Taking A Closer Look Around
The Cooler Master Cavalier 2 incorporates an all steel chassis with a sculpted aluminum front bezel. The large sound pressure level meter (also known as a VU meter or dB meter) is mounted on the left side of the front panel while a hinged door occupies the right side.
The door opens and closes very smoothly and is held shut by two push-catches. Behind the door are two exposed 5.25′ drive bays, two exposed 3.5′ drive bays, and an I/O panel, which includes the following.
· USB 2.0 (2)
· IEEE 1394 Firewire
· Microphone In
· Speakers out
· Volume control
· Reset button
The main power switch along with the HDD activity and Power-on lights are mounted to the left of the large analog sound level meter.
Both sides of the case have ventilation holes to allow cool room air to be drawn into the enclosure.
Cavalier 2 — Left Side
Cavalier 2 — Right Side
The one-piece cover easily slides back and off after removing three retention screws on the back panel. The top of the enclosure has a pattern of ventilation holes located approximately over the motherboard CPU area to allow pulling cool room air into the CPU heatsink fan (HSF).
Mounted underneath the cover is a telescoping plastic fan shroud to further assist in routing air to the HSF.
Moving around to the rear of the case we see a pretty typical layout. As mentioned before, the power supply is a non-standard size, which allows the overall height of the case to be slightly lower than it would be with an ATX power supply. The single 80mm power supply fan is mounted on the bottom side instead of the back and blows air thru the power supply and out the rear openings. This helps minimize the noise radiated from the power supply fan.
There are seven PCI expansion slots along with a standard motherboard I/O area on the rear panel. Two 60mm cooling fans are located here as well to exhaust the warm air out of the case.
Turning to the bottom of the case we see four audio-style feet that add a touch of style and a nice feel to the Cavalier 2 chassis.