Verdict: A two-year-old case in modern clothing

The Cooler Master Wave Master made its first appearance in Custom PC two years ago, and even then its 80mm-fan cooling system left a lot to be desired.

Unfortunately, Cooler Master hasn't spent the last two years updating the Wave Master - in fact, it's totally unchanged on the inside. What is different is that it's now available in four different colour schemes - bare aluminium, black, blue and yellow. Depending on which colour you choose, the price varies between an expensive £93 and a ludicrous £119. The paint job on our yellow review model was extremely well done, though, although the eye-searing colour did split opinion in the CPC office. In fact, Spode was the only one who liked the yellow Wave Master.

However, no matter which colour of Wave Master you look at, the cooling system will always be the same. There's only space for 80mm fans, two intake fans at the front and a single 80mm exhaust at the rear. And because the Wave Master is so narrow there's no room to cut into the thick aluminium shell and fit a 92mm or 120mm fan. If you can do without the top-mounted USB 2 and FireWire ports, and the audio jacks, then an extra 80mm fan (not supplied) can be fitted instead. However, you'd need fast and therefore noisier fans to cool a really high-end PC.

There's a grand total of ten drive bays inside the Wave Master - four 5.25in, one external 3.5in and five internal 3.5in. However, because of the poor cooling we wouldn't recommend filling all the drive bays. The whole motherboard tray slides out of the case, which makes system building very easy.

Although the £120 price for the Wave Master is justifiable, because of its paint job and solid aluminium construction, it's still relatively poor value for money. Only having mounts for 80mm fans is unacceptable in the modern age of cases with 120mm fans, and it would be very difficult to mod the case in order to fit extra fans without ruining the exterior finish.

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