Antec Dark Fleet DF 85 Full Tower Case Review

1. Introduction2. Antec Dark Fleet DF 85 Exterior3. Antec Dark Fleet DF 85 Internal and Installation4. Testing Methodology and Performance Results5. Acoustics Testing6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

KitGuru has reviewed a range of budget cases since we opened but today we decided to move up into a higher price bracket by taking a look at the Antec Dark Fleet DF 85 Full Tower case.

Last month Antec released a new series of cases which they dramatically called the ‘Dark Fleet' – this range is comprised of three models, the DF 30, DF 35 and top of the range DF 85.

The former two are mid tower products and the one we are looking at today is a high end full tower case.

The Dark Fleet DF 85 comes supplied with a staggering seven fans, all fitted with speed controllers and there is a place on the side window to install your own 120mm fan, if you so wish.

Antec Dark Fleet DF 85 Specifications list:

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

The Dark Fleet DF 85 case comes in a huge, red and black coloured box with details of the key elements on the outside. The case is protected inside two heavy duty pieces of Styrofoam which protect it completely during shipping. Antec supply a manual as well as screws for the system build and some cable ties to tidy it all up afterwards.

The case is an attractively designed product with a side window – this comes protected with two plastic sheets on both sides to stop scratching during shipping. The first thing you notice is the sheer mass of the case, it is very tall. It is made of SECC Steel and weighs around 11kg without any system installed inside. This won't be a case you will easily lug around to lan parties.

The case is supplied with 3 fans on the front and two on the rear, these are red Antec branded fans, and they come with dust filters to help with maintenance. I think the design is stunningly attactive, as it is extremely unusual, like nothing I have seen before.

The side window has been cut into two sections seperated by a accented metal strip. The top of the case also features two additional fans, these are black units and are larger than the others (140mm).

There is a place to fit an extra 120mm in the smaller part of the side window. Antec supply screws to fit an additional side window case fan.

One of the most eye catching features is the inclusion of a tray system on the top of the chassis which allows the direct fitting of a 2.5 inch drive. This is a great idea for a storage unit, or even for the security concious amongst us – you can install your main OS on an SSD, and disconnect it simply by sliding it out whenever you are away from your computer. We really love this concept.

At the front there are 4 USB 2.0 ports and a single USB 3.0 port, as well as headphone and microphone ports. There is also the obligatory power and reset switch along this bank.

The rear of the chassis has a control section at the top left, which allows for a low/high adjustment of the banks of ‘TwoCool' fans installed along the top and back of the chassis. There are also two watercooling holes which are fitted with rubber mounts.

The front of the case has three 120mm LED fans built into the fascia, These have removable, washable dust filters. Each of the fans has a control knob on the top right which allows for a variety of speeds, independent of each other.

By pulling a lever inside the case, all three of these fan bays unlock from the outside and you can open the doors.

By opening the three bay doors you can also get access to the hard drive locations, directly.

By flipping a little lever on top of the fan bay, you can then remove the dust filter, wash and dry it then slide it back in. This is one of the best systems we have seen on any chassis to date.

The 5.25 inch drive bays at the top are also accessible by a similar system, although you don't need to unlock the catches – simply push and pull and they unclip.

The top mounted bay as seen above can be populated by any 2.5 inch drive – we tested with a standard laptop drive and the fitting was perfect. A little force is required for the sata and power connectors to engage.

Finally, the PSU is mounted at the bottom of the case.

To open the case, there are a total of four thumbscrews, two on each side panel. You don't need a screwdriver to open this case, which earns it a bonus point already.

The insides are painted black, something that is becoming standardised and we are glad to see it. At the bottom of the chassis there are four rubber risers which are home to the PSU, this also has the added benefit of allowing air to circulate under it. At the front there is a unit for mounting hard drives and at the bottom there is an ‘SSD' slot for mounting a 2.5 inch drive.

Fitting a drive is simple, slide it in and then attach your sata and power cables to the little unit attached to the mounting bar – Antec call this the Fleet Swap drive system (after using it for a week, we can safely say, we love it). There is a lot of room inside this chassis, for up to nine drives. Above this there is room for three 5.25 inch drives. These use a traditional locking system and I am personally glad to see Antec ditching the fiddly rail system they used on the last chassis I looked at a year ago.

