Review: Tower Cooler Master MasterCase Maker 5t and Cooler Master MasterBox 5t

A good chassis is a fundamental element, since having a quality chassis allows us, among other things, to have a good air flow, which allows us to keep the temperature of our components at bay. Having a chassis with great versatility and great features is not a luxury, it is a necessity. Cooler Master knows of the growing demand in the need for high quality towers, which is why it has developed the Cooler Master MasterBox 5t and Cooler Master MasterCase Maker 5t towers, two high performance towers.

Both towers capture the essence of Cooler Master, which is to have a quality design, good internal air flow and to be at the forefront and in line with market trends. The Cooler Master MasterBox 5t is a simple tower, but with everything that a demanding user may need, while the older sister, the MasterCase Maker 5t is a high quality tower, with Premium elements and something that is becoming a trend, tempered glass windows. Different, but with a common link, Cooler Master.

The Cooler Master MasterBox 5t is a high-performance tower, but for tight budgets. It has a large cooling capacity, with air inlet through a large front that can accommodate up to three fans and a top air intake. Internally it has space for a large number of hard drives, supports ATX motherboards and extremely large graphics cards, up to 410mm. It has a space between the motherboard installation area and the window on the right, to hide all the cables.

On the other hand we have the Cooler Master MasterCase Maker 5t, an outstanding tower, designed for Premium users who want quality. It has many air intake areas and in all of them, a filter to prevent the interior of our chassis from filling with dust. The side windows give a touch of extra quality, since they are made of tempered glass, the one on the right is tinted so that the cables are not seen. An interesting element is that it has special anchors designed to be installed under the graphics cards, supporting parts of the weight and preventing the motherboard or the graphics card's own PCB from suffering excessively from gravity.

There must be elements for all types of users and a solution for all audiences is the MasterBox 5t. An elegant tower, with a good air flow that has great customization capabilities. Elegant design, with a side with a methacrylate window that allows you to customize the interior and that it can be seen from the outside, with LEDs, something that is quite fashionable.

One of the critical aspects in all computer chassis is cooling. This tower has three independent zones that we can customize to taste. We start with the rear area, which integrates a 120mm fan from the factory, but which can be replaced by a 120mm RL as well. The upper part accepts a 120mm fan or a 140mm fan, but does not incorporate either. The front supports two 140mm fans or three 120mm fans and incorporates a 120mm fan from the factory and in this area we can install a 240/280 / 360mm RL with a maximum thickness of 50mm.

For storage, the box has a 2.5 ”SSD anchorage, directly on the motherboard tray and a bay for two 3.5” or 2.5 ”hard drives. We can install more SSD units, as long as we buy the adapters independently, being able to install them in zones A, B and C shown and if the motherboard is small, we can mount another one in zone E.

The capacity of this tower is mind-boggling as it supports E-ATX, ATX, microATX, and ITX motherboards. Regarding the height of the cooler, it can be a maximum of 167mm, the maximum length of the power supply is 180mm and the maximum length of the graphics card is 410mm. It has 25-35mm between the rear of the motherboard and the side cover, which allows all the cables to pass through, so that they do not interfere with the internal air flow.

Finally on the front we have the minimum connectivity required today. This consists of two USB 3.0 ports, audio input and audio output and a controller for fans, which allows them to be set at low power or at full power. This allows us to have control of the operation of the fans.

The MasterCase Maker 5t tower is characterized among other things for being a completely modular tower, developed to offer the user the greatest possible customization. Cooler Master, it is clear that it bets on the maker world and allows users to add elements and customize all parts of the chassis and other devices that the company manufactures. This tower allows the acquisition of different upgrade kits or individual accessories that can be purchased through the Cooler Master Online.

If we buy it with the Master MasterBox 5t, we see that it has all the elements and all the extras. What is most striking between the two is that the Maker 5t has two tempered glass side panels that require a key to open. Aesthetically, a tempered glass side is beautiful, why deny it, but we must emphasize that these panels are fragile and if we are going to move it, because we will attend a Lan Party, the correct thing would be to put it back in its original packaging with all the protections.

