Cougar FV270 Mid-Tower Chassis Review

TweakTown's Rating: 90%

The Bottom Line

Cougar's FV270 is a fresh take on the fishbowl style of PC cases. However, for a better value, be ready to purchase additional fans or step up to the RGB model.

Pros

• Places PC up at an angle, allowing for better airflow
• Reverse/BTF motherboard compatible
• Optional figure pedestal feature
• Multiple fan air intakes
• Fan/ARGB controller pre-installed and up to 9 fans can be installed

Cons

• It only includes a single reverse 120mm ARGB fan on the base model
• GPU support bracket has only one axis of adjustability

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

Cougar, whom we have previously worked with, has sent over one of their newer flagship cases, the FV270. This is Cougar's take on the widely copied fishbowl design, popular with the side motherboard fans and two tempered glass panels with a wraparound effect. The FV270 is available in both black and white and is priced at $149.99 for this model; however, if RGB is more your style, the RGB model is priced at $192 currency on Amazon, which includes four ARGB fans in both 120mm and 140mm sizes. Physical dimensions are 530 x 512 x 268mm.

So, why don't we see if the FV270 is worth building in?

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Packaging

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Cougar's packaging with the FV270 is typical. It shows a color image in the upper left, while a large image shows the FV270 better.

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This side of the box shows all the specifications of the Cougar FV270.

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The backside of the packaging has plainer images showing the physical dimensions. Cougar has printed "Through A Glass Brightly" in bold print. I don't know what that means, but it's okay.

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Removing the FV270 from the exterior packaging shows the great use of white high-density foam on both the top and bottom. Cougar sets things apart, with the front tempered glass protected with an additional piece of high-density foam with cutouts for the accessory tackle box and an extra mount in a black cardboard box.

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Finally, we come to the final layer of protection; both tempered glass panels have a protective film and are taped for additional peace of mind.

Outside the Cougar FV270 ATX Case

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Removing the protective film and tape shows a PC case slightly different from the rest of the market. Mounted on a pedestal, the FV270 allows airflow to enter just under the front with a hidden, pre-installed 120mm ARGB fan.

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Here's another view of the side: the tempered glass side panels have a slight tint. Removing the tempered glass side panel is easy enough with POGO pins.

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The front tempered glass panel has a bend to meet the flat side panel. A bend like this has low tolerances, but it looks good. Also, you can get a good look at the angle that Cougar has implemented, allowing for the only included 120mm ARGB fan to intake air and has a clipped-in dust filter.

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The back side panels have a circular, cohesive mesh pattern throughout the FV270's design. Both panels are held in with the same POGO pin design and have magnetic dust filters.

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The rear of the FV270 is interesting. On the top and sides are some indents for your fingers to easily access and remove those panels. Support for a 120mm or 140mm exhaust fan is moving further down. Going further down are the PCIe slot covers, which, if one notices, can be rotated 90 degrees to allow a vertical GPU no matter how many slots it is. The only thing is that the PCIe slot covers are not uniform compared to the circular mesh design. Lastly, and not very interesting, is the PSU mount, which is not removable, bummer.

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The top of the FV270 reminds me of an ironing board, with the front angled the way it is. Jokes aside, there is a larger circular power button, reset button, a 4-pole combo 3.5mm headset jack, USB Type-C Gen 2, and two USB 3.0 Type-A ports. Every port has orange on the plastic bits; you must add that Cougar flair.

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The bottom of the FV270 leaves a bit to be desired, i.e., the plastic structures. It has four squared-off rubber feet and a dust filter accessible from the rear of the case via a pull tab under the PSU.

Inside the Cougar FV270 ATX Case

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Once we remove all the external panels without any tools, we can now see the internals of the Cougar FV270. Support for up to a CEB or E-ATX motherboards, which I don't know why someone would want to stuff that kind of hardware in this guy, but to each their own. Anyways, continuing with motherboard support, BTF or reverse motherboards are supported with additional cutouts spread out throughout.

Water cooling support is somewhat limited with what is currently out on the market, with only supporting up to a single 360mm radiator on the roof, up to a 280mm radiator on the side, a 240mm on the removable PSU shroud, and lastly, the rear fan location can support either a 120mm or 140mm radiator, but I would advise against it.

