Installation Impressions
The Cooler Master HAF 912 will be installed with the components below:
- AMD Phenom II 555 X2 BE
- MSI 870A Fuzion motherboard
- Dynatron Genius G950 CPU cooler
- 2x2Gb Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3-1600
- XFX 9600GSO 768M
- 500Gb Seagate 7200.10
- Sony Optiarc 24x DVD+/-RW
- Ultra X3 800W PSU
The only issue I ran into was with the power supply installation. The Ultra X3 800 is 7.5" (190mm) in length, certainly not the longest power supply we've tested but admittedly longer than most standard ATX class units.
With the modular connections on the back of the unit there was interference with the 2.5" drive cage. Once the cage was removed the power supply fit with no further problem. The X3 800 is an older style unit. All of the 750-watt class PSUs we've tested recently have been about an inch shorter in length, so it's unlikely you'll have the same issue if you use a newer power supply.
Installing the rest of the components into the HAF 912 was a breeze. Because I only had one optical drive and one hard drive to install, I used the top spot in both cages and the tool-less mounting worked very smoothly. The Dynatron Genius tower cooler is a bit oversized, and as it uses its own mounting system instead of the factory style retention, room to attach it was a bit cramped.
There is plenty of space for the video card however, the 9600GSO is an 8.5" card and there is 11" between the rear slots and the front bays. If you need more room than that you can always take out the top 3.5" drive cage, giving extra clearance for those HD5970 CrossFire installations, while still leaving two 3.5" bays available at the bottom.