Introduction
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The Cooler Master Elite 100 is a slim case supporting microATX and mini ITX motherboards that can be attached to the back of your video monitor, coming with an internal 150 W power supply (which we tested). Let’s take a look at it.
In Figures 1 and 2, you have an overall look at the case. The first thing you will note is how slim it is, at only 2.7” (69.6 mm) high, making it a nice option if you want a small and slim case for building a small form factor (SFF) computer (e.g., a home theater PC, HTPC). In fact, you can attach it behind your LCD video monitor or on any wall, using a bracket that comes with the product, as we will show you in the next page; this way you computer won’t take any space at all on your working area.
Figure 1: Cooler Master Elite 100 case
Figure 2: Cooler Master Elite 100 case
The Elite 100 comes with two USB 2.0 ports on its front panel and, due to its reduced height, it only accepts slim optical drives, i.e. drives originally projected for laptop computers. The price of slim optical drives dropped a lot in the past months, making it comparable to regular optical drives. Optionally the Elite 100 can come with a memory card reader in the area below the optical drive.
Figure 3: Front panel
The rear panel of the Elite 100 can be seen in Figure 4: the case doesn’t have any expansion slot, which is the main reason it is so small. Therefore, you will have to use a motherboard with integrated video and won’t be able to install a “real” video card, meaning that you can’t build a gaming system in this case (there are some microATX and mini ITX cases on the market that allow you to do that).
Figure 4: Rear panel
