Behold, the Cooler Master Masterframe 700. As a certified test bench nerd, I have to say there's something about the stylised, open design of the Masterframe that appeals to my benchmarking sensibilities. Not only that, you can flip it on its side, stick a pane of glass on it, and call it a case. A darn aesthetically pleasing one at that.
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The Masterframe 700 makes its first appearance as a part of Cooler Master's 2021 showcase, and it comes with a hinged design to take it from a vertically-mounted screen-style PC case to a horizontal raised bench, the latter more favourable for an open-air test bench.
It'll support all popular motherboard sizes, up to E-ATX, and GPU support is equally generous with little surrounding the card to take up precious space. The only limiting factor would be a pump/reservoir to the right of the card, but even that should leave enough space for the largest cards going today.
The twin 'wings' support up to 360mm radiators. That could just as easily be a 280mm radiator if you prefer quieter operation with larger 140mm fans. By the looks of it, the rightmost radiator mount may be a bit of a stretch for all-in-one liquid cooler tubing to reach across. But you won't be short of cooling either way. There's also a topmost radiator bracket with support for up to 420mm units.
Cooler Master envisages some pretty extensive custom water cooling support for the Masterframe 700, however. Soft-tubing a necessity, though, or you're in for a bad time.
The PSU tucks in behind the rear of the case, which will have it out of sight and out of mind in either vertical or horizontal configuration.
Overall the Masterframe 700 looks a functional lot, and one with a view to some appeasing aesthetics, too. Not a common combination for a test bench, I'll say. But as ever with a test bench, it's once you get a mess of rushed cables on there that all semblance of style goes out the window.
Cooler Master says it'll have the Masterframe 700 out this month for around $169.
It's also worth spotlighting a couple of other announcements from the Cooler Master Showcase; all either available now or coming later in 2021.
I won't go through the lot, but a few highlights include: the MasterBox 540, a tempered glass case for RGB fans (pun very much intended); the Pi Case 40, to keep your Raspberry Pi matching your PC; the MasterCase EG200, with built-in laptop clip; and the ARGB GPU Support Bracket, a sleek support to take the weight off your PCIe ports.
