Was helping a friend of mine put together a PC last night and thought I’d share our experience with the Coolermaster Storm Scout case. It’s hands down the best case I’ve ever seen for under $100. There’s no holes for cable management above the motherboard which is a con, but not much of one – that’s simply due to the fact that it’s a midsize case, not a full case.

The main components were:

• Coolermaster Storm Scout Case
• ASUS Sabertooth 990FX
• AMD FX-6100 6-core
• 16gb G-skill Ripjaws
• Fully modular 750w Corsair HX750
• Seagate 1tb 7200rpm HDD
• Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo
• EVGA GTX 560ti 448 core Classified

Some lessons we learned that may or may not be in reviews or on forums… The Hyper 212 overhangs the ram slots making it difficult to fit your RAM in if you face it blowing up/out. We solved this by facing it back/out and blowing out the back of the case instead of the top. The fan barely hangs over the RAM this way but is easily removable with two small clips to have access to your RAM.

Some of Corsair’s power supplies that they call “modular” are in fact only partially modular. Their Professional series seems to be fully modular. The HX750 came in a velvet bag with a nylon/velcro bag full of all the modular cables. They’re extremely long and convenient cables. We were easily able to reach both the hard drive and the CD drive with the same cable.

The GTX560ti 448 Classified is a BEAST in size. We didn’t really realize how long it was going to be. It WILL fit in the top PCI-E slot on the Sabertooth in the Storm Scout case after you remove the rear PCI-E exit covers. You also have to use the extra clearance in the lower CD drive area to stick the rear of it into, then get it parallel to the motherboard and slide it towards the back of the case (putting the connections through the backplate) and down into the PCI-E slot. The clearance is literally probably 1mm. If you want to SLI two of these in your case – prepare to break out the dremel and make a nice little hole for it in the side of the HDD cage. There will still be places to mount your HDD in the HDD cage if you did this. Below is a picture showing the tiny amount of clearance.

Overall – great selection of components and I wouldn’t change a single thing. We did make the mistake of buying 2 SATA cables when the motherboard comes with 4 great looking black with white on the tips tab-locking SATA cables. So if you’re wondering “Will an EVGA GTX 560ti 448 Classified fit inside the Coolermaster Storm Scout?” The answer is yes… but barely.