The Kolink K8 is an easy PC case. It is a pretty nondescript field with house in your valuable PC parts, loads of air flow, and room for enlargement. It does provide slightly aesthetic aptitude with a snazzy RGB strip down the entrance of the case, matching the cuboid sample on its entrance, and the cut-out on prime is a bit more thrilling than most (although frightfully does away with any type of mud filtering for it).
Our price range case group take a look at
Kolink Encourage K8 – Fascinating however underwhelming Aerocool Hive – Preserve it cool Aerocool Zauron – The price range case champ Kolink Encourage K11 – Look, a correct fan Bitfenix Nova – Storage galore and nothing extra Kolink Nimbus – Styling on a price range Aerocool Tomahawk – Good however not ok
Typically, although, it is a secure wager.
That is not essentially a nasty factor. Like I say, there’s loads of compatibility right here for constructing your PC inside this with out hitting any ache factors, and with regards to cooling choices there are many areas for followers and radiators. That features as much as three 120mm followers within the entrance, two within the prime, and one within the rear.
Although there may be solely a single 120mm RGB fan pre-installed on this machine, and it is powered by a SATA connection so the RPM can’t be managed by the consumer. That is higher than a molex-powered fan in my view, however not a lot better. Since this case is kind of so effectively ventilated it does really do a reasonably good job of holding temperatures all the way down to a comparatively low quantity, however I really feel it might be mightily improved with one other fan or two. That does imply throwing more cash at it, nevertheless.
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(Picture credit score: Future)
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(Picture credit score: Future)
Low-cost case airflow take a look at
The primary ingredient for a formidable PC case is airflow, however you would be shocked by simply what number of case designs do not get this fairly right. Ideally, we wish our case to attract in cool air from a handful of excessive move consumption followers on the entrance, over our PC’s parts, then out the exhaust. Low-cost circumstances, nevertheless, do not at all times include the best variety of followers for this optimum setup, so it is further essential to search out one that’s well designed to work with restricted cooling potential.
To check the thermal properties of those six low cost circumstances, I constructed a PC into every of them. Then I ran a handful of benchmarks to place the CPU and GPU beneath day-to-day stress and collated the common outcomes into this graph.
(Picture credit score: Future)
Encourage K8 specs
Dimension: Mid-tower 2.5-inch bays: 4 max 3.5-inch bays: 2 max Max GPU size: 300mm Max fan help: 6 x 120mm Lighting: Fan and entrance Facet panel: Sure, glass Entrance panel: Energy, reset, audio, 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0 Worth: £40
There’s house for a pair of three.5-inch drives and two 2.5-inch drives, or as much as 4 2.5-inch drives, in whole.
The PSU is hidden by a shroud, which conveniently has a cutout if, for no matter motive, you actually need to exhibit that PSU’s label. The shroud retains your cables out of sight, anyhow, although I’ll admit I did not stick with stuffing cables neatly throughout testing.
I did run into one concern with this case value mentioning, although. Since there isn’t any CPU cable cutout within the motherboard tray, which is pretty odd in itself, I needed to run that right the best way throughout my construct. It seems fairly dangerous consequently. That would not be a problem for a case with out a glass facet panel, however this has one, a tempered glass facet panel the truth is, so it is simple to see that this case is a little bit of a large number on the within.
Where the Kolink struggles, then, is in the truth that it isn’t fairly a match for different circumstances I’ve examined when it comes to worth or options. It is low cost, however not the most cost effective. And it is cool, however not the best. The defining options of the Encourage K8 do not fairly do sufficient to separate it from the gang of others vying in your small amount of money, and some slip-ups maintain it from price range greatness. If I had to decide on, I would undoubtedly choose the Aerocool Zauron earlier than this, and the Zauron is definitely fairly a bit cheaper.
Our group take a look at: A price range PC case is a good way to trim prices in your subsequent PC construct, but lots of the manufacturers we’re used to seeing within the prime case round-ups aren’t anyplace close to low cost sufficient for what we’re after. That is why I requested our buddies at Overclockers UK if it could lend us its least expensive circumstances to see which is value your small pile of cash, and of the seven circumstances they despatched my means, I made my conclusions.
