Antec really has not really introduced anything super ground breaking in a long time. I mean they did start their gaming case line with the 900 case and some other cases followed, but they have had the same style cases for quite some time. This year at CES I was extremely excited when I saw a set of cases that looked nothing like that Antec cases of the past and finally brought them up to date internally. The cases I’m talking about are the Dark Fleet series. This new series has 3 cases, 2 mid towers and 1 full tower. Today we will be looking at the full tower, the DF-85. This case features so many features we can’t list them all here! So go ahead and read on as we check out the Dark Fleet DF-85!
Special thanks to Antec for providing us with the Dark Fleet DF-85 Full Tower Case to review.
Features
Three Fleet-Release™ access doors open separately for convenient entry to drives
Three washable fan filters allow for easy cleaning
Top 2.5″ hot-swap SATA (SSD-compatible) drive bay
Bottom-mounted power supply isolates heat
– Mounts either a standard size power supply or an Antec exclusive CP Series power supply
Lockable access doors ensure security
CPU cutout allows for easy installation of CPU coolers
14 drive bays:
– Up to 9 x internal 3.5″
– 3 x external 5.25″
– 4 x internal 3.5″ Fleet-Swap™ drives (position changeable)
– 1 x external top 2.5″ hot-swap SATA drive bay
– 1 x internal bottom-mounted 2.5″ SSD drive
Advanced cooling system:
– 2 x top 140mm TwoCool™ fans
– 2 x rear 120mm TwoCool™ red LED fans
– 3 x front 120mm red LED fans with speed control knobs
– 1 x side 120mm fan to cool graphics cards (optional)
– Water cooling capable
7 expansion slots to support multiple graphics cards
Maximum graphics card size: 12.5″ / 318 mm
Cable management ties help keep your case tidier
Stylish blacked-out interior
Windowed side panel
Front ports:
– 1 x USB 3.0
– 3 x USB 2.0
– Audio (AC’97 and HDA compatible) In and Out
Motherboards: Mini-ITX, microATX, Standard ATX
Power supply not included
Unit Dimension
– 596mm (H) x 213mm (W) x 505mm (D)
– 23.5″ (H) x 8.4″ (W) x 19.9″ (D)
Package Dimension
– 577mm (H) x 288mm (W) x 510mm (D)
– 22.7″ (H) x 11.3″ (W) x 20.1″ (D)
Weight
– Net : 11.0 kg / 24.2 lb
– Gross : 11.3 kg / 26.3 lb
Packaging
Usually with most cases there is a big picture of the case on the box, but with the DF-85 there are 4 diagrams showing some of the features of the case. On the back of the case there is a big list of specifications. There is a picture of the case on one side of the box. On the other side there are even more features explained. This box is quite informative.
Opening the box up the case is nicely protected with large pieces of Styrofoam. Getting the case out it is protected in a plastic bag and there is plastic on the side panel window so it will not get scratched.
Not bad case, thanks the review 😉
It's not a bad review, but I do think you've missed quite a few points here.
1) From a case in this price-range you would expect a screw-less installation method for 5,25″ drives. Same goes for the expansion slots at the back. People don't pay $190 to use a screwdriver.
2) There is no mention of the speed that the hot-swappable 3,5″ and 2,5″ slots can handle. Since SSD's are now breaking SATA 2 speeds, it is especially important to know if the external 2,5″ slot can handle SATA 3 speeds.
3) You said: “The only real problem I found with this case is that you cannot install an optical drive in the top 5.25-inch drive bay because the top 140mm fan gets in the way. So if for some reason you have 3 optical drives you are out of luck installing all of them in this case.”
Since when are 5,25″ bays only capable of housing optical drives? There must be at least a few dozen reservoirs for water-cooling that also wouldn't fit in that top slot. And what about some of the 5,25″ units you get with sound-cards?
4) There is also no mention of water-cooling compatibility anywhere beyond the rubber holes in the back. It would be nice to let people know if a 280-rad will fit in the top and if the top is also compatible with the more standard 120 and 240 rads(or just 120mm fans for that matter).
5) You write nothing about the sound of the fans(at different settings). It would be nice to know how they perform.
6) I also see nothing about the compatibility of a long video-card with an HDD behind it. I think people would like to know if their video-cards will block their HDD slots from usage.
Maybe in your next review you can also mention these points. Your readers would thank you.