Cooler Master Mystique 632 Black

Assembly and Testing:

To see how well the case copes with a fair amount of heat, we fitted it with one of today's most powerful gaming systems. The specs are as follows:

• Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 overclocked to 3.46GHz using 1.500V vCore;
  
• Zalman CNPS9500 heatsink;
  
• Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe motherboard;
  
• 2GB (2x1GB) Coresair XMS2-6400C3 running at 800MHz 3-3-3-9-12-1T with 2.2V;
  
• 2x XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 Extreme running in Quad SLI;
  
• Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS sound card;
  
• Western Digital WD2500 250GB SATA HDD;
  
• LG 16x DVD Drive;
  
• PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1kW power supply unit.

No additional fans were installed in the case and once built, we routed the cables to ensure that they would not impede airflow through the case. We had to remove the ducting on the back of the side panel, in order to fit the CNPS9500 heatsink inside.

As we mentioned in our DIY Quad SLI article, we had to remove the I/O panel from the top of the case in order to get the power supply installed. This isn't a bad thing - it would have been incredibly poor had we not been able to remove the I/O panel without force. Cable management was pretty easy, even with the mass of cables that come on the Turbo-Cool 1kW unit - we were pretty impressed with how well we were able to tuck cables away.

It's worth noting that after installing the system, we realised why Cooler Master opted to include the watercooling hose retaining holes by the power supply housing. There is very little room to install watercooling inside the case, so it is good to see that Cooler Master has taken this into account. There is room for pump and reservoir installations, but you're going to have to mount large radiators externally.

It would be possible to mount a small 120mm radiator where the back fan is, but this may hamper other components in the system. Also, you cannot install a radiator in the roof of the case, because both the PSU and the power buttons get in the way. Taking this into account, we would recommend installing a radiator externally in this chassis.

Testing:

We spent a couple of weeks using the case including stress testing the CPU with two instances of Prime95 along with playing various games on the system during our Quad SLI evaluation. After running our CPU stress test with the CPU running at 3.46GHz, the CPU temperature increased from 39'C to 55'C - this was pretty impressive. The motherboard temperature only increased by one degrees during the 24-hour stress period. The motherboard sensor seemed to be a bit whack though, as it was idling at 41'C.

During our gaming sessions, the system performed really well in nearly every situation over a couple of weeks of testing. The one failure happened when we had played F.E.A.R. for around 2-3 hours. We witnessed some in-game tearing that we later concluded was heat-related. However, one problem with Cooler Master's design is that the Mystique 632 doesn't allow you to attach a case fan to the side, to help keep the video cards cool.

We directed a 120mm fan at the video cards in order to complete our testing, but there is no where in the case to install it. Good airflow is necessary if you're looking to run a high end gaming system with multiple graphics cards. The fact that there is nowhere to install a side panel mounted case fan is a weakness in that respect and it is something worth considering if you are looking to install a high-end system in the Mystique 632.

Also tested with a pair of GeForce 7900 GTX's and then a single GeForce 7950 GX2. We didn't encounter the same heat-related problems, although the cards did run pretty hot.