Cooler Master Cosmos SE review

Thanks to its aluminium handles that curve upwards out of the chassis and a moody matt black colour scheme, the Cooler Master Cosmos SE has definite sports car design cues. The ATX case might be a smaller version of the original Cosmos S, but it’s still large enough to fit a huge 18 SSDs or three separate liquid cooling systems.

There are, of course, plenty of fan mounts for traditional cooling, and four are included with the case: there are two 120mm intakes at the front, one 120mm exhaust on the rear and a 140mm exhaust on the roof of the case. Dust filters on the front, bottom and top should help keep the case interior clean, and these slide out for quick cleaning.

Not everyone will appreciate the blue LEDs on the front two fans, but you can at least disable these lights with a button on the I/O panel at the top-front of the case. Here you’ll also find two USB ports, two USB3 ports and twin 3.5mm audio jacks. All the ports and buttons face upwards, making the Cosmos SE best suited to sitting on the floor.

Although you can open the case without tools, the mixture of fittings holding the drive cages in place means you’ll need a screwdriver for at least part of any new build or upgrade. The drive cages can be rotated 90 degrees to face towards you in order to make it easier to fit your drives, although you’ll lose access to two bays and space for a 120mm cooling fan in the process.

There are plenty of holes to help you route cables around the case, and a sizable cutout in the motherboard tray to help you easily change processor cooler backing plates, as well as a generous 34mm of space behind the tray so you can hide unsightly wires. The drive cages all use removable trays, which are tool-free for installing hard disks but require screws to store SSDs.

There’s room for several more fans apart from the preinstalled models, but more adventurous PC builders will appreciate the space for a 240mm water-cooling radiator in the top of the case, along with a second 240mm radiator in the front. Fitting these requires that you remove the drive cages, so will limit space for storage, but should ensure your components stay as cool as possible.

Cooler Master might have done a fantastic job allowing for a multitude of different cooling configurations, but as soon as you start filling the Cosmos SE with components it’s clear there’s not actually a huge amount of room to manoeuvre. Certain processor-cooling combinations will block off one of the three external 5.25in drive bays, while a full-size ATX motherboard will fill the case almost completely. Once you’ve added a graphics card, processor cooler and power supply, you’ll have very little room to work with. That said, we still managed to build a tidy system inside the Cosmos SE, using the cable management holes to clean up unruly wires and create a clear path for airflow. Once built, our test components remained below 65 degrees and the fans weren’t offensively loud, even when gaming.

The Cosmos SE isn’t the quietest case we’ve seen, and nor is it particularly cheap. Although we liked the aggressive styling and flexible cooling options, anyone that values silence will find Fractal Design’s Define R5 significantly better value at around £85. If cooling potential is your main priority, however, the Cosmos SE is cheaper than the similarly equipped Corsair Graphite 780T and prettier, too.