Putting it all together
No case review would be complete without a little system assembly. I built up a test system in the Shark like I would my own rig, carefully routing wires and such to make things neat and tidy.

The system in the case was equipped with an Asus P5GD2 motherboard, Intel Pentium 4 3.4EE, two 512MB sticks of Kingston DDR2-533 Value RAM, a pair of 120GB Seagate Barracuda SATA-V hard drives, a Radeon X300SE, and a MSI 16x DVD-ROM. Aside from the X300SE, which is a little ghetto for a system of this caliber, the rest of the components should generate as much heat as—if not more than—a typical mid- to high-end system. An Enermax Coolergiant VHB power supply was used to power the system. The power supply has an adjustable fan that was set to the lowest setting to lessen its impact on noise levels.

Assembling the test system in the Shark was a breeze thanks to the case's modular design. Motherboard installation was quick and pain-free courtesy of the removable motherboard tray, and the Asus P5GD2 Premium was a perfect fit. The Shark's hard drive cages made clean cable routing easy, while the 5.25” drive rails made DVD-ROM installation a snap. The expansion card clip easily held down the graphics card, too, although the Radeon X300SE doesn't weigh much.

As a testament to the Shark's lack of sharp internal edges, I didn't so much as scratch myself while assembling the system. The case's removable drive cages and motherboard tray do a good job of keeping one'd hands out of harm's way, anyhow.