Cooler Master HAF-XB

[Joshua]

The same as many of you out there, I am a fan of Cooler Master and consider them a trusted brand. Because of this, I purchased the HAF-XB case.

 

 

When I first got my case, the first thing I thought was "Wow, this is big!" make sure you measure out the size of this thing because it takes up a lot of space. It looked really good and clean, and the front I/O was very well arranged. The inside of the case is in two parts, the top and bottom, separated by the motherboard tray. The bottom has the power supply and internal drive bays, the top is where the motherboard and everything that plugs into it. Having it set out like this is difficult for those who are very specific on their cable management. The cables can either come from the left or right of the motherboard, so they have to all go across the motherboard which isn't so bad for things like supplemental CPU power, but is very bad for things like PCI power. 

 

Also, with the power supply being at the bottom, if one needed to plug in additional connectors, one would have to take out the motherboard tray and route the cable through like that, which does involve unplugging every cable from the motherboard tray turning simple processes like putting in a hard drive or a graphics card into a complicated operation. Speaking of hard drives, the case only has internal 2.5" drives, even though there is more than ample space for them to have put in 3.5". All the 3.5" drives have to go into the hot-swap bays, which on some occasions don't work - The little piece of PCB that turns your Molex power into Dual SATA power sometimes is faulty and causes your drive to smoke and burn, which melts the drive bay also. This is a known fault, and they will replace your case but not your hard drive.

 

The tooless installation of 5.25" and 2.5" drives is very convenient, however my PSU's sata power connector just about reached my SSD, which would be a pain if I was installing more than one SSD.

 

The cables that come out of the front panel from the front I/O are as usual, very small cables made for plugging into the pins on the motherboard. They're quite long, and there's nowhere to hide the slack of the cables, same issue with the front fans. It makes my case look scruffy and rushed, like I didn't care and I don't like that. The I/O is great though, all matte black, except the blue for the USB 3.0. The buttons have a distinct click, and they're not the type of buttons you can push in a small bit and not have the computer turn off/restart, they're either fully pressed or not pressed at all.

 

Every screw on the case are Thumb-Screws, which is very convenient, except on the mother board, when putting the screws into to fasten the motherboard tray to the chassis, all the screws on the right went in fine, and so did the one at the from on the left, but the one of the back didn't go in properly and is constantly at an angle, the problem being that the mounting hole on the motherboard tray is too far forward and I can't make the hole on the chassis and the hole on the tray align. 

 

Case is portable though, has two handles that don't hurt your hand and are easy to carry the case with. 

 

 

Pros:

Mostly Looks Great

Hot Swappable Drives

Front I/O looks good

Removable Motherboard Tray

Space for 120mm rad

Handles

 

Cons:

Front fan filter makes dust look very obvious, and ruins the front of the case's look.

The Power supply is under the motherboard tray, making cable management very hard and making simple upgrades like installing a hard drive or video card complicated.

Stock fans are loud

Only has internal 2.5" bays, when there is over 3 extra inches of clearance either side of the 2.5" rack, why couldn't they extend it?

Hot Swap Bay can fry Hard Drives

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hoppa]

Good review man, I own this case as well.

What you said about the hot swap connector i remember reading about on a forum and i think coolermaster responded saying that he put the molex cable in the wrong way (upside down). I think this happened because of a poorly made connection fitting which allowed the 'D' shaped molex connector to go in any which way.

But still, after reading about that problem i still removed the hotswap PCB just in case. (pun not intended)

 

I love how accessible the top part of the case is, but as you said, underneath is kind of a pain to get to. 

I bought a koolance 450 pump (swiftech mpc 655) for a watercooling loop ill be putting in, and realized that the bottom area isn't tall enough to put that pump in. =[  But the good thing is that this case is designed to be cut up and made better, just like the Green Machine build.

[Hoppa]

Did you get the top window version?

 

If your asking me then i got the mesh top panel version

They didn't have it in Australia at that time (not sure about now) so i ordered it from Amazon for $99 + $60 shipping

PC Case Gear had the window panel version for $130 + $30 shipping so basically the same price.

[kotf]

MSY sell the window version im pretty sure. The only thing that puts me off is the mesh on the front. 

[Benx70]

hi thanks for the review, thinking about getting for my new build right before BF4 release.

Hmm i was reading online somewhere that it could hold a extra large motherboard?

I hope so cause, I want the " EVGA x79 Dark " mobo when it comes out :)

[Hoppa]

hi thanks for the review, thinking about getting for my new build right before BF4 release.

Hmm i was reading online somewhere that it could hold a extra large motherboard?

I hope so cause, I want the " EVGA x79 Dark " mobo when it comes out :)

 

Im not sure if it will fit

Here's the amount of room you have from a standard ATX motherboard

 

 

The red lines indicate that there's a lip on the tray

If you were desperate you could cut off the lip located on the bottom of the picture but not the one on the left because it holds the tray up.