Test System
System Parts for Case Reviews |
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Processor: | Intel Core i5-6600K |
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Motherboards: | ATX: Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K6+ mATX: ASRock Z170M Pro4S mini-ITX: ASRock Z170M-ITX/ac Provided by: ASRock |
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Graphic Card: | Long: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 OEM Short: HIS Radeon 5350 HD |
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Memory: | 16 GB ADATA XPG Dazzle DDR4 2800 MHz CL17-17-17 1.25V 16 GB ADATA XPG Z1 DDR4 3000 MHz CL18-18-18 1.35V 16 GB ADATA XPG Z1 DDR4 2400 MHz CL16-16-16 1.20V Provided by: ADATA |
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HDD: | Western Digital 320 GB 7200 RPM |
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SSD: | ADATA Premier Pro SP920 MLC 256 GB ADATA Ultimate SU800 3D TLC 256 GB ADATA Premier SP550 TLC 240 GB Provided by: ADATA |
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Power Supply: | Seasonic Platinum Series 660 W ATX 2.3 Provided by: Seasonic |
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Cooling: | Air Cooling Mini-ITX: Thermalright AXP-100R Air Cooling mATX: Thermalright Macho 90 Air Cooling ATX: Thermalright Macho 120 Provided by: PC-COOLING.de |
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Assembly
As you may remove the motherboard tray, you may also add all the major components within the restrictions of the chassis frame. This makes assembly of large air coolers and multi-GPU setups quite easy. Once they have been put in place, simply replace the filled tray. While this is great, the majority of us will probably just skip taking the tray out by adding the components the traditional way as there is plenty of space all around.
To install hard drives inside the 3.5" trays, simply loosen the three thumbscrews and pull the whole contraption out toward the motherboard tray. Each of these metal units may hold a 3.5" drive or two 2.5" units. If you are so inclined, you may place a whopping fourteen SSDs in these. Remember that pump-mounting accessory? That would go on top of one of the hard-drive trays, so you can even adjust the height at which the pump is placed.
The SSD bracket on the back of the motherboard tray seems perfectly suitable for the drive holding the OS of the system. Simply screw on the drive and put it back in its place, securing it with the thumbscrew.
Adding an optical drive bay is the one assembly element that has been kept traditional. Simply remove the front cover and slide the drive into place. As you can see, the mounting holes line up perfectly with the drive, allowing you to secure it easily.
To install the power supply, you first have to take out the special frame. It is held in place by screws with a sliding mechanism, so you can put it back in place once filled quite easily. There is loads of space for large units unless you choose to install fans or liquid cooling on the floor, which would restrict your choices considerably.
With everything in place, the interior of the be quiet! makes a very clean impression. While you may see the PSU cables with the white backdrop here, those should blend in nicely with the interior once the solid black side panel is in place. Most of the cable mess can be found behind the motherboard tray. While my setup looks a bit cluttered, this is by no means be quiet!'s fault. I could have used the mounting points to the left of the orange grommets to secure some of the cables better, which makes this is my bad.
Finished Looks
Once everything is assembled, the be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 looks darn sleek and sexy. Thanks to the front door, the drive is not visible and everything looks super clean.
The power LED is orange as well, which goes perfectly with the orange accents on and inside the chassis. Thanks to the light tint of the glass panel, you can clearly see all the components inside in even a well-lit room and without any major lighting elements within the Dark Base Pro 900.