Kolink K8 is a simple PC case. It is a no-frills box with room for your important PC components, ample ventilation, and expansion space. The front of the case features a stylish RGB strip that matches the cuboid pattern, and the cutouts at the top are a bit more exciting than most.

In general, however, this is a safe bet.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. As for cooling options, there is plenty of room for fans and radiators. Up to three 120mm fans can be mounted on the front, up to two on the top, and up to one on the rear.

However, only one 120mm RGB fan is preinstalled on this machine, and it is driven by a SATA connection, so the user cannot control its speed. In my opinion, it is better than the fan in the Molex power supply, but not much better. The case is very well ventilated and does a pretty good job of keeping the temperatures to relatively low numbers, but I think adding another fan or two would improve things considerably. However, I feel that adding another fan or two would improve it considerably.

The main element of an impressive PC case is airflow, but you would be surprised at how many case designs do not do this well at all. Ideally, a handful of high-flow intake fans at the front of the case would draw in cool air, place it over the PC's components, and exhaust it. However, inexpensive cases do not always come with the ideal number of fans for this optimal setup, so it is especially important to find one that is smartly designed to work with limited cooling capacity.

To test the thermal characteristics of these six inexpensive cases, we built a PC into each case. We then ran several benchmarks to put routine stress on the CPU and GPU, and the average results are summarized in this graph.

There is room for a pair of 3.5" drives and a pair of 2.5" drives, for a total of up to four 2.5" drives.

The PSU is hidden by a shroud, and there is a convenient cutout if for some reason you really want to show the PSU label. The shroud keeps the cables out of view, but we admit that we did not insist on keeping the cables neatly together during testing.

However, we did encounter one notable problem with this case. I had to run the cables across the case, which is quite odd in itself, since there is no CPU cable cutout in the motherboard tray. As a result, the appearance was quite poor. This would not be a problem if the case did not have glass side panels, but this case does have tempered glass side panels.

Where the Kolink struggles is that it doesn't quite match the other cases I tested in terms of value or features. It is cheap, but not the cheapest. It's also cool, but not the coolest; the Inspire K8's unique features are not enough to set it apart from the rest of the small-cash horde, and a few hiccups keep it from cheap greatness. If I had to choose, I would definitely opt for the Aerocool Zauron.

Our group test: cheap PC cases are a great way to cut costs on your next PC build, but many of the brands we're used to seeing in the Top Case Roundup aren't cheap enough for what we're looking for. So we asked our friends at Overclockers UK (opens in new tab) if they could loan us their cheapest cases.