We have to mention that the build quality of this case really is of a very high standard throughout. Everything fits perfectly together which is clearly the sign of high quality engineering. The rear is home to two 120mm fans which are speed controllable from the outside (detailed on the last page).

At the top are the two 140mm TwinCool fans, these are not LED units, but they are speed controllable from the same exterior panel as the rear units.

Removing the other side panel we can see they have a cut position for easy access to a rear mounted backplate. There is also plenty of area and room for effective cable routing.

Being such a spacious case the installation procedure is as easy as it gets. There is a lot of room around the top of the case which makes fitting oversized CPU coolers painfree. We installed an Intel SSD drive into a standard drive slot and it took literally 20 seconds.

On the other side of the chassis we have all the fan based molex connectors daisy chained. Thankfully there are plenty of cut positions to hide these from view.

Above is our AMD reference gaming system, which features an eVGA GTX460 Superclocked graphics card and an AMD 1055T processor. Installation really was a pleasure, with ample room on all sides to work without restriction.

For testing today we are using an AMD Phenom 1055T based system.

Antec Dark Fleet DF 85 Full Tower Case

KitGuru AMD reference gaming system:
Processor: AMD Phenom 1055T
Cooler: Noctua NH C12P SE14 Cooler review
Motherboard: MSI 890 GXM-G65
Graphics: eVGA GTX460 Superclocked
PSU: Coolermaster 700w
Hard Drive: Intel 80GB SSD
Memory: Kingston 8GB DDR3 1600mhz

Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 64bit

Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2

Firstly let us have a look at the chassis design and airflow, as it comes ‘out of the box’.

At the front we have three 120mm fans which are set to intake positions. This forces cool air in from the front, over the motherboard, this air is then sucked upwards by the two 120mm and two 140mm fans at the rear and top of the case. This is pretty much a traditional cooling methodology which works well.

We have placed thermal diodes in 5 case positions – 1; top optical drive bay position. 2; hard drive position. 3; top area between CPU and fan exhaust positions. 4; above PSU, graphics card (s) area. 5; motherboard central ‘dead zone’ area.

We test with our AMD 1055T at reference clock speeds and voltages. Nothing else is overclocked. Room Ambient temperatures in our labs are maintained at a constant 25c with air conditioning. There is no side panel case fan installed (although the door is closed to mimic a real world situation). Load is measured by running Cinebench R11.5 in a loop with Furmark, worst temperatures are recorded through a duration of 20 minutes.

All case fans were set to their lowest possible settings to keep noise to a minimum (more on this later).

The case is keeping all the ambient temperatures basically at room temperature which is a great set of results. Due to the excellent air flow we can note that temperatures under load around the diodes didn't increase at all.

We then installed a 120mm Noctua fan into the side window with the supplied kit included in the Antec bundle.

Adding the extra fan helped the GTX 460 SC temperatures drop by 3c under load. It also dropped the diode 4 temp by 1c … to room temperature.

Next we cranked the system speeds, increasing core voltage on the 1055T and overclocking it to 4ghz. We left the Noctua side fan installed and enabled.

The Antec Dark Fleet DF-85 is clearly one of the best cooling cases we have tested as these are class leading performance figures. in the same category as the Silverstone Raven 02.

We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

Today to test the Antec chassis we have taken it into our acoustics room environment and have set our Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2 one meter away from the case. We have turned off the Noctua 120mm fan we installed in the side panel as we want to measure noise from the chassis, just as people will buy it ‘out of the box’. The room rates as 21dBa before powering on the system (air conditioning unit in the far corner of the room causes this).

As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

We have removed the GTX460 and replaced it with a Sapphire HD5670 Ultimate edition. The only fans now running are the 140mm Noctua fan on the CPU cooler and the seven case fans supplied by Antec.

With all the fans on the lowest possible settings (top and rear banks on low and front three turned down to minimum), the dBa rating was 35.9 which is audible, but relatively quiet. With all the fans cranked, the noise becomes apparent and it ends up rather unpleasant. Thankfully as we saw on the last page, there is absolutely no need to have these fans set to maximum.

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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