Sharkoon Scorpio 2000 review

The delightfully named Sharkoon makes a fair range of chassis, and has described the Scorpio 2000 as a "functional ATX tower with a black interior and bottom lying down power supply". We apologise now for pointing out that humorous translation, but sometimes we simply can't help ourselves.

The Scorpio 2000 is a middle-ranking gaming case. It has all the right features for that particular market, but it is a little smaller than the cases that we've seen so far in the test, rolling in as a midi offering.

When you pick it up the lightness shows that it's not made of the quality stuff you'll find elsewhere in this gathering as well.

The case design is typically aggressive: all slashes and grills. The top and side panels look a little cheap and plasticky, which to be fair, they may well be. The whole look is purposeful, if not exactly stylish.

Inside it follows standard gaming case layout: the PSU sits on the bottom of the chassis, with a grill underneath to draw in air, complete with a dust-catching mesh (which you will need for a bottom-mounted unit).

The drive bays start at the top with four screw-free 5.25-inch bays. At the bottom there are five 3.5-inch bays, three use traditional rails while two have fast-swap housings. These mechanisms have a really solid look and feel.

The only niggle here is they could do with something to grab hold of to pull them out, as otherwise you tend to use the securing flaps, which might not be such a good idea.

In the middle of the drive stack is a set of dedicated 2.5-inch bays, a nice touch and a sign of things to come. That's thirteen in all, impressive stuff.

Fan-tastic

At the front is the biggest fan the case has to offer: a 140mm with blue LEDs. Is blue still a fashionable colour for LEDs? [Ed – yes, still hip and cool, especially if you're called Tom Portsmouth]. There's an 80mm fan for the drives and a 120mm job at the back of the case. Not bad, but you might need to give it a little boost.

Luckily you've a decent number of options with grills and holes for a 200mm or two 140mm fans on the side and two 120mm or 140mm fans on the top. That's going to do the job for all but the most demanding systems. There is even provision for watercooling with holes for the pipes and space below the top grills for a radiator.

The Sharkoon Scorpio 2000 manages a pretty neat trick: it offers much of what the big boys do, at a little over half the price. Obviously being a midi case rather than a tower there's less room around all the various components, but nearly all the features of the big boys are on display here, including space behind the motherboard for cable routing. The holes for this have rubber grommets too, so there's no fear of shearing your cables.

Decent box

The most telling sign of the more humble background of the Scorpio 2000 is that much of the metalwork is a bit on the thin side. The overall chassis design also lacks the presence of the big boys.

However, if you just need a straightforward gaming case to get some decent cooling going on inside and need to stash lots of drives for all your games and media files, then the Scorpio 2000 does the job, with easy-swap hard drive bays to boot.

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