Sharkoon T9 Green Value Edition Case Review

Rating: 8.0.

Sharkoon have been in existence for nearly 10 years and have recently expanded their market significantly. Their product range is rather extensive but they do focus quite heavily on the production and design of PC cases. They currently have around 25 cases on the market and while this product – the Sharkoon T9 Value Edition (in Green) may be a value oriented chassis design we don’t expect it to be compromising in terms of features.

Sharkoon certainly have a reputation for quality at a very respectable price and we have high hopes that this budget case today will deliver the goods. The specifications below certainly look impressive for a case that only costs £50.

The T9 Value Edition is available primarily in colours of bright red, poisonous green and modern white although a black edition is also available. Today we are looking at the poisonous green edition and it is certainly a colour to rival that of the Akasa Venom Toxic Case which we previously reviewed here.

Specifications overview:

• ATX case
• Acrylic side panel
• 9x 5.25″ drive bays
• Front I/O with 1x USB3.0 (external plug A), 3x USB2.0, 1x headphone and 1x microphone connector
• 7 slots for add-on cards
• Mesh front panel with power and reset button
• Quick fasteners for optical drives, mainboard mounting panel with installation opening for coolers
• 2 openings for water cooling
• Cable management system
• Front fans: 2x 120 mm fan with LED as well as 3-pin and 4-pin connector (pre-installed)
• Rear fan:1x 120 mm fan with LED as well as 3-pin and 4-pin connector (pre-installed)
• Dimensions: 475x200x440 mm (LxWxH)
• Weight: 6.6 kg

The Sharkoon T9 Green Value Edition is packaged in a fairly thin corrugated cardboard box, which had clearly seen better days by the time it reached us. It listed the features in several languages on the sides, and the same on the back as on the front.

The packaging is as we would expect for a chassis and consists of two (very) bright white Styrofoam blocks for the top and bottom with the case itself wrapped in a thin plastic cover.

After removing the packaging, we can see the case in all of its glory. It certainly doesn't look bad, but won't win any awards for appearance. That said, it does have a window on the side with an unusual coloured tint which should attract an audience.

A close-up of the front shows us the inclusion of a USB 3.0 port, as well as 3 x USB 2.0 ports, and the usual headphone/microphone sockets. The two grey rectangular strips are in fact the Power LED and HDD LED, which we normally expect to find closer to the power button. The Power button and Reset buttons are located halfway down the case on two wings and have a very reflective metallic silver finish.

Removing the left-hand side of the case might result in temporary blindness but we do think the overall effect is pretty good. Just a shame you won't see most of this when your components are installed.

Even though this is a value case, Sharkoon have included tool-less drive  mechanisms, although all nine of the drive bays are 5.25″ in width.

We are certainly quite impressed that Sharkoon have included 3*12cm fans, 2 at the front, 1 at the back,  all illuminated with the slightly darker than the motherboard tray green. The PCI Slot covers are made of a green mesh, but are extremely thin and need to be handled with care.

The included extras are pretty standard, a bag of screws, some cable ties, and a speaker. However, Sharkoon have also included a secondary faceplate for use with a floppy disk drives, or more likely a 3.5″ card reader to replace those already at the front.

As the bays are all 5.25″, you will unfortunately have to use these brackets to mount any 3.5″ card reader … the screws for such are included.

For the more important 3.5″ hard drives that you have, you will need to use these slightly different brackets and the included screws. While this is a bit fiddly, once set up you can move them around and use the tool-less locking mechanisms. This is certainly by no means the worst or the best solution we have seen in mounting hard drives. Unfortunately, this may leave you with no easy way of mounting any 2.5″ drives, such as SSD's.

As this case is a ‘Value Edition' we are going to be installing a system which will reflect the budget oriented enthusiast audience.

Fitting the power supply was very simple and there is certainly plenty of space for larger power supplies. In preparation for installing our cooler of choice, the Antec 920 … we removed the rear case fan.

