The annual Computex event in Taipei is where serious computer nerdery takes place. This year, Cooler Master may have won the category for Weirdest Gadget(s) We Never Realised We Needed To Own with a couple of custom PC case designs.
As the header image and headline suggest, the PC designs resemble a shoe, in the case of the Sneaker X, and a shark. That would be the appropriately-named Shark X case design. And yes, at least one of them will become available at retail at some point in the future.
Is there anything Cooler Master?
Since we’re not sure of the Shark X’s fate — it honestly looks too complicated to bring to retail at an affordable price point — let’s explore the Sneaker X instead. That unit will go on sale at a wallet-melting R117,000 or so ($6,000 — so no, that’s not a typo). You’ll have to supply your own internals, though. The plastic, aluminum, and steel chassis comes with the fans, power supply, a CPU cooler, the ARGB controller, and some cabling.
Owners will have to install everything else themselves. Both the Shark and Sneaker support ITX motherboards and SFX power supplies. The Sneaker supports an all-in-one water cooler, along with a 360mm radiator, so you can have your PC operating as fast as it looks from the outside.
The Sneaker X is based on a custom design that won the company’s Cooler Master 2020 Case Mod World Series. The company launched more sedate gear at this year’s Computex. The Mini X, Cooler X, and AIOX NUC (Next Unit of Computing) are all less impressive takes on case design that all lean heavily on more affordable block-shaped design. That’s no fun at all.