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The Antec Dark Fleet DF 85 is one of the most striking looking cases on the market right now. At night, when this aggressively designed chassis is lit up with the rows of red LED fans, it takes on a sinister, almost evil appearance. This is the kind of case we can imagine Darth Vader building his gaming system around.
Technically there is very litle to fault, after reviewing several budget cases lately we expected to find something inside which felt flimsy or substandard, but this chassis is targeting a higher market and it shows – the attention to detail throughout is absolutely top drawer. Not only are all the fans controllable, but they have easy to access removeable, washable dust filters. On the outside we have a bay for a 2.5 inch hard drive, which makes copying, or security based backups a viable option. My colleague said he would use this top mounted external drive bay for an SSD operating system install, and when he left, he could remove it, meaning no one else could access the machine, or his files.
Internally it is a masterclass on how to design a case, installing a system is a pleasure thanks to the spacious room around the motherboard area, and the biggest graphics card fit without a problem. The hard drive system is one of the best ive seen as you can add and remove drives without disconnecting any cables, thanks to the Antec ‘Fleet Swap drive' system. There are also no problems installing the largest CPU coolers on the market, such as the Noctua NH D14 ‘Austrian Sandwich'.
The cooling performance is right up there with the Silverstone Raven 02 which has been my favourite case for the last 2 years and I think Antec have just topped it. The cooling is just as good, but the overall design is more effective and its better built too.
Anything negative? The only fault I could find is that there is no external eSATA port and although I miss it, I doubt many people will.
The UK price right now for the Dark Fleet DF 85 is around £140–150 inc vat. I think this is great value for money, especially for a high end gaming system when ultimate cooling and a high quality, eye catching finish are top of the list.
KitGuru says: The Silverstone Raven 02 has finally been replaced in our labs with the Antec Dark Fleet DF 85 Chassis … we can give it no higher praise.
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Damn that is one sexy looking chassis. I wonder why companies dont use RED led fans? they look so much meaner than blue. everyone uses blue.
Just ordered it from OCUK, thanks for the great review. was tempted with this before when i saw another review, but I trust KG
Very very nice, great photos throughout, really helped sell it too.
Do you reckon Darth Vader plays World of Warcraft? must get sweaty in that suit for 22 hours a day on his bum.
Hell,. never seen this site before, was searching for this case on google, for a review. wicked site !
Bit costly, but I guess its quality, get what you pay for, right?
Thats quite a scary case, dont think I could sleep with it beside me. might have nightmares 🙂
Excellent review, love the diode testing bit, thats quite unique. im sure other sites will start copying that 🙂
Wow, thats a sexy chassis aint it
Well thats just got me hard, very evil and I want one now 🙂
Antec are awesome, I love them. I need to get one of these too.
Some lickable hardware gets reviewed here every week. Need another reviewer?
The images really dont do the case justice, its much much nicer in person. I love it, but the images make it look somewhat gaudy.