Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L Micro-ATX Tower with Magnetic Design Dust Filter, Transparent Acrylic Side Panel, Adjustable I/O & Fully Ventilated Airflow, Black (MCB-Q300L-KANN-S00)

When I was picking my parts, I wanted to spend as little as possible on a case without going into the ultra budget rosewills and what not. Pretty much every case I was interested in was either in the $60 range or the $100+ range.I was going to settle on the thermaltake v21 and replace all the sides with windows, then I was going to settle on the fancy version of the q300l.I kept researching and researching and it sounds like cooler master fans aren't that great so getting two rgb ones with the fancy version sounded like a good deal but I had found plenty of cheap 6 packs of rgb fans and would prefer if all matched. This case at below $40 was just simply the most unique one at this price range and I had already decided on all the other parts (don't pick the case first) and tried imagining the build.I changed my mind on getting ring style fans, the perforated nature of this case would completely ruin the rings' lighting thru the walls, so the other option was fully lighted fans. Definitely the right choice in this one. You need to be careful with CPU coolers too, several popular ones are too tall by less than a mm. Just happens that the fans I got, uphere's (I took a chance and they are so good, don't let the brand scare you) also come on uphere's cooler and it fits PERFECT. No touching the side panel or anything.I didn't realize how black the case was as well and that is such a good thing. It is black, not grey.Cable management was as easy as can be with zip ties and fabric ties. Plenty of space to feed any cable heads thru any open route, I never got frustrated or had a problem making it look how I wanted.There's mixed info on the cooling performance. Lots of holes=lots of air. Gamers Nexus proved that false but I have yet to see temps over 75c during all benchmarks. Probably due to 9 fans.It just looks clean. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures.Cons: it's a cheap case so it's got more of a bare bones metal look than a sleek spaceship look. Not necessarily a bad thing.I really can't think of anything else, it was a complete joy to build in and everyone who's seen it really appreciates it. Would definitely recommend for budget builds and high end ones and is a perfect choice for custom builds built in quantity for offices and such at such a cheap price.Don't hesitate, if you think this case looks good even a little bit, it looks better in person and you shouldn't be disappointed.Make sure you are using micro atx motherboard. Just saying. Some people. Normal atx psu fits with a recessed bracket, thought it was weird but now I actually like it. It allows the power cable to bend at the edge of the case as opposed to sticking out and inch or so.Definitely a buy for those on a budget.

So first I'd like to state that this review is specifically for the Q300L model. Amazon does this annoying thing where they mix all the reviews of all the models together and I can't stand it so I'm just stating the model flat out.I just built my 10 year old nephew’s PC using this case and I have to say that I was very surprised at how much I loved building in this case. Originally I bought the Compucase HEC HX300 case for 30$ from Newegg and I was just frustrated at the lack of air flow from that case. It only had room for one fan which was the back exhaust and that's it. It didn't even have holes for the power supply's intake fan! It was my fault for not researching enough and buying something so cheap. Then I did a little research and came across this case. It is only 50$ but has everything I want. I've seen PC builders on youtube build with this case and they all had great things to say.So the first thing I like about this case is obviously how much airflow it allows. It's an interesting design because there are holes all over the top, all over the bottom, and all over the front and you can install 4 fans if you wanted to (2 up top, 2 in front, 2 in bottom) in addition to the included exhaust fan at the back making it support up to 5 fans! Now with all those holes you might be thinking this is going to be an ugly case but as you'll see in the pictures this is not the case (pun intended) and it has very sleek looking dust filters to cover the top, front, and it’s not obvious from the picture but it has a filter on the bottom as well. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the filter is magnetic which made removing them to install my fans a breeze (pun intended). I also imagine cleaning them when they get dirty will also be very simple. You can simple remove them and just rinse with water. One tip when installing fans is that since there’s air holes all over, they actually made a very small indentation around the holes that you should screw in your fans. These “guides” are hard to notice but if you look closely you’ll see them. They have space for 140mm and 120mm fans depending on whatever you want. Air is able to easily flow through the filter so my air flow issues were resolved!The case also looks very nice in my opinion. I have the black model just because that’s what my nephew wanted but in review videos I’ve seen, the white one looks very nice as well. Cable management at the back is pretty good too and the case comes with a lot of zip ties. The filters I mention above are also very aesthetically pleasing. The power button, 2 USB ports, headphone jack, and speaker jack are on the side which I don’t mind. The interesting thing is that this IO panel can be unscrewed and moved to the other side which is nice. The clear side panel is acrylic but it’s a 50$ case so it’s fine. It doesn’t look bad at all. There’s also room in the cable management area for a 3.5” hard drive and 2 SSD’s inside the main area which is very good.Overall the case was pretty simple to build in. It’s designed very well to maximize airflow while looking great. I think this is an excellent case especially for the price. If you’re in the market for a cheap but good PC case, then you my friends have stumbled on a cheap but GREAT PC case. I would highly recommend this case and am willing to do even more expensive builds with this case in the future.One final note I’ll add, I built my nephew’s pc with a Ryzen 5 1600 processor and RX 480 gpu reference model targeting 1080p gaming and the heat in my old case with that one exhaust fan was reaching around 87 degrees C. After I added two intake fans in the front and one exhaust fan in the top along with the back exhaust fan that comes with this case my temperatures went down into the mid 70’s while gaming which is great. If you want looks as well as functionality for a great price, go with this case.

Built a few rigs in my time, in lots of cramped and ill thought-out cases. This one is a win. Large open design, lots of cable routing beneath the mobo tray, accommodates lots of fans. I was surprised to get actual tempered glass, as others had reported plexiglass. I've never been a flashy PC guy, so I used some frosted glass window cling on the inside of that panel. The Thermalright Phantom Spirit cooler I used just barely fits at 6.06" tall. I don't think a Peerless Assassin would. Would be cool if they offered a perforated steel replacement panel. The USB 3 ports up front are a huge plus, as this is a VR Rig. The back panel is tidy and clean. The PSU mounts on a bracket, that recesses it about an inch, but I had no issues getting a standard power cable plugged into it. Here's what I crammed in this spare parts/impromptu build:mATX ASRock moboRyzen 5 7600 w/ phantom sprit coolerMSI Mech X2 RX 6700 XT64 g DDR5 5600Corsair 800G PSU(4) Artic 140mm fansThe case is well ventilated and stays cool. The magnetic filter panels are interesting. Not sure how effective they are, but they'll stay in place if the PC is stationary. I have my PC laid on its side, opposite the tempered glass. The panel screws on this side have round rubber feet on them. The feet on the PSU side are rectangular and feel like harder plastic with adhesive rubber pads.The only little gripes I have about the case is that the power led is quite bright. I'll need to dampen it somehow. I'm not sure what purpose the bracket over the card slots serves, unless it's for cosmetic reasons.I'm a fan of mATX & mITX builds, so it will now be hard for me to use or suggest anything else at this price point. Grab one!