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Cooler Master’s CM 690 II Advanced is a reasonably priced and very well made midi-tower case. Its front fascia looks like half a dozen other Cooler Master cases, but it’s the small details that really impressed us here. It sits on rubber feet that look like small caterpillar tracks and help to both keep it stable and reduce vibration. On top of the case, as well as the power and reset buttons, two USB ports, an eSATA port, 3.5mm headphone and mic ports, there’s a shallow recess that allows you to directly connect a SATA drive without having to open the case. The case comes three fans and has mounting points for plenty more. All of the intake fan mounts have dust filters, but the exhaust mounting points just have a wide hexagonal mesh, which won’t provide much protection against fluff if you don’t mount a fan there. This isn’t the quietest case around but thanks to hard disk mountings that reduce vibration and pads around the PSU, it’s not quite as loud as you’d expect. There’s enough space for four external 5 1/4in drives and six internal 3 1/2in drives. The 5 1/4in bays have built-in locking drive rails, while each 3 1/2in drive sits in a tray that slides into its cage supported by rubber-coated screws. An adaptor allows you to mount 2.5in and 1.8in drives. There’s masses of space for your choice of motherboard and components, and there’s even a cut-out in the motherboard tray for large bolt-on coolers.
The CM 690 II Advanced is a great case, but it’s outclassed by Fractal Design’s Define R2, which is cheaper, better looking and has more sound damping.
