Cougar Solution Chassis Review

While you may have recently read our Cougar Evolution chassis review, Cougar are better-known as a manufacturer of Power Supplies. Currently, they only have 5 cases on the market; the Cougar Solution, Volant, 6XR9, Evolution and the Evolution Galaxy. The Cougar Solution Chassis was introduced at the beginning of this year, and is marketed as a high-performance Midi tower for the budget enthusiast. The Cougar Solution has an appealing design ethic, using a grill on the front similar to that of the Cougar Evolution chassis. The main feature of this case is the ability to accommodate 8x 120mm fans, but Cougar have only decided to include a single case fan, which may well compromise its 'out of the box' performance. Being able to use 8x 120mm fans is certainly an achievement for a Midi Tower and clearly they have maximised the internal space as you can also slot in a 320mm in length graphics card. Additionally Cougar have in a single USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 port, a Microphone socket and a Headphone socket. This case appears to have plenty of positive features, and with a budget price tag could this be a great purchase for a new system build? Specifications Continuing the theme from Cougar, the Cougar Solution comes in a large black box, with the product picture in a pronounced parcel brown colour - the inverse of most case packaging. Taking the product out the box we find it has been protected with two large and bright white Styrofoam blocks, as well as a transparent plastic cover. Removing all of the outer packaging we can finally see the case in all its glory and while it is a fair bit smaller than the Cougar Evolution, this side of the case looks very similar. Moving towards the front there is a large grill at the bottom of the case similar to that of the Cougar Evolution. The top half uses mesh to cover the spaces for the optical drives. The I/O ports and the on/off buttons are also on the front of the case, not the top. A close-up of the I/O ports, including 1x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0, a headphone jack and a microphone jack as well as an optional HDD button, and the power on/off button. We quite like the appearance of the case, although the top panel could have been styled more dramatically to attract the eye. The top of the case is very functional as 2x 120mm fans could be fitted, allowing a reasonable amount of heat to be extracted from the case. From the back we can see the bright red 120mm Cougar Turbine fan, two holes for water cooling and even a PCI card lock system, seen on the larger Cougar Evolution and cases such as the Cooler Master 690 II. Moving to the inside of the case, we can see it is roomy for a Midi tower, and Cougar have opted for a locking mechanism for the 5.25" bays and 3.5" bays. The bottom of the case has two 120mm intake spots, although of course one of these will be for the power supply. The 5.25" bays have two locking mechanisms for the 3 bays, and is a very simple system which is fairly similar to several others on the market. For the 3.5" bays there are two different locking mechanisms, one designed for Floppy Disk Drives (or card readers) and the other for standard 3.5" hard drives. There is also space to mount a solid state drive at the bottom of the 3.5" bays. The simple locking mechanism is handled by rotating the handle by 90 degrees in either direction, to lock or unlock the drive. Moving to the back of the case, we can see the bright turbine fan, and the space for two more 120mm fans at the top of the case. Taking the other side of the case off we can see a decent sized CPU cut-out, and plenty of space for cable routing. On the other side of the 5.25" and 3.5" bays there are no locking devices, but you could still use the old-fashioned technique of screwing in the drives. Taking the front of the case off, we can look at the bare chassis. At the front, you can now see where the 2x 120mm fans would be mounted, although a Floppy Disk Drive takes one of these positions, if you need it. We installed a Akasa Venom Power 750W Power Supply which was a tight fit. Next is to install a Solid State Drive, and there are holes at the bottom of the chassis, seen above. Once screwed in it sits out of sight at the bottom of the 3.5" bays. If you still use 3.5" hard drives, then installing is just a case of twisting the locking mechanism by 90 degrees and then sliding the drive into the bay, and twisting the lock back. We then installed the Motherboard, CPU and CPU Cooler and as you can see there is plenty of clearance around the motherboard and more especially around the Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler. We then tidied up the cabling and temporarily put one side panel back on. Cable routing is extremely easy in this case and as such didn't need to spend much time on it. From the rear you can see we had plenty of space to route cables to