The interior is very spacious as a large mid-tower case like this should be. As like many cases that have come out in the past few years it lacks hard drive and optical drive bays. It does allow you to purchase HDD cages that can pop into the case for an additional $10 if you need more than the two that come equipped in the bottom of the case.
This motherboard can take up to motherboards of EATX size however a full 13 inch wide board will block the cable pass through holes meaning you’d have to route them through the HDD bay covers.
The case also allows you to remove the plastic shroud on the bottom of the case to give the PSU some room to breathe, or attach an additional fan to the bottom for extra cooling.
As for the rear you can see the plastic covers on the HDD cage opening as well as the PWM fan controller. You can also see a few additional 2.5 mounting slots for SSDs. Also you get spacious room for cable management.
Overall, building in this system was a breeze, the large interior and generous room for cable routing also made this much easier than other cases I’ve used in the past. My single gripe with this case is it has the ability to mount a radiator to the top of the case, but only has limited exhaust for a single fan. You would likely end up putting your radiator in the front if you were to go water cooling, unless you were using a 140mm radiator.
The case only comes with a single 140mm intake and a single 140mm exhaust, which for this price point I would have expected more. That being said depending on exactly what kind of components you’re trying to install here you might not end up needing more as these are premium fans in their own right.
The noise levels which when using the silent mode were pretty quiet though turning the fan controller to performance made it a bit louder than I’d hope for. If you’d like some detailed results on the fan noise check Steve’s review at GamersNexus as we don’t have the sort of testing equipment to do sound levels properly.
If you are interested in this case I’d personally recommend adding an extra intake fan or two for positive pressure but running them on the silent preset, since honestly the reason you’d likely pick this case aside from customization would be it’s silence.
This case allows modularity to a level that modders would dream of and is reminiscent of my favorite PC case manufacturer, Phanteks and goes beyond them. The only thing you’re missing here is the option to properly install a large AIO on the top of the case. You could remove the top of the case, and mod something but in today’s market the lack of a top panel to buy separately seems a bit out of place.
Aside from that the case offers just about every hardware option you could ask for, and in their aim to go for a silent case, it’s an understandable choice. With that I give the Dark Base 700 our Gold award. The case is available on Amazon.
