CM Storm Scout 2 Advanced Review

The Build

Not the best instructions in the world to be honest.  In fact if we're even more honest if you're going to have to resort to looking at them aside from having your manhood questioned, as they're not a booklet but actually a strategically folded single sheet which resembles something put together by Ordinance survey, you're also going to look like you're out orienteering.  You're either going to look like you're reading a map, or reading instructions, either way you'd better hand over your "Man Card".  Accessories wise things are a little better, with all the usual screws, 10 cable ties and a set of HDD rack mount rails along with a buzzer to round things off. 

With the PSU in we're able to see that even a much longer unit would still not obscure the bottom management hole.  The rubber grommets themselves are strong and despite our ham fisted stuffing of cables resisted our efforts to dislodge them.  Round the back we know we're going to have space but still have concerns about only having two, albeit large management holes back here to work with. 

With the motherboard in we look to the roof of the case.  Just 30mm of room up here means there's plenty for a pair of standard 25mm thick 120mm fans, but as we suspected, there's  no way you're getting a rad and a set of fans into this gap.  If you were absolutely insistent, and didn't give a flying flip about what your case looked like you could with a bit of modding mount the fans outside the case.  But please don't.

Dropping in our usual Havik 120 Cooler as a basis for comparison, there's plenty of room to be had around the edges and clearance against the side panel.  Although the side panel does have a power bulge in it not all of the area lies of the CPU cooler zone and as such can't be taken into account when calculating cooler height.

Having said we were a little concerned over the amount and placing of the management holes it's perhaps worthwhile taking a close up look to explain why.  With the 24 pin ATX power connection positioned as it is on this board (as it is on many others, but granted not every) there's no hole immediately adjacent to the socket.  What this means is quite a stretch in either direction from the hole to the socket.  Not exactly a disaster but had the upper hole been slightly lower and the lower hole a fraction higher the issue would have dissipated entirely.

Believe it or not the image below left shows the Scout 2 loomed up and ready to go.  In all we only needed to use 4 of the cable ties that CM supplied.  The wiring job is made possible by a well thought out spacing of cable tie points and a nice fat space along the sides and base to tuck away unwanted cables.  Thing is, we actually think it looks neater round the back than it does at the front.