A Closer Look - Inside

Before we dive into the interior, take a quick look a the side panels, which reveals two different levels of tinting. The main panel is nearly clear so that you may easily see all the cool components inside, while the one opposite it is black to hide any cable mess you may have placed there - pretty cool!


Looking at the main side, it quickly becomes apparent that the layout is somewhat traditional, but Bitfenix has added several unique elements. The most prominent one of these is the SSD bracket, which is also supposed to hide your PSU and its cables on the bottom of the chassis. It comes embedded with LED strips which can be controlled with the aforementioned button or a motherboard's appropriate function, like the Asus Aura platform. Don't let the label fool you, it should work with implementations from other brands as well even though they have a different name. Actually, the first thing I would do is to remove that little sticker as it cramps the Shogun's overall style.


Turning the chassis over, you will notice quite the large opening for the CPU cooler's area around the motherboard. You will get nearly 30 mm of space to work with, which means you should have no issues routing and hiding all the cables between the tray and glass side panel.


As the drives are turned 90 degrees, the individual trays are to be pulled out through this side as well. Bitfenix allows for six drives of either 3.5" or 2.5" in size to be installed here with the use of plastic units. After seeing the metal ones in the Portal, I was hoping BitFenix would do away with plastic, but alas, such is not the case yet.


In addition to those trays, there are two metal brackets for 2.5" drives on the motherboard tray. These are easily removed for the simple addition of such drives. Bitfenix has also equipped the Shogun with numerous Velcro strips to make sure you can keep your cable mess under control by adjusting things on the fly, which makes this very user friendly for first-time builders or frequent upgraders.


Last but certainly not least, there is a compact LED controller board on the backside of the motherboard tray you will need to use a Molex cable to power. It comes with a separate cable to attach further RGB lighting elements to. This way, you won't be forced to buy a motherboard with a 4-pin LED header.


You will find three individual HDD cages in the front. Each of these is capable of holding two drives. Between the top two and the bottom one are three plastic trays. These are there to support long GPUs and take some of the strain such cards produce off the motherboard. Seeing Bitfenix offer such a functional feature is great, but the use of plastic and its shape are not very sexy at all. It will be interesting to see how well these actually work later on.


You may remove all the cages and GPU supports to clear up the front should you want to install a 360 mm radiator there. Even with everything removed, there is a single metal bracket on the bottom of the chassis you may either use for a 3.5" drive or remove completely as well. Once the cages and GPU supports are out of the way, you may install the motherboard expansion plate, which allows you to place an E-ATX board within the Shogun without losing any of the chassis' clean cable-management opportunities.


Looks are lot more traditional in the rear, with the PSU bay coming with four foam bumps as an anti-vibration measure. Above that, the motherboard expansion slot covers are held in place by individual thumbscrews for their easy, tool-free access. The 120 mm fan in the very top is pretty standard; it comes equipped with a 3-pin connector you may plug directly into your motherboard.


Bitfenix placed a solid cover with enough space for unobstructed access to clean air on top. A dust filter protects up to two 140 mm or three 120 mm fans from dust, but you may also place a 360 mm radiator there if you like. On the floor, you will find another 2.5" bracket similar to those on the back of the motherboard tray. This brings the total hard-drive space within the Shogun to a whooping eleven drives.


All the cables within the chassis are of the standard variety, which should make connecting them to a modern motherboard a breeze. The extension lead for the LED controller board also comes with three plugs to make sure you can add more adjustable RGB lighting to the chassis with relative ease.