Sharkoon AK5G RGB Review 4

Sharkoon AK5G RGB Review

Review System Setup »

A Closer Look - Inside


We placed the included dust filter on the side panel and while it does cover the opening, it isn't sized exactly to it. While this may be intentional, Sharkoon could have made this conform to the right dimensions easily. The interior of the case has a classic layout, while allowing for BTF motherboards to fit as well. Unfortunately, there are no grommets anywhere on the cable routing openings, so your final build will not be as clean as it could be. As there are four pre-installed fans, you will find a bit more cables to route and clean up as well.


The shroud of the Sharkoon AK5G RGB runs across the whole floor of the chassis, with an opening in the front to allow for 360 mm radiators to fit for example. The top of the shroud allows for two 120 mm fans to be installed, but by doing so, you also block off access to the GPU power cable routing opening. Sharkoon has added a little raised pad on which to place the magnetic GPU support as well. It sports a bit more metal for the magnetic component to work better. The shroud has the brand logo embossed in it as an additional visual touch. On the side, you may install three 120 or two 140 mm fans. It also allows for an AIO to be placed here, as long as you stick to the OEM slimness of such units. Otherwise, this would interfere with your GPU, forcing you to opt for a shorter graphics card to make everything fit. Alternatively, there are two mounting positions for 3.5" drives instead. Lastly, you can see that the cable management holes along the side of these fans have been combined with the openings needed for BTF, which means that those ports will be visible - more so in the white variant of the case than the black.


Speaking of drives, there is a cage under the shroud in the front which can hold either two 2.5" or 3.5" drives. One would be installed in a plastic tray, while the other one is meant to be secured on top of the cage with classic screws. You can see holes which would allow you to stack a 2.5" tray on top, which provides an alternate placement possibility for one of the two that are already included in the case. Above that, in the front, the three fans are secured to the exterior of the frame using classic fan screws. Sharkoon has pre-routed the fan cables perfectly, so you won't have to worry about dealing with those when assembling your system.


In the back on the floor, there is the PSU bay. You can see four spots which are meant to hold foam pads for example, but Sharkoon has omitted these. That is perfectly fine as the odds are very low that any modern PSU will cause any vibrations. The seven expansion slots are bridge-less, which means that you could install a vertical GPU mounting bracket and PCIe cable here. There shroud has placement holes for the spacer screws for such a unit as well. In the very top, there is that fourth 120 mm fan meant to push air out the back.


On the backside of the motherboard tray, you will find two plastic trays, which allow you to slide in 2.5" drives of varying thickness without the need for any tools. If you are using a Micro-BTF motherboard, you won't lose these, as you can rotate one to still fit this spot and the other one can go on top of the HDD cage underneath the shroud. In the very top, there is a PCB which combines four ARGB ports with four PWM headers. It is powered using a SATA connector. On top of that, you have two wires to interface with your motherboard's ARGB and PWM headers. Out-of-the-box, the PCB is connected to the case's reset button so that you may toggle through the various animations and colors using that switch.


With the big vented opening in the ceiling, it is clear that this part of the Sharkoon AK5G RGB is meant to be used for three 120 mm or two 140 mm fans. The mounting holes are offset nicely to get any thicker setup like AIOs away from the motherboard with plenty of clearance to fit 360 mm units.


Both the USB connectors inside the chassis utilize flat-band cables which will make routing and bending them a bit easier. The case connectors are still separate, which we are starting to call out as having a unified plug is quickly becoming the norm. With the AK5G RGB being a new case that has BTF support, there is really no reason why they could not have planned for such a step in the right direction as well.
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Dec 12th, 2024 02:41 EST change timezone

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