This chassis has a really elegant black and red design. We can see how the upper part has an area in red, a small frame in the upper front area and the upper part of the front, in addition to the legs of the chassis that are red and the tray where the motherboard is anchored, which is also made of red color, the rest is all black. The area of ​​the power supply is covered to provide insulation between it and the different elements, in addition, it allows the installation of two SSDs on this board.

The front area of ​​this chassis supports a maximum of three 120 / 140mm fans and comes with two 1200RPM fans installed at the factory. The front area has a plastic magnetic panel with a system to catch dust, it can be removed and cleaned easily, in addition, the front has another filter so that most of the dust remains outside the chassis and can clean the dust from simple way. If you want, the front allows the installation of a liquid cooling system of maximum 240 / 280mm.

Regarding the upper area, we have that it is also removable, in a simple way. This upper area gutter with a special handle to facilitate and expedite its transport, although it is a delicate thing since the sides are made of glass. Hidden below this area is space for two 120 / 240mm fans or a 240 / 280mm liquid cooling radiator. Additionally, the rear area supports a 120 / 140mm fan with a factory installed 140mm fan running at 1200RPM and supports 120 / 140mm liquid cooling radiators.

One of the most problematic points are the power supplies that tend to absorb a lot of dust. Cooler Master has arranged two filters for the power supply, one for the PSU fan area and another for the power connection area, since this area usually has a grid that absorbs excess dust. Regarding power supplies, this power supply chassis supports 200mm length at most.

It has plenty of internal space for components, supporting 190mm high heatsinks and 296mm graphics cards when the 3.5 ”hard drive bays are installed and up to 412mm if these bays are removed. Behind the motherboard, there is a 35mm space for the wiring and there the fan regulation system is located, which we can regulate manually if we want.

Cooler Master has thought of everything and has left two 5.25 ”bays, where we can install optical or front drives according to needs, something very useful today if we are going to allocate the equipment to virtual reality, being able to install a front that puts us front the HDMI ports and not be hanging around. It also has a large number of hard disk connection points, since the plate that internally divides the chassis, preventing the hot air from the PSU from passing to the motherboard area, supports two 2.5 ”SSD units and we can install behind the motherboard another two 2.5 ”SSD units directly in the tray without the need for other elements.

The tower has two 3.5 "drive bays in the compartment of the PSU area, but a large number of these trays can also be installed in the motherboard compartment, allowing the installation of two 3.5" three-bay modules, but losing space for the installation of graphic cards of great length. To accommodate these bays, we should remove the iron with couplings that is installed at the factory that is designed to hold the graphics cards, avoiding that they can be bent by the weight of the heatsink and by the effect of gravity.

The front has four USB 3.0 ports, allowing the connection of high-speed portable drives and achieving high file transfer speeds. It also has jack connectors for audio input and audio output. Regarding control, it allows the fans to be controlled from the front by means of a speed regulator, which allows them to be set to minimum power or maximum power only, and it has a lighting control for the LED strip that it also incorporates, depending on the pulsation, it allows the lighting of the LEDs, the activation of the LEDs in breathing mode and the payment of the LEDs.

Both are large towers, why fool us, but if we were given a choice between the Cooler Master MasterBox 5t and Cooler Master MasterCase Maker 5t, we would stick with the second, because the tempered glass panels are very elegant and stand out above all the others. great features of this widely customizable tower.

We have loved both. The MasterBox is priced very tightly, ideal for configurations, which we could qualify as modest, while the MasterCase Maker is more complex and has a high price, leaving it out of the mid-market, staying more for advanced configurations and users looking for a tower. high quality, with unique features.

Both have large internal space for storage units, allow different large-format motherboards, admit liquid cooling radiators without major problems and have space between the area where we install the motherboard and the right side (view from the front), to hide the cables. That both have fan regulation is very interesting, since in summer times we may need to put the fans at full power to dissipate the heat.