Cooler Master 690 or 690 II?

Fortyseven

Fortyseven

Fortyseven

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26 Jan 2006
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Hello,

I really like the look of the CM 690 and the 690 II. I have found a 690 for sale for £60 while the 690 II 'lite' appears is out of stock pretty much everywhere.

I have found the 690 II 'Advanced' for £76 but I currently wouldn't use the external hard drive slot or the drive bay converter so my questions are:

How much better is the II over the original?
Is the 'Advanced' 690 II worth the £16 more since I can get it just now?
 
Well I have the advanced, and love the case. I believe the original doesn't have a black inside. Not 100% sure but the advanced comes with a gpu bracket and I'm not sure if the original comes with that.
 
Got the CM690, dominator black. Was pretty happy with it. For £60 its a bargain. Looks great with the black interior. Only problems, mobo tray not removable, I wasnt a fan of tool-less design but you are able to screw things in. Cable management holes could be better placed. Runs lovely and cool, esp with the MANY options 120mm fans and 80mm fan too. Front bezel is tricky to remove however.
 
shadow_boxer said:
Got the CM690, dominator black. Was pretty happy with it. For £60 its a bargain. Looks great with the black interior. Only problems, mobo tray not removable, I wasnt a fan of tool-less design but you are able to screw things in. Cable management holes could be better placed. Runs lovely and cool, esp with the MANY options 120mm fans and 80mm fan too. Front bezel is tricky to remove however.
Click to expand...

Turned out that the all black version was £55 delivered so just went for it. Both cases are tool less, but I don't know about the cable management on the II.

Thanks for the help.
 
I've been looking at the 690 range as well, and been hunting high and low for somewhere with the CM690 (RC-690 - it's the same thing) II Lite either with or without a window, and then looking to source the original 690 Dominator window.

What is the main difference between the 690, 690 II Lite/Basic and 690 II Advanced? Would be interesting to hear from people that actually have either cases :)
 
Turned out that the all black version was £55 delivered so just went for it.
Click to expand...

Its a good decision and for just over 50 notes its a bargain, think I pain around 70ish about 9 or 10 months ago. In terms of value for money its a no brainer mate. I was very happy with it! Trying to fit the 80mm fan behind the cpu is a pain as its doesnt fit too well, nothing a little junior hacksaw won't solve tho. First time I was the black interior I nearly creamed myself, looks amazing.
 
bJN said:
I've been looking at the 690 range as well, and been hunting high and low for somewhere with the CM690 (RC-690 - it's the same thing) II Lite either with or without a window, and then looking to source the original 690 Dominator window.

What is the main difference between the 690, 690 II Lite/Basic and 690 II Advanced? Would be interesting to hear from people that actually have either cases :)
Click to expand...

Here's a video from Cooler Master which describes the 5 main differences between the "Advanced" version and the "Basic" version.
I forgot all about the cases I was too busy eyeballing the girl in the video, she looks very tasty in HD fullscreen!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AubfqMN9XgE

:)
 
EDC said:
Here's a video from Cooler Master which describes the 5 main differences between the "Advanced" version and the "Basic" version.
I forgot all about the cases I was too busy eyeballing the girl in the video, she looks very tasty in HD fullscreen!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AubfqMN9XgE

:)
Click to expand...

Cheers, but already seen that - I meant between the original 690 Dominator and the new 690 II (692) versions ;)
 
The original has the space for a fan on the right of the case like the Advanced, but otherwise seems to be similar to the Lite, except for looks.

As I have not personally seen inside the 690 II I cannot comment on build quality, cable management options etc.
 
Annoyingly I received an email from Coolermaster this morning answering a question I asked them a week ago - the windowed side panel from the original 690 Dominator doesn't fit either of the 690 II cases. That's a bummer because I much prefer that one to the windows on the current cases :(
 
I got the CM690 II Advanced, arrived yesterday. great case, great build quality, and it looks good too, I would say the CM690 II Advanced is definitely worth the extra 16 quid.
Go for it and you wont be disappointed.
 
EDC said:
I got the CM690 II Advanced, arrived yesterday. great case, great build quality, and it looks good too, I would say the CM690 II Advanced is definitely worth the extra 16 quid.
Go for it and you wont be disappointed.
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I second this. It is a great case.

Going to fit the GPU holder soon and fit a nice silent fan for some extra GPU cooling. :)
 
yup thats another good point, this case allows you to upgrade your cooling as your system grows, with 2x 140mm & 1 x 120 mm fans ready fitted, you can add up to 7x more case fans or even go with water cooling further down the line, very happy I chose this case.
 
CM 690 II advanced, best upgrade I've made in years. Added a single Yate Loon 140mm to the side panel blowing directly onto the motherboard and GFX card, overall temps dropped by 8-10c compared to my last case which was a Chieftech full tower, that's just half the story, what you will really like about this case is the build quality, it's really well put together.
 
I have both cases the CM690 and the CM90 II Advanced. I cannot think of anything that is better on the original CM690 than the Advance except possibly the latch for the 5.25 inch Drive Bays. With 10 positions for fans 6 of them can be 140mm, the CM90 II Advanced has to be a strong contender as the best air cooled case, it is just awesome.

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Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-UD5P, 955 BE(C2)@3.7GHz 1.425V,Geil Value 4GB DDR3-1600,
ATI 5850 1GB, CM90 II Advanced, 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black, 4 HDDs, Jeantech Storm 700w,
Asus Xonar Essence STX, Pinnacle PCTV 3010iX Dual Analogue + DVB-T.
 
mayebaza said:
With 10 positions for fans 6 of them can be 140mm, the CM90 II Advanced has to be a strong contender as the best air cooled case, it is just awesome.
Click to expand...

I agree, however the stock fans I found not very good. I replaced mine with Fractals and my temps improved a lot.
 
I love the hard drive dock on the advanced. My backup strategy now involves a monthly simple clone of my entire hard disk onto a duplicate bare-bones SATA drive, with a file backup weekly. Any problems with my PC's OS or hard disk, and I can just swap hard drives.

I'm going to keep the backup drive locked in my desk at work too for an off-site backup.

The case itself is very well built, and has excellent cooling. I dismantled the extra hard drive bays for greater airflow. Teamed up with a modular PSU and a bit of careful cable routing and you get an extremely tidy build, with very effective airflow and cooling.
 
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