HAF 922 External Design
The Cooler Master HAF 922 is an impressive looking chassis and like its bigger brother it doesn't look over the top. The design remains clean yet aggressive, with a clear resemblance to the original HAF, the 922 is obviously smaller and perhaps a bit softer around its lines.
Although the new HAF 922 looks nice, it's not nearly as breathtaking as the HAF 932 was, in our opinion. The design is a bit blander and this becomes more evident when placing the two side by side. That's not to say the HAF 922 looks bad, not at all, but the front face seems to lack the detail of the original.
There are five 5.25" external drive bays at the front of the case, while the lower section is used for air-intake. At the top there is a similar I/O panel featuring a pair of USB ports, Firewire port, eSATA port, and two audio jacks.
The dimensions of the HAF 922 are fairly typical for a mid tower case, measuring 10" wide, 22.2" long, and 19.7" tall (25.3 x 56.3 x 50.2 cm). The case has been constructed from SECC (Steel, Electrogalvanized, Cold-rolled, Coil) which is a type of metal known for its low-cost and high thermal conduction properties, making it ideal for computer cases. There is also a lot of plastic used around, as there was on the HAF 932, but don't let that put you off.
The top of the Cooler Master HAF 922 is very much like the original and therefore we really like it. Towards the front there's a unique module that houses the power and reset buttons, along with a switch to turn the bright red LED lights on and off. The system power and hard drive activity lights are also located in this module, as you can see in the images above.
Still on the top but towards the rear is a huge 200mm honeycomb fan grill which comes with a pre-installed 200mm fan. Should the user wish to replace this single fan setup, they can do so with a pair of 120mm fans. This gives the user a great deal of flexibility, though we were very pleased with the single 200mm fan.
Moving to the left side case door we find more cooling attributes of the HAF 922. The door features another fan grill that can support a single 200mm fan or again a pair of 120mm fans. Unlike its bigger brother, the HAF 922 does not come with any pre-installed fans here. Additionally, whereas the HAF 932 supported up to four 120mm fans in this door, the HAF 922 supports just the two.
The door itself is also different to the door used on the HAF 932. Although we do like the new design, it doesn't show off the hardware inside quite as well, and the small tinted window that was installed into the 932 is not present in this smaller mid tower version either.
The right side case door is identical with the exception of the fan grill and HAF label not being present. Each door is secured using a pair of thumb screws, which can be easily removed allowing the user to pop the door off.
Around at the rear of the HAF 922 you will find a simple setup that mounts the power supply at the bottom of the case. Above the power supply bracket are seven expansion slots and a 120mm exhaust fan. Then just above the fan grill we have some inlet and outlet holes for water-cooling tubes, making it easy to mount a radiator externally.
That pretty much covers the external features of the Cooler Master HAF 922, let's now move inside for a closer look...