High Performance Gaming on a Budget: Building a Value PC with Cooler Master’s Gladiator 600 Case
Putting it all together
The first thing we usually do is to install the motherboard. Installing the mainboard is done by using the included spacers and screws. It should become apparent at this point, that mid-tower cases are very compact and that you do not have much room to work with. If you are going to completely fill your case with hardware, make sure you plan your assembly process very carefully.
It is wise to install the CPU and CPU cooler first along with the RAM on the motherboard and then install it into the case. Here we show our stock AMD cooler before and then after it is in place.
The motherboard is installed with the RAM and CPU first
The CPU cooler can easily be installed without removing the motherboard
No more removing the motherboard just to change a CPU or cooler
Oh what a tangle of cables we see! But there is relief as Cooler Master provides an excellent way to reroute and hide them as we shall demonstrate in the second image.
We can hide this tangle of cables
Cables are rerouted mostly behind the motherboard - for neatness and airflow
You can also see from the above image that in the front of the Gladiator 600, the bottom half is taken up by a hard drive bay which can accommodate five hard drives by using the Cooler Master supplied rails. The top area is filled with the five external drive bays, each of which has a sturdy plastic sliding lock to hold your drives securely.
To install our external drives, we had to pry off the entire front of the chassis. In our next image, you can clearly see the front intake fan. The front metal mesh may help with the larger dust particles a bit, but behind all of the front grills are plastic foam traps for dust and they are quite effective in keeping your case’s interior dust free.
Pry off the case front to install your optical drives
Installing your drives is almost too easy with Cooler Master’s “tool-free” design. Just slide your hard drive into the adapter and lock it into place. We liked the more secure feeling of screwing our hard drive to the adapter and we used the four supplied screws.
The tool-free design makes installation very easy
Next you slide your drives into the bays; first partway, then properly seated, as shown:
Step 1 - insert the drive
Step 2 - position it
When they are seated properly, simply press down on the clip and they are locked into place. You can also use screws if you are using your PC for LAN games and want your drives secured even better.
Step 3 - lock it down with a finger press
All the mainboard expansion slots also have a screwless system in the form of plastic clips. Unfortunately, they do not hold well, and to make it even worse, they are quite easy to break. Fortunately, Cooler Master has included black screws which we highly recommend that you use for heavy video cards like GTX 280 and HD 4870-X2. Here the plastic clips are useful as they will hold the video card in place “hands-free” while you use a screwdriver to secure it.
Don't bother with the plastic clips for the expansion slots
Each of these extra-long video cards will fit into the Gladiator 600 but it takes some care, effort and mental planning to insert them if all of your bays are filled.
It is a tight squeeze for a 10.5" videocard; it tighter for two - plan ahead
Well, that was easy!
Let’s test the Gladiator 600’s ability to cool the hardware inside and then we will wrap our review up.
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