Cooler Master Storm Trooper Full Tower Case Review

Final Thoughts

Cooler Master has one nice case on their hands with the CM Storm Trooper. The overall look of the Trooper is reminiscent of the old Stacker series in the front panel, but with the stealthy style of the Storm series in the side and top panels. That is combined with one impressive list of features and cooling options out of the box with no mods.

Unlike its sibling cases, the CM Storm Trooper is a full tower rather than a midtower. With it being a full tower the Storm Trooper can accommodate large parts like XL-ATX Mainboards, CPU coolers up to 7.3 or 186mm tall, and Quad SLI/CF with video cards up to 12.7 or 322mm long. It can also hold up to two 24mm radiators without modding the case or loss of main drive cage space. Speaking of drive space the Trooper had the space for eight 2.5″ or 3.5″ drives in the main drive cages, and four 2.5″ drives in the removable cage for a total of 12 drives.

The CM Storm Trooper also comes with a decent amount of cooling out of the box. Two 120mm front intake fans, top 200mm exhaust, and 140mm rear exhaust. With room for two more 120mm on the left side panel, and two more on the bottom. The Trooper also has filters on the top, front, and bottom of the case to help reduce dust.

To help control the fans the Trooper has a fan controller. Unlike the controllers used on past Storm cases the controller on the Trooper not a rheostat style but a button style that increases and decreases the speed in set increments. This doesn’t bother me too much; what did is that the controller beeped every time the buttons are pressed. Same for the LED light controls. The beep is loud and annoying. The beep is really the only real complaint I have about the CM Storm Trooper.

The only other thing that may be an issue for some is the weight. Coming in at 30lbs the case is not the heaviest out there but it’s not light. Fully loaded with drives, water cooling loop, and video cards the CM Storm Trooper could be a chore to move around, handle or not. The handle is capable of holding up to 90lbs; now, if your shoulder is up to it is another issue.

Overall, the Cooler Master Storm Trooper is a nice feature-loaded case. Coming in at $185.44 shipped on PrigceGrabber ($189.99 shipped at Newegg) it’s in the high-end case price range. Other full towers in the same price range and similar style is Cooler Master’s own HAF-X, HAF-932, and Antec’s DF-85. None of those have the room that the Trooper has or the configurability without modding.

Legit Bottom Line: The CM Storm Trooper is a very nice, full featured full tower with tons of space and a handy dandy carry handle.