Caporegime
Bequiet Product Page - http://www.bequiet.com/en/case/595
OcUK Product Page - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/be-quiet-silent-base-800-midi-tower-case-black-window-ca-097-bq.html
Today, I bring you a review of the Bequiet Base 800 Window case finished in black trim. The case is also available in silver or orange trim, and with or without a side window. It is designed and quality-controlled in Germany, with silent operation, ease of use compatibility with most high-end hardware and cooling solutions at its heart.
Key features include:
•Outstanding performance thanks to an innovative construction that assures excellent cooling efficiency and a perfect air-circulation at well-known whisper-quiet operation.
•Excellent usability with simple mounting and tool-free fitting of drives, an intelligent and adaptable cable solution, and air-intake filters that are easily accessed for cleaning.
•Ample space and cut-outs are provided for the high-end components of today and tomorrow, including space for water-cooling radiators.
•Three pre-installed Pure Wings 2 fans featuring nine airflow-optimized fan blades which are decoupled from the case to move heat out with a minimum of vibration and the quietest possible operation.
•A side panel with double-glazed window that provides a perfect view inside the PC system. The window is made from scratch and impact resisting material and offers a superb soundproofing.
•Professional cable management is supported with generous space for organising cables, silicone rubber grommets and carefully placed 'pass-throughs'.
•Its form-follows-function principle maximises performance: and the look of the case is based upon its intended function and purpose.
•The product conception, design and quality control is all German.
Packaging
The case arrived in a very strong cardboard box.
Within: polystyrene foam instead of preferred soft foam inserts, with the case protected in a soft bag.
Accessories
Included inside the box, and taped up for extra security during transport, are the two long beams that form the feet of the case.
A user's manual, a variety of black screws and vibration-reducing rubber rails for drive mounting.
The Case
The feet slide into either side of the body and are very secure, once in place.
Once that is done and its orientated the correct way up it is a pleasing design to regard.
It measures in at 495 x 266 x 559mm with the feet attached and weighs 9.31Kg.
The two front panels are plastic with a brushed faux metal effect. Two full length mesh grilles either side allow air into the front fans.
Both front panels can be opened independently of each other giving access to the 5.25" external bay covers and the mesh dust filter in the bottom.
Sound dampening material is present on both panels.
The dust filter is simple to remove with a clip at the top and two plastic lugs at the bottom holding it in place - easy removal for cleaning.
Two Pure Wings 2 120mm fans provide silent operation with good airflow.
The mesh grills either side direct the intake air at them and their dust filter, you can see the four open holes on the far side where the air is drawn through.
Moving around to the rear, we find the third 120mm Pure Wing 2 fan, and three grommeted holes (do people even use these any more?) for water cooling, etcetera.
There are 7 PCi-E slots and top and bottom grilles for the top exhaust and the bottom PSU location, along with another easy-to-remove dust filter.
The filter pretty much goes the full length of the case's bottom so I am expecting this case to remain relatively dust-free inside for a long time.
Moving to the left side is a side panel that fits very well and doesn't just drop off when the two thumb screws holding it in place are removed.
It is a bit wobbly when removed from the case...
Like the front, this has the sound-dampening material covering it.
You can take that Bequiet stamped square section out to fit an additional fan and there is already a simple dust filter fitted ready for this.
To allow air to flow easily inside it appears you can adjust the height of this plastic square section, I am not sure if that is by design or something I have just discovered, but being designed in Germany I suspect it is the former.
On the non-windowed version of this case you will get two of these side panels so you can add an extra fan on both sides.
This is the windowed side panel that gives this case part of its name; it is does not have any sound dampening material added.
It does have a double-glazed plastic window that will hopefully help to reduce the noise transmitted through it in the same vein as a double-glazed unit for a home keeps out traffic noise.
Moving to the top, there are a couple of slots for air ventilation.
I would have liked to have seen another set of these further towards the middle to help ventilation if using two roof fans.
The power button's illumination colour is white, as is the HDD activity LED's. There are two USB2.0 and two USB3.0 ports here, they are joined by microphone and headphone 3.5mm ports.
Internal Features and Design
Starting at the rear, there does not seem to be many places to secure cables down.
We have some rubber cable management grommets and a large CPU cooler cut-out for access to the back of a board.
I do prefer cases that also have a grommeted hole for the 8pin ATX as I prefer the way that looks.
Two 3.5" sleds for SSDs are held in with a single thumb screw each which allows them to come away at an angle.
