BitFenix Shinobi XL Full Tower Case Review

External Impressions of the Shinobi XL

Looking at the outside its easy to see the heritage from the original Shinobi. At the top are the five 5.25 external drive bays. Just under the bays is a brush aluminum BitFenix logo. The front and top bezels have the BitFenix SofTouch coating.

Pretty much the whole top of the Shinobi XL is mesh for the top exhaust that is setup to accommodate up to three 120mm fans or dual 230mm fans.

Down the sides of both the top and front panels are small mesh vents that allow air to be pulled in. In the very front of the top panel is the I/O ports and switches.

From left to right: BitFenix SuperCharge port, four Super Speed USB3.0 ports, Audio ports, power and reset buttons.

The right side of the Shinobi XL is blank.

Looking at the rear there are 4 water cooling holes, rear exhaust that can accommodate either 120 or 140mm fans. Below that are nine vented expansion slots, and the power supply area.

The bottom of the Shinobi XL has 3 vents. The case feet are screwed on and each have a rubber pad on it to keep the case from sliding around or damaging your furniture or floor.

The vent under the power supply can be pull out the back of the case for cleaning.

The two forward vent screens are attached with push pin style fasteners. To remove these for cleaning the case has to be turned on its side.

I want to point out that during this review we did manage to break the top panel. We take off the panels a number of times to take all the pictures you see here, but usually nothing breaks. When pulling the
top panel off for the second time I managed to break the posts that hold the
top panel to the case. This is the first BitFenix case that we have managed to break! It might have received some damage during shipping (Asia to North America) or we just pulled it off at the wrong angle. We just wanted to point it out as usually this doesn’t happen. .