Cooler Master Cavalier 1 – Setup

Cooler Master's documentation is a bit on the thin side, but there's nothing here that is terribly complicated about the setup. I did point out earlier that I would consider removing all of the plastic bay covers before popping out the external bay plates, or at the very least, the bay covers above, in front of and below the external bay whose plate you want to remove.

Once the motherboard is installed, everything else goes in sans tools. You can use screws to further secure the peripherals, but I do not think it is necessary unless you plan to move the PC around. The next step is to setup the VU-Meter.

There is a PCI bracket that comes with the Cavalier 1 that needs to be installed into a free slot on the inside of the case (it does not require a PCI slot on the motherboard). Once that is installed, insert the VU-Meter cable from the inside of the case to the VU-In of this bracket. There is an additional cable that comes with the case, and that goes from the Speaker-Out on the sound card and into the In on the opposite side of the VU-Meter bracket. Your speakers or headphones then go into the Out on the bracket. Once that's done, turn on the tunes and enjoy!

Alright, I'm actually not as excited as I make it sound. The idea is pretty cool, but the novelty for myself personally wore off pretty quick. It's nice to look at, but it doesn't provide any useful information. I think it would have been cool if it could display the case noise level, or maybe replace it altogether with a temperature display.

Cooling Performance

Albatron PX875P: Pentium 4 2.8B (21x160) @ 1.8v, 2 x 512MB Corsair TWINX PC4000 Pro, HIS Radeon 9600 XT, 80GB Maxtor 7200rpm.

Cooling was provided by the Swiftech MCX478-V and a Panaflo 80mm fan. Both stock case fans in the Cavalier 1 will be used, and the comparison case will be the Cooler Master ATC-201A SX2. This case uses four 80mm fans as stock cooling, and all four fans will be used. We'll also be tossing in a Lian Li PC65, with all three stock 80mm fans running at full speed. All three cases are using identical Antec TruePower 550W PSUs. All cases are closed.

To load up the system, we ran Prime95 run for 30 minutes, with Folding @ Home running in the background. Ambient room temperature is maintained at 23°C/74°F.

Temperatures did not take long to stabilize (about eight minutes) at their max temperatures, so at the 10 minute mark, readings were measured at 2 minute intervals, added, then divided by 10 to attain the average temperature for a 30 minute total test time. Temperatures were collected using the Cooler Master Cool Drive 6, and only the full load temperatures will be displayed.

	CPU	Chassis
CM Cavalier 1	54	34
CM ATC-201A	53.5	34
Lian Li PC65	55.5	37

The Cavalier 1 has a good showing here, performing slightly better than the Lian Li and just below the ATC-201A. Although it wasn't the top contender for cooling, it was easily the quietest of the three setups. With another test rig on in the office, the Cavalier was barely audible, even when sitting in front of it. That test rig causing the racket is running a Koolance EXOS on mode 1, which is quiet by itself, so that should give you some idea of the noise level of our Cavalier 1 setup. Keep in mind that the actual noise levels will vary depending on the CPU, and video card cooling that is used, as well as the power supply.

Final Words

Cooler Master did a good job in putting together a case that is not only very easy to use, but also very quiet. Although an all aluminum based Cavalier 1 would be nice to have, the steel design does do a good job at shielding the noise from getting outside. For those of you concerned about aesthetics, the case is among the more attractive in Cooler Master's lineup, at least, in my opinion. The paint job is very good, and if silver and blue are your colours, you'll be set with this case.

The one disadvantage about steel is that it's heavier than aluminum. Although I pointed out earlier that the weight isn't that bad, once you load up the system, I wouldn't want to move it around too often. That being said, it is a bit lighter than the steel Antec systems I normally used to use. There are only a few minor complaints I have, and both have to do with the steel. The rear IO shield is a one-time-use jobbers where if you remove it, you can't put it back in if you need it again, as it needs to be snapped off. The second problem I had was with the difficulty in removing the exterior bay plates behind the bay covers. Cooler Master should either remove them at the factory, or cut them a little better so it doesn't require THAT much effort to remove.

The build quality is quite solid, and although there's a preconception that aluminum is weak, the aluminum bezel on the Cavalier is well built. The door feels very sturdy, and has a good thickness to it, leading us to think that it should last a very long time.

The 120mm fan does a good job of cooling while keeping noise levels down. The 80mm fan is also relatively silent, and overall the Cavalier 1 does a great job of containing "PC noise". On a few occasions, I needed to look at my keyboard LEDs to see if my PC was even on as I normally shut off the monitor during the longer benchmarks.

Looking inside the case, I could do without the power supply, which adds to the overall cost, so shop around if an online shop offers a configuration without the PSU. Other than for the motherboard installation, a screwdriver is something you can put away as the case is more or less tool free. This is a real time saver if you tend to swap out parts often.

The VU-Meter is something I'm still sitting on the fence about. I received the case (knowing it's a feature of this model) but after working with it, I'll have to say it's something that looks good (which is a subjective opinion) but isn't particularly useful. For those of you who don't want the VU-Meter, Cooler Master offers the Cavalier 3, which is exactly the same case, minus the dial, and retails at about $113 USD, which is $19 less than the Cavalier 1.

Pros: Well designed, solid build quality, decent cooling performance. Tool free and very quiet.

Cons: IO shield and external bay plates need to be addressed.

Bottom Line: All in all, this is one of the nicer cases we've had a chance to work with in awhile. Personally, I never liked the Centurion line that much. They are well designed, but the appearance wasn't something I particularly enjoyed. The Cavalier 1 has the aesthetics of a $200 case, but is 30% cheaper.

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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