Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini-ITX Chassis Review

Build

For our first Mini-Itx build, we believe it went quite well but there is definitely some learning that comes with it, as does every new thing we do.

Our motherboard of choice was our new Asus Strix 270I Gaming, strapped in is a Samsung 950 PRO M.2. Propped with a I5 6600K and 16GB (2x 8GB) of Patriot Viper 3200MHz DDR4, we are running a pretty decent setup if you were looking to replicate, click the links!

Initial mentions going to our new MasterWatt 650 powering our build, while keeping everything cool will be our MasterLiquid 120mm RGB.

Finally, our graphics card will be our PNY GeForce GTX 980.

One of the major things we noticed with this build, as we mentioned earlier, is the cable management. Now, this being our first Mini-ITX build, we can’t speak to it being the cases fault and are fairly sure space with these builds will always be limited. However, we expected it given the massive components we are afforded the space for.

The build did go fairly smooth we had a few hiccups along the way, nothing we couldn’t fix easily though. While installing the ML 120 RGB, we thought we had everything going good until we went to install the VGA. We had the radiator installed as you can see in the first photo and when we realized that the graphics card wouldn’t fit when the tubes on the rad were facing this way. Quick turn around and we were good to go.

Make sure to install your SSD’s or HDD’s prior to installing any other components. We would have liked to see the 5.25″ drive bay be removable, however it wasn’t a major deal that it isn’t. Would have just allowed for some more cable management and allow more space for the build.

With The size of our graphics card as well it was very tight to install the PSU cables for the VGA.

When installing your PSU cables for the CPU, Mobo, etc. ensure that you install them with the thought that the PSU has to be installed last so any twists and kinks will have to be fixed prior to installing that final piece. For this reason we would recommend going with a PSU that has detachable cables, where as our MW 650 has permanently installed CPU and Mobo cords while the remainder are detachable, we just had to work out some twists and kinks to make cable management tidy.

Final Thoughts and Analysis

Overall the Elite 130 was a fun build and we learned quite a bit about Mini-ITX cases. The lack of cable management space is definitely something to get used to and we understand now that much more planning has to go into these builds than compared to a full-size ATX tower.

The lack of dust covers for the side panels is slightly disappointing but other than that there really isn’t much too complain about in this affordable stylish chassis. The price is right on the Elite 130, available for $39.99 on Amazon; we are glad to give our TechX stamp of approval with a Gold Seal.