Tech Reaction

Cooler Master has kindly sent us the second HAF case out there – the HAF 922. This chassis by Cooler Master is based on the same testosterone filled design as that of the HAF 932.

The company has managed to impress with the great detail and very solid construction of this series in the past. The HAF 922 is smaller than the 932 and also slightly cheaper. HAF stands for “High Air Flow” and both these cases have multiple 200 mm fans to honor that name in every way. Lets have a look at the specifications:

Cooler Master HAF 922 Specifications:

The power supply as you can see, is optional and many of us would like to buy the power supply of our choice. The case comes included with three fans, including the front red LED one.

One important point here, the number of expansion slots is 7+1. We will have a closer look at that in the exterior section of the review.

Unboxing

The HAF 922 came packaged in a full color cardboard box. The front of the box has a nice image of the HAF and the rear covers a couple of the more important features of this case. On the side you will find the specifications of the case and a few more images of the case itself.

On opening the box, you are greeted by the standard packaging of Styrofoam and a thick plastic cover. The case was sent to me by road transport, all the way from thier dealer and there was not a single scratch on it. This proves the efficiency of this type of packaging.

Along with the case comes a fairly detailed manual as well as a small box. The box contains a speaker for your mainboard, several zip ties, rails to install a 2.5 inch hard drive in a 3.5 inch bay, a metal piece to act as a hole to lock the side of your case and all needed screws in two separate bags.

The Exterior

The front panel of the chassis is not removable and has been screwed onto the rest of the chassis. It is made of a sturdy combination of steel and plastic, giving it a very solid feel. This makes cleaning the fron fan filter a bit of a pain as well.

The individual 5.25″ bay covers can be removed easily to fit in your drives. There is a single red LED 200 mm fan which acts as the single inflow fan for this chassis. Above that are the five 5.25 inch drive bays. The very bottom one includes a 3.5 inch adapter so you should easily be able to install a floppy or card reader here at the expense of a single 5.25 inch bay.

The front I/O is located all the way up top and gives you two USB 2.0, the usual audio connectivity and an eSATA port. I cannot wait to see manufacturers implementing USB powered eSATA ports.

The rear of the cabinet is pretty similar to most other cabinets from Cooler Master. The bottom holds the PSU, which can be mounted facing either way. It also holds a single 120 mm fan which has been mounted as an exhaust fan.

The stand out points at the rear are the 8th expansion bay and the pre drilled holes for a water cooling setup.

The extra expansion slot comes in handy specially for a CPU fan controller knob or a CCFL power switch.

As you can see, the side panels bulge out from the case and this helps to fit bigger coolers  for your CPU and to have more space for cable management at the rear of the case. The rear side panel is of the same design, but without the fan mounts. The side HAF logo kind of breaks the monotony of black.

Taking a look at the top of the case, we find a single 200 mm fan as well as three push buttons, for the power, reset and one for turning the front fan LED off and on. Please do note that this is the only LED fan in the case, and therefore once this is LED is switched off, it should not prove a distraction at night.

The top fan can be replaced by 2X120 mm fans and this is also ideal for an internally mounted dual fan radiator. Once again, there is nothing keeping dust out or noise in – so expect to hear your components within this chassis.

The Interiors

To gain access to the interior of the HAF 922, simply unscrew the thumb screws and pull off the side panels. The interior layout looks very similar to that of the HAF 932, albeit smaller.The overall placement of all the major areas can be considered to be up to today’s standards. The motherboard tray has a large hole under the CPU area to make it easier to replace coolers without having to take out the entire mainboard. The edges of the tray have cutouts to tie your cables to. Cooler Master have also thoughtfully provided a “map”, which shows which screw holders need to be installed, depending on the type of motherboard you use.

Near the bottom of the case you will find the cut out for the power cables and other connectors and we will use this to show you how clutter free the interior can be kept.

