Internal appearance
Inside the case, the first thing you notice is the removal of the GPU cooling duct, which was ousted for the large fan on the side panel. That's a shame in a way because it was something that made the RC1000 stand out from the crowd and also added some structural rigidity to the chassis.
Next to go were the front-mounting, side-facing, internal 3.5in hard-drive bays - and that's very disappointing. Okay, they weren't adequately cooled on the RC1000, forcing buyers to go searching for a better cooling solution, but they were very convenient.
And what they've been replaced by just doesn't seem appropriate for a case with a £150 price-tag. What Cooler Master uses is one of those rather irritating 4-in-3 module that lets you cram four 3.5in HDDs in the space usually taken up by three 5.25in drives. And this module doesn't come out sideways but, instead, towards the rear, making it seriously inconvenient if you regularly remove or swap drives.
That's because, every time you need to change or add a hard disk, you'll have to remove the entire 4-in-3 module and uncable all the drives within it - taking your system completely offline and requiring you to re-connect all drives when done. It strikes us as a really odd decision to use the 4-in-3 but the company says that it adds flexibility.
In our opinion, though, greater flexibility would come from keeping the drives separate or using a modular system with individual caddies. Cooler Master really needs to re-think this HDD arrangement. It might have worked for the Stacker but that came out years ago and times and drive heat have moved on a great deal since then.
Making matters worse, drives within the 4-in-3 are secured by screws, even though the other bays use the quick-release mechanism from the previous model.
Down on the floor, the fan duct has been removed but the case is ready for a 120mm fan of your own choosing and has a pre-fitted filter on the outside. As standard, the RC1100 ships with five fans in total, including the 200mm on the wobbly side-panel.