Cooler Master Musketeer Review

Introduction

Cooler Master has always been a leader in introducing unique and innovative products into the case modding market, and their newest line of products is no exception. The Musketeer is one of the most stylish case modding devices that has ever hit the market. The Musketeer is cleverly designed to display fan voltage, audio sound pressure, and temperature via the three front analogue gauges.

Contents and Specifications

The Cooler Master Musketeer arrived in an eye pleasing purple cardboard box. The unit itself was nicely packed inside the box with Styrofoam on either side to protect it from moving during shipping. The box contains everything you need to install the Musketeer right out of the box. Inside the box you will find the actual unit itself, along with the thermal probe, one 3 to 4 pin adaptor cable with RPM support, one PCI socket with stereo input and output jacks, one stereo audio cable, and the box also includes mounting along with instructions.

Installation

The first thing that I noticed when I pulled the Musketeer out of the box was the stunning design of the blue gauges. Since the device came with everything that you could need to get it up and running immediately, the installation was quick and easy. The Musketeer fit very nicely into my 5 1/4" bay, and everything lined up as it should have. All of the wires easily plugged in to the clearly marked spots. When the Musketeer lit up for the first time I was amazed a the deep blue glow that was emitted from the gauges.

Performance

The first gauge is meant to monitor and control voltage to a fan. The Controller is set to allow anywhere from 6 to 11 Volts being supplied to the fan. The voltage is controlled by a circular slider that moves up and down. I really like the design of the slide and think that it is very attractive. Although this is a nice feature, I would be a little bit spectacle about connecting this to a CPU fan. This is because from further testing, we found that the true voltage was really ranged from 5.90V to 10.70V. Even though these are fairly close to the advertised rates, they could make a huge difference in CPU cooling, where it would not if it were connected to a case fan. Otherwise this feature is very useful and the gauge is fairly accurate.

The middle gauge is designed to monitor audio sound pressure, which is the output from your sound card. This is accomplished by the PCI socket and and stereo audio cable that are included with the Musketeer. The audio cable plugs into your soundcard output and the PCI socket. It then runs to the Musketeer, then back out to the PCI socket. You then plug your speakers into the output jack on the socket. The slider next to the gauge is designed to adjust the input from your sound card so that the needle will 'dance' to the music. This is a cool little feature that will impress all of your modding friends.

The third and final gauge is designed to monitor the temperature from the thermal sensor included with the Musketeer. The sensor can be used to monitor anything in your case, CPU, Video Card, Hard Drive, Case, or anything else that you could possibly have in your case. It can monitor temperatures from 10-80 C, or 50-176 F. We tested the gauge against a thermometer, and the sensor performed very well.

Conclusion

The CoolerMaster Musketeer is an amazing attractive addition to any case. Even though it is not incredibly useful, and even though many enthusiasts would argue that there is no need for sound monitoring, or there are better solutions for voltage control, I would still definitely recommend it to any modder.

Rating : 7/10