Cooler Master has ditched the plastic PCI card holder for a more firm thumb screw setup. Overall this works much better with the large and heavy PCI-E cards of today.

The hard drive bays hold the same plastic trays we have seen in the HAF 932. These are simple, but quite effective as we will notice later on in the review.

Above that are the five external drive bays. All of these have the button to lock the drives in place. This system was first introduced with the Cosmos and has been making its way down to the more affordable enclosures. This is a very simple and effective method to lock down your drives and probably one of the easiest to use.

The front panels are made of plastic and have a very thin plastic net, which acts as an air filter. These are far more durable, as well as less restrictive than the normal foam ones.

The bottom of the case holds the space for a PSU, as well as for an additional 120 mm fan. Here again there are no air filters. The PSU area has two thin foam lined strips, which will help to reduce any vibrations from the unit.

The I/O cables are of the standard variety, so you will not have to worry about any incompatibility issues. Thanks to the space above the mainboard, the top fan does not interfere with large CPU coolers.

Putting it all together

I normally start any assembly with installing the PSU and then taking the time to figure out which cable needs to be routed where and then putting away the unused cables.

There is more than enough room at the rear of the motherboard tray to hold all the extra cables. The rear panel, as we noticed before has a nice recess on the inside, which makes sure that the cables will fit easily.

Once this is done, we put in the standoffs as per the motherboard requirement and then go ahead with the installation of the rest of the equipment. The case has more than enough space to handle the largest of GPU’s available today.

We have used an ATX motherboard for this review and as you can see in the finished pictures below, its almost dwarfed in this case. There is also a good 3-4 centimeters of space between the side panel and the OCZ Vendetta 2 CPU cooler, so those with larger CPU coolers will not find any issues with this case. The one thing that has to be kept in mind is that we need a PSU with pretty long cables, which is the case with most bottom mounted systems.

The cable management slots are well thought out and there was not a single moment that I thought that maybe something is missing. The zip tie holders are also a nice touch.

I could probably have finished this a lot better than what it looks like now, but due to paucity of time I had to take this as the finished assembly. Another half an hour of time would have made the SATA and PCI-E cables much neater. All in all a very easy case to work with, considering that the above setup took me 45 minutes from start to finish. With some nice red murdermod sleeving, and a full black motherboard, like the MSI GD70, this would be a killer machine.

A side fan is a must and one of the 90 CFM 120 mm Red Cooler Master fans would suit the cabinet very well.

In conclusion, the Cooler Master HAF 922 will set you back around USD 100. This takes it into Antec 900 territory, so does the HAF 922 have what it takes to beat the Antec?

• Pushes lots of air – 2×200 mm + 1×120 mm
• Solid construction
• Plenty of space
• Simple and easy to use HDD trays and DVD drive bays
• Great cable routing possibilities
• Thumb screws for motherboard expansion slots
• Extra expansion slot for CPU fan controller or any other switch
• Side panel can hold two 120 mm fans or one large 200 mm fan

Great looks with a few very nice details

Cons:

• Fans are quite loud at full speed, controller is a must
• Plenty of openings means that the noise of internal parts may be a problem
• No air filters for the side and bottom fans

The Cooler Master HAF 922 is not only a worthy younger brother to the 932, but has managed to even better some of the more boring design aspects of its elder brother. The interior of the case has many thoughtful bits and is actually very easy to work with, giving it plenty of room to swallow even the largest of GPU’s. The rear has definitive improvements with a more elaborate PSU bay, solid and simple thumb screws instead of a flimsy plastic locking mechanism and a brighter LEDs in the front fan.

On the downside, a few aspects were still not addressed. It would have been great to see a fan controller to keep the noise of the large cooling fans to a minimum and maybe some sort of thin Plexiglas cover on the side to reduce the dust buildup and overall sound some more.

All in all, one of the best mid tower cases in the market today and beats the Antec 900 hands down.

My Rating for this case will be four out of five stars and a big thumbs up