each of the holes around the side of the motherboard tray. Today’s test system will give us a good idea of how well this case works in terms of thermal and acoustic performance. Processor: AMD Phenom X4 965 Black Edition @ 3.9 GHz. Motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD- M Evo Cooler: Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler Memory: 4GB Corsair DDR3 1600MHz Graphics Cards: AMD Radeon 6450 HD (GPU @ 850 MHZ, Memory Clock @ 1000 MHz) Power Supply: Akasa Venom Power 750W Boot Drive: OCZ Vertex II 60GB SSD (OS only) OS: Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2 We are using the default fan configuration, which includes only a single exhaust fan as well as the power supply intake and exhaust. In total, a further seven fans could be fitted - 2 on the top, 2 at the front, 2 on the side and 1 at the bottom. Obviously noise emissions would increase with more fans in the case. While this case is certainly one of Cougar's more cost effective designs, the thermal performance is a little disappointing. Cougar could have improved this by including another intake fan by default, sucking in cold air to help cool all of the components. Unfortunately, in this stock configuration we were not at all impressed. Today, to test this chassis we have set our Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2 one meter away from the case. We then removed the discrete graphics card, and temporarily turned the two Akasa Venom Voodoo fans off. This leaves us with only the included case fan and very little noise from the power supply fan. As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA - Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA – High Quality Computer fan 40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator 50dBA - Normal Conversation 60dBA - Laughter 70dBA - Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA - City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA - Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA - MP3 player at maximum output 110dBA - Orchestra 120dBA - Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA - Threshold of Pain 140dBA - Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA - Instant Perforation of eardrum The acoustical performance of the case is distinctly average, with only a single fan it produced more noise than the Cougar Evolution did with two fans (6 dBa more). When paired with our Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler at full speed we recorded above 46 dBa, a noise level that is certainly very noticeable in any room. In closing, we are not impressed with either the thermal or acoustical performance of the case. The Cougar Solution on paper, looks rather impressive. A Midi Tower chassis that can accommodate 8x 120mm fans certainly sets it apart from most of the competition. The case is well designed and plenty of thought has went into the overall design. It was a good chassis design to work with. For the size it has a lot of room inside, and plenty of space for cable routing. Installation was mainly a pain free experience. The locking mechanism for the 5.25" and 3.5" bays work well and only took us a matter of seconds to install optical drives and hard drives. Unfortunately, we have never felt that happy when asked to screw in a 2.5" SSD into the outer chassis of a case. We do wish Cougar had incorporated a dedicated 2.5" bay. Technically we also have some reservations. The thermal performance is sadly lacking in the 'out of the box' state, with only a single 120mm fan included. Ultimately, it is the acoustical performance that really lets this case down. While it only had a single fan installed, it was noisier than many which incorporate two, or even three fans. This is partially due to the huge array of mesh and intake grills, but the design just amplifies any internal sound. It is certainly not a product I would pair up with noisy, low grade components. This case is designed to handle many more fans than it ships with. We wouldn't like to experience the case with a fully loaded array of fans as we would imagine the noise levels would be close to 50dBa. Not something you would want as a main 24/7 system in your room. On the upside, this case includes a USB 3.0 port and a PCI Card locking bracket, as well as all the other features you would expect, including 2 holes for watercooling pipes. The case doors use a solid hinged system making it extremely easy to remove and install. We were unable to find the product for sale in the United Kingdom however it is available in America at a very modest $59.99. Pros Can accommodate 8x 120mm fans. One USB 3.0 port. Screw-less mechanism for 5.25" and 3.5". PCI lock system. Cons Only 1 space for 2.5" drives. Acoustical performance is lacking. Thermal performance is poor 'out of the box'. Kitguru says: An inexpensive case, but sadly it just falls short of an award. Even at this modest price point the competition is fierce.