High Performance Gaming on a Budget: Building a Value PC with Cooler Master’s Gladiator 600 Case

Cases and Cooling

The PC case has evolved over the years from from its original passively-cooled closed white or beige box.  All of the hardware has become hotter and hotter over the years as evidenced by the growing capacity of power supply units – especially for gamers.  As PC cooling has developed over the years, so have cases to meet their growing cooling needs.

The hardware outputs all of its heat into the case and there must be a good way to transfer and remove this heat or else the inside case temperature rises.  In turn, a hot case raises the temperature of the hardware inside, leading to their possibly shortened lifespan or instability if overclocked.

Cooling thus becomes critical to an overclocker.  If we lower the case temperature, we lower the hardware temperature and generally we can overclock better with cooler components. The latest PC cases come equipped with fans that  intake and exhaust a large volume of air, thereby lowering the temperature of the hardware inside.  Many modern cases come standard with an intake fan and an exhaust fan. Even more extreme cases will have these fans as well as adding fans to the top, bottom and sides.

The Gladiator 600 comes with two fans included – one 120 MM intake fan at the front and one 140 MM exhaust fan at the top of the case.  You can easily add 3 more (optional) 120-140 MM fans for extreme airflow and cooling – one 120 MM fan at the rear and two side case fans either 120 or 140 MM

Here is the front fan which is easily seen with the grille off.  It also sports a (conservative) blue LED behind the front fan which looks great at night and can also be switched off.

The front cooling fan sports a conservative blue LCD that you can switch off

Here is the big top 140 MM fan to exhaust hot air from your case which otherwise tends to pool at the top of a case:

Gladiator's top cooling fan is 140 MM

The second thing that a PC builder will appreciate – besides the Gladiator 600’s reasonable price – is its attention to detail. The very worst thing is sharp edges inside a case and there were none in this one. The other thing that is important to consider when building a PC is to not grab the cheapest budget case that you can find.  Technically, you don’t even need a case; you can set everything up on a workbench.

It is important to consider that a well-designed case properly holds the components in exact relationship to each other; there is no mismatch or straining anything anywhere to add or remove hardware. In addition – if designed properly – a good case will help to keep cooler air circulating around your expensive components and help to prolong their life by keeping them as cool as possible. Heat is an enemy of your hardware and Cooler Master understands this. All of this became critical to our project where we must overclock our budget CPUs to perhaps attain the performance of those many times their price.

Cooler Master’s name “Gladiator” is similar in an ancient Roman theme to their “Centurion” name, which is their earlier line of mid-range value cases.  We have been using our Gladiator 600 for over a month – switching hardware in and out almost daily – and we love it!  Now that it has been properly introduced, let’s explore the Gladiator 600 and begin our build.