This week we're taking a look at another case with rear connection support. We’ve really enjoyed using BTF from ASUS in the past and so want to carry on using it. What exactly does BTF stand for? Back to the future? Back to front? Bonus tidy frontage? We want wrong answers only please! In reality the acronym isn’t so important. The point is cable deletion from the visible side of the build, leaving you clean and clear views of your meticulously planned hardware: giving the power you need while looking stunning. Recently a new challenger has entered the scene with a BTF compatible case - Cooler Master. The Masterbox 600 launched earlier in the year and has been on our radar since. We’ve finally had a chance to build with it and we want to share our experience.
Case Overview
The Masterbox 600 is a mid tower that supports BTF motherboards up to ATX and up to EATX with a front connecting motherboard. It has plenty of room for large graphics cards (we used the ROG Strix RTX 4090 BTF) and has 170mm clearance to support almost any CPU aircooler. On top there is a magnetic dust filter covering support for: a 360mm radiator, 3x 120mm fans or 2 x 140mm fans. The case dimensions: 474 x 230 x 481mm.
It comes with 3x Sickleflow ARGB 140mm fans sat behind a removable mesh front panel and 1x CF120 ARGB fan on the rear, they’re a welcome inclusion as the price and appear to be well built, more on how they perform later. The fans are already cable
managed to a control hub ready to be plugged into the motherboard. If you don’t fancy using software to control the ARGB fans you can use a button on the top of the case to cycle through some preset lighting - we’re always happy to see options like this!
The case is made from steel, with plastic in the usual places (eg. front panel surround) with a tempered glass side panel. It looks quite unassuming as an empty shell, it sounds like a bad thing, right? We disagree, once populated with BTF hardware it has an appearance that would be just as at home in a typical gaming setup as it would be in a home office, it all depends on how you set the RGB. There are a few key concessions to consider however, such as the pop-out PCI-e slot covers, and we found the USB and USB-C motherboard connectors could have done with being either shorter or angled to allow more space between the rear connector and the side panel - it was a bit of a squeeze! The final, small drawback was that the accessory pack was in a plastic bag tied to the IO cables. It would have been nice to see it properly boxed up, it would have fit nicely into the hard drive caddy.
Parts List
Why Did We Choose This Hardware?
As for why we chose this configuration for this project, the reasoning is simple, if you’re wanting a rear connecting motherboard you’re a PC connoisseur, you want the best and you want it to look clean! The sum of the parts is a no-nonsense, all singing, all dancing, performance powerhouse. There should be no performance bottlenecks, it should max out all games and handle life as a creative rig if you need to do design or editing work.
What Was It Like to Build In?
The build itself was very straightforward and largely stress free. Using the included fans and having them already cable managed to the control hub was a huge win for convenience! One quirk of the build were the screws selected to attach the motherboard, they were the type we would more commonly associate with securing the power supply, the hex head with a philips screw - they worked and looked fine, it was just a little unusual. It would be amazing to see some cable channelling in the next iteration of this case; there are plenty of mounting points to manage cables but a couple of channels would take it from an easy build to an effortless one. The pop-out PCIe covers could have been easier to ‘pop-out’. We made the mistake of trying to do this with the motherboard installed and it took a bit of both care and effort, they need a good amount of pressure and a wiggle.
Airflow and Performance
First let’s get into airflow. As you have already seen the case has fantastic airflow support. We left in the included fans and used the Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux all in one to cool the CPU. The set up did not disappoint, as you can see from the airflow visualisation in the video the fans have no issue pulling in the air. The distribution of the air around the graphics card appears to be sufficient to the bottom to allow efficient inlet and the AIO and exhaust fan do a superb job of exhausting. We’re very happy with the results and they should lend themselves well to keeping the system nice and cool.
We tested the build with 2 demanding games and also ran it through a FurMark at 4K and a CPU stress test to see how far we could push it. The results:
Spider-Man Remastered - 4K - Very High Settings
GPU 58-63°C
CPU 53-57°C
FPS 128-168
Forza Horizon 5 - 4K - Extreme Settings
GPU 56-68°C
CPU 46-51°C
FPS 137-179
FurMark 4k
GPU 64°C
FPS 208
CPU-Z
Stress test 1 min max 84°C
The system performed admirably considering the load put on it, the CPU and GPU temps stayed within the expected ranges. There seems to be a fairly wide range for the frame rates, depending on what was happening on screen, but that said it all appeared to stay smooth enough to remain enjoyable, you could limit FPS for a smoother experience or adjust settings to max out FPS if you feel the need.
Roundup
This was an enjoyable build in a case that will fit in anywhere. We love the inclusion of 4 pre-cable managed ARGB fans, which did a fantastic job of managing airflow. The colours available from the ARGB in the fans are nice, and offer a lot of light output. There is plenty of space in the case for a variety of different CPU cooling solutions, graphics card types and fan configurations. There are a few bits we’d love to see in a successor, such as reusable PCIe covers, better thought out motherboard connectors and more thought put into the presentation of the case accessories out of the box.
The build performed very well and looked stunning, the combination of the Rog Maximus Z790 Hero BTF motherboard, ROG Strix Geforce RTX 4090 BTF Edition graphics card, Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux really compliment each other and are really added to by the Kingston Fury Renegade Limited Edition RAM.
Overall, it has been a solid experience that has met expectations, we would happily build this again!
Watch the full video here:
Blog written by Sam Thwaytes
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