A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the interior simply remove the pair of thumb screws holding each side panel in place. Akasa has included various neon yellow elements in the interior of the chassis as well. Turning the case around, there is a large opening under the CPU area of the mainboard tray with various holes for cable routing as well. You get a good 25 mm of space between the side panel and the mainboard tray. This means that you should easily be able to hide most of the clutter easily.


Even though the Venom Toxic is quite large, you may only install up to six hard drives. While this is sufficient for most people, there are mid tower cases out there that can hold eight drives. Another weird aspect is the white bladed fan. This goes against the color theme of the rest of the chassis and Akasa should have really tried to go for a uniform look. The upside of having fewer hard drive bays is clearly the number of external drive bays. You could install hot-swap cages here for example - if need be. Each bay utilizes plastic sliding locks. We have seen this type of locks on other cases before and they do work quite well.


In the rear, the afore mentioned PSU bay in the bottom holds four little rubber pyramids on which the power supply rests. Above that are the ten expansion slots, each with a neon yellow, plastic lock. These are rather large but should suffice in terms of strength, thus eliminating the need for screws. In the very top you will find a 120 mm fan, this time with yellow blades to go with the rest of the chassis.


There is another spot for an optional fan in the flooring of the Venom Toxic. Akasa has also installed an additional 230 mm cooling unit in the ceiling of the case. While the three included fans should be plenty to keep things cool, one may really be irritated by the lack of uniformity: three fans, with three different blade colors: black, white and yellow. All intake areas - including the underside of the chassis - are covered by air vents, so that dust cannot enter the case through these openings.


Before we dive into the assembly process, let us take a quick look at the cables. The case connectors are of the default & colorful variety. One interesting aspect is the fan controller which allows you to install up to six PWM fans - pretty cool. Last but not least, the I/O cables are all black except the USB 3.0 cable. It is all blue and utilizes an exterior plug. All other cases coming to the market today feature an internal connector and it makes no sense that the Venom still goes for this type of connector. The best setup would have been 2x USB 3.0 and 2x 2.0, with proper onboard headers instead of a 1 to 3 ratio.