Tagan A+ Black Pearl Full Tower

When setting out to build a new PC, one of the hardest pieces to pick out is… wait a minute, that’s the beginning of our Gigabyte Aurora 570 review. Never mind.

When it comes time to build a new PC, a certain amount of preparation should be taken when it’s your own hard earned cash being spent. Consideration needs to be given to hardware, performance and ultimately, your budget.

If you’ve been paying attention, over the last couple of weeks, we have taken looks at quite a few different PC cases, each with their different pros and cons and in the two plus years we have been on the web, we really haven’t found that one perfect case that provides us with everything that we look for in a complete case. It’s that pros versus cons debate that most everyone goes through when they start shopping around for a new computer tower. With everything in mind, our quest for the perfect case continues… at least our idea of what the perfect case might be.

Everyone has an idea of what they want. I know when I start to look around for a new chassis; I usually stop by the usual suspects. Antec, Thermaltake, Silverstone, Cooler Master and Lian Li are all case manufacturers that I will visit, just to see what they have to offer. As we have mentioned in the past, there are usually a few companies that are well known for other products that for whatever reason, have decided to throw their hat into the chassis ring.

We have looked at cases from Gigabyte and Asus recently, neither of which are known for their cases. Built by Tagan and sold under the A+ brand name, the Black Pearl is a stout chassis with plenty of features and a unique design.

If you ask anyone, one of the best chassis manufacturers around today is Lian Li. They make great cases and their prices reflect this. The Black Pearl at first appears to be a direct knock off of Lian Li’s V2000 with its inverted ATX design and its half windows. They say that imitation is the ultimate form of flattery and this is a saying that rings loud a clear in the case world. There are many designs that are sold by different manufacturers but happen to share the same look. This happens all the time. Think of it as a Ford/Mercury type situation.

The Black Pearl is shipped in a large black box with a picture of the case on the front. The back side of the case looks exactly the same.

Just as other cases are packed securely in a foam shell, Tagan has decided that this method of shipping will work for them as well. Wrapped in a plastic bag to ward off any scratches that might occur while in transit and sandwiched between a pair of molded Styrofoam pieces, the Black Pearl is quite secure and arrived undamaged to our labs.

Time to haul the case out of the box and see what we are in for.