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The top motherboard tray, which is removable via two screws, like stated before, can support up to a 360/280mm radiator or three 120mm or two 140mm fans.

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Under the back panel of the FV270, you will see the cable management and PSU sections that Cougar has implemented. Right off the bat, you can see cable management channels that run completely around the motherboard cutout, complete with Cougar-branded velcro straps. The rear section also has storage mounting options for up to two 2.5" SSDs or 3.5" HDDs. It's a shame it couldn't accommodate an additional 2.5" SSD/HDD.

However, the bottom section inside the PSU section has an extra spot to mount a third 2.5" SSD/HDD right alongside the PSU. A fourth location, which is very hidden, is on the wall, just to the left of all the PSU cables. The front I/O cables are all blacked out, and I am happy to report that the front panel connector is a single connection, making plugging that troublesome point in the build a complete breeze.

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Finally, we come to the optional accessory Cougar sent along with the FV270: the Luminous Rotating Platform. This platform is meant for a figurine to be placed on it, which is then lit up and rotated to add some extra flair to your build. This optional accessory is currently $25 on Amazon.

Test System, Installation, and Finished Product

• Motherboard: Z690 AORUS Pro (Intel Z690) - Buy from Amazon
• CPU: Intel Core i5 12600K - Buy from Amazon
• Cooler: Corsair H150i LCD ELITE - Buy from Amazon
• Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5-7200 32GB - Buy from Amazon
• Graphics Card: ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity OC - Buy from Amazon
• Storage: Corsair MP600 PRO XT Gen4 PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 SSD - Buy from Amazon
• Case: Cougar FV270 - Buy from Amazon
• Power Supply: Enermax PlatiGemini 1200w 80 PLUS Platinum ATX 3.1 and 12VO PSU - Buy from Amazon
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64-bit Build 22621 - Buy from Amazon
• Software: AIDA64 Engineer v7.20.6800, CPU-z 2.09.0 x64. GPU-Z 2.57.0, and HWiNFO64 v7.63-5205

Final Thoughts

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The build inside the FV270 from Cougar had no real issues besides the somewhat limited GPU support mount, depending on the type of GPU cooler used. The GPU Support bracket only moves up and down, not side to side, to allow triple fan coolers like the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity OC used here, which conflicted with the end third fan. The other issue is the PSU HDD mount, which I ultimately left out since it would not be used anyway. Cable management was good, with four channels around the motherboard, so every cable was easily managed. Aside from those slight issues, the FV270 is unique in its overall presentation with its pedestal-like stand.

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Testing the Cougar FV270 Mid-Tower case, I used an Intel Core i5 12600K on the Z690 AORUS Pro motherboard. For the memory, two DDR5 sticks of Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB ran at DDR5-7200M/T. The test GPU was the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity OC, which was run at its stock power limits and clocks via MSI's Afterburner GPU Overclocking and Monitoring utility. The only included 120mm fan, pre-installed in the FV270, was set at a massive disadvantage in the front, while the three Corsair RGB 120mm fans mounted on the CPU H150i LCD ELITE in the roof helped exhaust hotter air.

The CPU, Intel Core i5 12600K, the 10 core 16, threaded CPU's temps only rose to an average temperature of 60C while maintaining average boost clocks of over 4GHz with 1.212 vcore. In contrast, the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity OC averaged only 77.5C while retaining an average frequency of over 1.8GHz boost clocks.

All testing was completed using Aida64 Engineer's System Stability Test version v7.20.6802 for over 3 hours; the ambient temperature was 17C. Other monitoring software used was HWiNFO64 v8.02-5440, TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.59.0, and CPU-Z 2.09.0.x64.

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To wrap things up, the FV270 from Cougar surprised me with its ease of buildability and feature set. I do, however, wish I was sent the version with more fans as I fear this version incurs an extra cost for additional fans that the end-user must have; either that or look into the RGB model, which includes three additional 140mm ARGB fans for the extra $42, which I feel would be justified. When it comes down to it, the FV270 is a fishbowl-style mid-tower case that aims to do things differently from its competition.