI (the “S” standing for “stealth”) page on their site. This is nearly identical to the Quickfire Rapid-I, but for any unfamiliar with the Rapid-I, I’ll quickly run over it, then cover the differences between the two.