System Build & Testing
Internals will be as follows:
- ASUS ROG Strix B550-I Gaming
- AMD Ryzen 5 3700X
- 16GB of G.Skill Trident Z NEO 3200MHz
- ASUS Dual RTX 2070
- 512GB OCZ RD400 M.2
- Thermaltake Toughpower PF1 ARGB 850W
Building in Cougar’s Blazer Essence is quite easy. You can reach everything, and see everything easily, even though the latter can be a bit of a double-edged sword. We start out mounting our motherboard and power supply.
You have to love modern computers. With only an M.2 drive for storage and using a CPU air cooler, there are very few cables to deal with. We install the GPU, the CPU cooler, and the memory kit, and we have 3 cables to run. The 8-pin CPU, 24-pin motherboard, and a single GPU cable that ends in a pair of 6+2-pin connectors.
We ran the front panel cables to their respective locations and straightened cabling up a bit and we are pretty much done at this point.
From here, we plug in the PSU and hit the power button, and all of our RGB enabled components spring to life!
From here we can put the glass panels in place on the Blazer Essence. Careful cable management will be important to anyone who can’t stand a mess. The glass panels and skeletal design gives you exactly zero places to hide a mess of wiring.
The Cougar logos are frosted and allow lighting to shine through. We’re not really a fan of large branding on items like cases, but Cougar does it tastefully here.
Taking pictures through glass doesn’t to a build quite as much justice as it would get under your own eyes, but man does the Essence make even a simple build look good!
Even the view from the rear has character. It’s hard not to just love the Essence!
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