Keyboards and Power Supplies
There were a few PSUs on display, some mid range units made by Enhance that should be decent, and this 1kw gem:
From the top it looks very similar to the previous generation of Cooler Master units, with the exception of the fan grill rather than a normal guard. I much prefer grills as they prevent cables from sneaking in as well as keeping dropped screws out. The electrical output side is more interesting.
Fully modular! Also note the two left-most connectors, those both attach to the ATX24P cable, this means that the unit has voltage-sense wires for all three primary rails. If CoolerMaster did it right, this unit should have very good voltage regulation.
A view through the exhaust grill, for the PSU people out there. It doesn’t ring any bells right off as far as what manufacturer. Looks promising though.
Keyboards
On the keyboard front there were two units that really caught my eye. The first is the Quick Fire Rapid:
It’s a fully mechanical keyboard, and is planned to be available with any flavor of Cherry MX switch you might want. It’s also extremely durable, they’ve run over it with trucks in testing.
Here’s a cool feature too, this is where the cable goes in. Dog ate the cable? No problem, just unplug it and plug another one in. Why don’t more companies do this? It’s brilliant.
The keyboard that I was really interested to see though, was this one.
What makes this keyboard awesome, other than the green backlight, is the mechanical switch choice. It has Cherry MX Green switches! The green switch is built specifically to feel like the old IBM keyboards with collapsing spring switches, though it’s actually a nice modern design. This gives it a harder push than most, at around 80 grams. It also has a very nice tactile feel and click noise when you reach the activation point. If you’re after a quiet/stealth keyboard this is definitely not for you! If however you like a keyboard that goes click, or if you miss your old IBM AT keyboard, or if you want to sound really productive when you’re writing something, this keyboard is for you! CoolerMaster said that they have an exclusitivity contract with Cherry for these green switches in the USA, I don’t know the full background on the situation. I do know that I want this keyboard.
There you have it folks, the highlights of our tour through Cooler Master’s new stuff!
