Assembly:
I wanted to try this case out for a while, so I decided to go ahead and dismantle my current gaming machine and move everything over to the
Cooler Master Centurion 532.
Components used:
» DFI NF4 Lanparty Ultra-D Motherboard
» AMD A64 3200+ Venice Core Processor
» Thermalright XP120 Heatsink
» ATI Radeon X850XT Video Card
» 600Watt OCZ Powerstream Power Supply
» 2x Seagate 120GB hard drives in RAID 1
» Western Digital 36 GB Raptor
» NEC 3550A DVD Burner
» Lite-On DVD-ROM
First thing to go in were the Seagate 120GB hard drives in RAID. Of all the different tooless methods I have seen, I like the method used by the Centurion the best. You simply snap a few rails onto your hard drive and slide the works into an available slot. The rails Coolermaster supplied even have metal pins and should last through many hard drive changes. I left a gap between the two hard drives to allow more air to flow from the 120mm blue LED fan Cooler Master includes with the Centurion 532. One thing I did notice was the lack of screw holes. If you ever lose the rails, you will not be able to install hard drives in this section of the case.
With the RAID array mounted it was time to get the motherboard mounted and a video card installed. The motherboard mounting holes are labeled for where standoffs need to be used for each style of motherboard. The fit was perfect, the motherboard was not too far in or too tight to the slots or the back plane. As with the tooless design of the hard drive rack, the slot retention devices Coolermaster used on the Centurion are also my favorite. Most of the tooless designs use some sort of bar that clamps all of the cards at the same time. The design used here is much better, a simple squeeze from inside and the lock opens up, plug in a video card or PCI device and click the lock back down. Below you can see the motherboard installed, as well as the X850XT video card and an SPDIF header.