Installing the Motherboard stand-offs was easy. However, much to our surprise there was one less stand-off than needed for a Micro ATX board and as can be seen we had to install the motherboard without a single screw. We raised this issue and it seems to be an isolated problem. Once fitted we installed the Antec 920 to the rear fan slot, for convenience.

The optical drive and our two 3.5″ HDD's were also easy to install, with the use of the two brackets for the HDD's. However, we had a few problems installing our OCZ Vertex II 60GB SSD, as unfortunately the screws that Sharkoon supplied did not fit the OCZ 3.5″ bracket, leaving us with no option but to leave the Solid State Drive on the bottom of the case.

There is unfortunately little space at the back of the case for cable routing, especially when using a power supply with braided cables. However, for the smaller fan and SATA cables you could make use of the included cable ties and make this look very tidy indeed.

Today's test system, while not cutting edge, is still pretty up-to-date and will certainly give us a good idea of how well this case works in terms of thermal and acoustic performance. An enthusiast who owns an Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition processor and GTX590 will certainly spend more for a higher grade chassis.

Processor: AMD Phenom X4 965 Black Edition @ 4.0 GHz.
Motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD- M Evo
Cooler: Antec Kuhler 920
Memory: 4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1800MHz
Graphics Cards: AMD Radeon 6450 HD
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 775W XT
Boot Drive: OCZ Vertex II 60GB SSD (OS only)

OS: Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit
Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2

Firstly, let us take a look at the airflow in and out of the case. Out of the box there are three fans, two of which are set as intake and one as an exhaust.

Ambient temperature was maintained at 16c throughout. For these tests we have removed one of the Antec 920 fans, and replaced it with the included Sharkoon 120mm fan. This gave us a CPU cooler with only one fan and the normal installed 3 case fans.

While the performance of this case is obviously enhanced by the Antec 920, we feel that the motherboard temperature highlights that there is certainly plenty of cool air flowing through the case and plenty of heat being exhausted from the case.

We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru, and while I don't have access to industry's best equipment I have done everything we can to ensure this test is as accurate as possible.

Today to test this chassis we have set our Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2 one meter away from the case.  The room rates as 26dB (A) before powering on the system.

We then turned our system over to the onboard graphics card, and temporarily turned the Antec 920 fans off. This leaves us with only the 3 case fans and some noise from the 14cm PSU fan.

As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

This reading is certainly very impressive for any case, and especially a budget model which includes 3 fans.

The Sharkoon T9 Green Value Edition is clearly targeting the budget sector but regardless we have been pleasantly surprised by the overall quality. The company have obviously researched the market and have created a chassis that manages to lift itself out of the ‘cheap n' nasty' sector.

The T9 includes tool-less locking mechanisms for 5.25″ bays and three impressively quiet case fans. On top of this there are nine 5.25″ bays giving plenty of space for hard drives and optical drives, as well as a USB 3.0 and three USB 2.0 ports on the front of the case.

Nothing is perfect, and at this price point there will always be compromises. The PCI slot covers are a bit thin, and while it is great they are made of a mesh to aid airflow we would prefer that they were a little stronger. On top of this, to mount 3.5″ hard drives meant taking out a screw driver, the two brackets, installing some fiddly screws … before taking advantage of the tool-less locking mechanism. While most of the case is built with a feel of quality, there is flex in the design highlighting the budget materials.

In terms of performance we were impressed, the temperatures are better than some of the £100+ cases that we have tested and the acoustic performance is surprisingly impressive.

Overall, we feel that the case offers very good value for money as it retails at £50 in the UK. This certainly makes an ideal case for those who want an enthusiast-style case for little money. It also allows you to show off your components and the lovely poisonous green colour gives it that little extra, especially when using the included Sharkoon fans.

Aria sell a selection of Sharkoon products over here.

Pros:

• Well designed.
• Looks good in poisonous green!
• Impressive thermal performance.
• 3 x 120mm illuminated fans included.
• Fairly light case.
• USB 3.0 port on front.
• Good value for money.

Cons:

• Case flexes slightly.
• Lack of SSD/2.5″ drive support.
• PCI Slots covers very thin.

Kitguru says: For people on a tight budget, this is a high value for money design.

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