Browsing the Interior and Conclusion
In getting into the interior of the Centurion 534, the first place we have to go is back to the front panel. The bay covers are extremely tight and to properly mount our devices into the drive bays it is necessary to remove the front bezel.
As you can see above, the drive bay covers hook on to the bezel on the right side in our photo and then clips on to the bezel on the left side of our photo, with a removed drive bay cover at the bottom, so you can see the clip a little clearer.
The bezel is removed from the chassis by a couple of well placed yanks, as it too was extremely tight, leaving you with the bezel in your hand and the front of the case looking like this.
All the wiring and working parts are left attached to the case all you have to do is remove the bay cover inner supports and you can get your drives ready to install.
Our next photo below, gives you the view with the left side panel removed and I found it interesting that Cooler Master covered the wiring from the front access ports with what seems to be a black plastic covering. This is welcomed as anything to help control wiring clutter is always a blessing.
From the standoff mounting holes you can see that the Centurion is limited to accepting a standard size ATX or smaller motherboard. Unfortunately the Centurion is not blessed with a removable slide-out motherboard tray, but that would be asking a lot for such an inexpensive case!
The photo above shows the reverse side of the left side panel with the duct installed, some users, might consider putting an 80 mm fan in front of the duct to help with delivering fresh air to the CPU’s mounted heatsink.
Let’s take a look at the drive bay area, which should show you one of my major complaints with case designers.
What’s wrong? Looks pretty good to me; especially with the screw-less installation of drives and the clean manner in which the wiring enters the inside of the case. All true.
But, in the photo above, the problem raises its ugly head. Somewhere over the rainbow, case designers decided to change the look of the inside of cases by turning the hard drive cage toward the user, maybe they thought it looked better, maybe not. What it does is eliminate the front intake fan from doing its job of bringing fresh outside air into the motherboard cavity. Oh sure it cools the hard drives, which it does in a limited fashion.
Look at all that steel blocking airflow and that’s not counting the fans center dead spot, if left alone where the HD drive bays were going in the same direction as the drive bays above, the airflow would be improved dramatically.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not picking on Cooler Master; I have seen the same thing in other manufacturer’s cases, including some expensive ones. Change for the sake of change usually serves no good cause; change should be accompanied by benefits easily discernable by the average user. Okay, I’ll get off my soap box!!
Our last photo above shows the locking mechanism that replaces using screws to secure your add-on cards, i.e. Video, Sound etc. I really liked this feature; I only wished they had included it in their Stacker series of cases
Conclusion
Cooler Master continues to improve its Centurion family of computer enclosures with the release of the Centurion 534 and I’m sure that with its modest price point the Centurion 534 will find its way into many homes, offices and dormitories.
Cooler Master is well known for their inclusion of concise installation instructions and those included with the Centurion 534 live up to this tradition. This photo shows the instructions, the slides for three hard drives and the assorted stand-offs and screws supplied with the case.
While there are area’s that can be improved upon (we noted some of them within the review) never the less, the Centurion 534 has a lot to offer while delivering to its owners, very good value for money spent.
Oh, did we mention we are giving one of these away to a lucky forum member? All you have to do is be a forum member, make a post in our contest thread and send in an email with the appropriate information and you can get your hands on one of these for absolutely free-ninety-nine!
Be sure to use our price checking engine to find the best prices on the Cooler Master Centurion 534, and anything else you may want to buy!