At the front we have three 5.25" external drive bays along with seven 3.5" internal bays spread across two HDD cages.
This is the rear Pure Wing 2 fan as mentioned earlier; it does actually come fitted with a speed reducer to make what is a quiet fan even quieter.
All black cables except where the audio and USB2.0 wires go into their connectors.
You can fit a 120mm in the floor in front of where the PSU sits, but the cabling coming out from the PSU prevents this from being recommended.
The top and front covers come off easily with just a few simple plastic tabs holding them in place and two quick cable disconnects for the power button and HDD LED, I like that a lot - so easy.
HDD Cages and Alternative Placement
So, the two HDD cages can be removed, either both together or independently. They are each held in place by three thumb screws: two at the front and one at the rear.
This is a much simpler execution than the Antec P380 I had which required the removal of over 15 small screws.
Removing the cages allows long GFX cards to be fitted (290mm with and 400mm without).
If you have to remove both cages, fear not, as you can mount the middle cage up into the 5.25" bay location.
Simply take this plastic section from underneath the 5.25" bay that was holding the top of the middle HDD cage in place and fit it inside using the counter-sunk screws that are supplied with the accessories...
...then slide the HDD cage into place.
This offers a simple way of preserving some of your 3.5" bays while allowing extra space inside the case for huge expansion cards, etcetera.
Radiator Support
The top of the case has various slots and holes for dual fan and radiator set-ups.
With these two 120mm fans, for example, you can slide the whole assembly over to this side to improve clearance with motherboard heatsinks, and so on.
This is a 240mm AIO and it went in without any drama. I am also pleased to see that the top cover will fit back onto the top of the case with the fans above the main body - again something my Antec P380 could not do unless using ultra-slim fans.
The Build
I used the following parts to fill out this case:
• Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI
• i7 6700K @ stock speed
• Gigabyte GTX980 G1 Gaming @ stock speed
• Bequiet Dark Power Pro 11 850W
• Samsung M.2 SSD
(The build came out looking like this: you can see there are some cables visible behind where the HDD cages are, but that was me being lazy - they can easily be tucked away out of sight.)
This was not a difficult build to put inside this case at all: the lack of drives helps. I had to remove the middle cage due to the 300mm+ GFX card.
Other Fitments
I tried a few other parts to see if they would also fit inside.
This is a Corsair H110i GT AIO which I got to fit inside with some wiggle work.
The fans still fit under the lid and it fits just fine.
An E-ATX (26.4cm wide) board will go in, but some of the cable management holes are covered.
Noise
Silence is what this case is all about. As soon as I powered this build up I knew it was something special. I have not had a full-size PC set-up on my desk that is as quiet as this one is. Obviously what goes inside a case determines how loud it is but these are the same parts that I had inside my Antec P380.
During gaming: where before the noise would get louder and louder as the GFX card and AIO spin faster, in this case, it is all very quiet: I love it.
Here are two videos I made, one showing boot-up with the initial fan ramping up before eventually settling down once inside the OS and the other while playing Battlefield 4.
Hopefully they give you some sort of impression of what to expect when using this case with the aforementioned components - I certainly have never heard them this quiet before.
Temperatures
I have recorded the CPU and GFX temperatures after 20 minutes of AIDA64 and two runs of Unigen Valley. I recorded ambient temperature with a digital thermometer and present the adjusted delta values below.
The GFX card reached 47°C which is 2.9°C more than when it was in the Antec P380 running the same test.
The CPU reached an average of 43.6°C which I cannot compare against the Antec P380 as I used a different cooler.
Conclusion
For anyone looking to build a silent set-up with smart PC components the Bequiet Base 800 Window case is an excellent choice.
Obviously, some components will always output some noise, but the quality of this case's construction is, overall, excellent and well-designed with much thought gone into HDD cage options. The fitting of fans inside the roof area and easy-to-remove dust filters are a bonus and things I've never had before. I would like to see a larger version that can take larger motherboards such as many X99s which are wider with more expansion slots. Also, a larger gap between the top of the motherboard and the bottom of my AIO radiator would have been perfect if I wanted to do push/pull or have the fans inside the main chamber.
I would like to have seen some cable tie points on the motherboard tray and better ventilation by adding additional cooling slots in the lid for a 240/280mm AIO.
Not only is this case available in windowed or non-windowed versions in three colours, OcUK is also selling the non-windowed version with a free Pure Rock CPU Cooler worth £28.99.
Summing up, it really is a case designed for silence with good component-support that hits the spot for most users. Thumbs-up from me.