Cooler Master Storm Scout Mid-Tower Case Review

Installation pg.2


One great feature that we loved in the Sniper was incorporated in the Scout as well: the back-plate cut-out. A decently sized piece of the motherboard tray is intentionally left open so that buyers can swap out higher end heatsinks without removing the motherboard from the case. Even our AM2 board’s backplate managed to remain squarely within the opening.

It is unlikely that every single board will have its backplate 100% accessible in this opening, but we’re fairly confident that the vast majority – especially LGA 775 boards—will.


Once we got the motherboard installed – which was a piece of cake – we noticed that the top 140mm fan comes very close to the top of our Noctua NH-C12P cooler. Thankfully, there is still a millimeter or two between the fan clips on the Noctua and the fan above. So long as your cooler doesn’t protrude beyond the boundaries of an ATX motherboard, there shouldn’t be any clearance issues experienced.

It should also be mentioned that although the Scout is not a very wide case, it can accommodate larger 120mm tower heatsinks, such as the Thermalright Ultra eXtreme so long as the side panel fan is not used directly above the CPU socket.


Installing the optical drive into the Scout was a little bit of a pain, unfortunately. We were almost convinced that there was something wrong with our sample as we were not able to shoehorn three different optical drives into the case. In order to get them to fit, we had to snap off all of the break-out panels in front of the 5.25 inch bays to allow the frame to bend that tiny fraction of a millimeter that we needed to slide the drive in place. Needless to say, after everything was said and done, the drive was held in place very tightly.

Securing the drive using the tool-free locking system was a piece of cake. We simply pushed down the latch and pulled it forward. Once that was locked in place, the drive was very securely fastened and no case screws were required.


We had no issues getting our two Radeon HD3850s installed into the Scout. There was enough front to back space, and the power connectors had plenty of space to snake to the end of the cards. We should also mention that the plastic tool-free expansion slot locks are much improved over those used in the Storm Sniper. They don’t look very different, but they are much easier to snap in place. Those concerned with security over ease of installation and removal can remove the clips and utilize simple case screws.


When all was said and done, we had a very nice looking build that we’d be proud to cart out to a LAN party. Although the final product proved to be a ‘snug’ fit with all of the hardware installed, Cooler Master definitely gave the layout a lot of thought and we didn’t run into any show-stopping issues.

Acoustic and Initial Running Impressions

Upon starting up the Storm Scout, we immediately noticed that it is a very quiet case. Both the 140mm and 120mm fans emit little more than a light “hum” that cannot be heard above the video cards and hard drive. I had to install a passively cooled PCI video card to really hear the case fans. Those interested in running a fairly quiet system will not be disappointed with Cooler Master’s choice of fans. From a raw airflow perspective, there is definitely a noise versus performance trade-off at work here. Although the fans do flow a decent amount of air, they do spin relatively slowly compared to higher performance fans on the market today.


From an aesthetic perspective, the Scout strikes a nice balance with the LED lighting. It is not overly bright, and remains tasteful. For those who are not keen on LED lighting, a quick press of the toggle switch on the front panel shuts them off. Another nice aesthetic touch is that both the power and HDD LEDs are red. This may sound seemingly insignificant to most people, but it is yet another small attention to detail that keeps the dark and red theme going.