Aerocool Dead Silence DS200 Mid-Tower Chassis Review

Peter Donnell / 10 years ago

Final Thoughts

Price

The Aerocool DS200 isn’t all that cheap, clocking in at £74.38 from Scan.co.uk and this puts it along side some very fierce competition from the likes of NZXT, Coolermaster, Thermaltake, Nanoxia and many others, who all offer award-winning and very popular chassis within this price range. Aerocools case is certainly competitive on features, but for the most part it’s really down to a preference on style when choosing if this is the right chassis for you.

Overview

There is a whole lot to love about this case and it’s clear that Aerocool have put a lot of thought into the general aesthetics and feature set of the DS200. From a style point of view it’s fairly unique looking and the leather touch finish on the front and top panel really stands out from the competition, and the bold colour choices certainly help enhance that eye-catching appeal even further. The inclusion of two 5.25″ drive bay adaptors to allow an optical drive bay flip-cover or size adaptor for a card reader are really nice touches too, as they mean you don’t have to break up the colourful aesthetics when building your system. Then we have other stylish points like the colour changing fan-control and temperature readout on the front panel which is a nice way of breaking up the usually boring I/O panel and the thermal probe is super easy to attach to your CPU cooler other any other component you wish to keep an eye on.

Water cooling and air cooling support is great too, with full air filtering on the front, top and bottom panels providing clear airflow for a multitude of cooling configurations. There are only two fans pre-installed, which is a shame at this price point, but chances are that most people spending in this region will be investing in after-market fans anyway. Radiators are supported in the back, top and front of the chassis and with a little careful planning you could get a pretty serious custom loop unit in the DS200. The top panel is really nicely designed and I especially like that I can keep the flat cover on for a build that doesn’t feature top mounted cooling, but if I want to add a top 280mm radiator in the future, I can swap the covered and open up the airflow here.

The modular hard drive bays are a big win, but not without their downsides as only one bay is fully removable. The downside being that the bottom bays are moved further back in the case to allow more room for a front radiator, leaving us with no room to install a second Sapphire R9 270X; However I won’t hold that against Aerocool as the 270X we had is a pretty huge card.

The feature set is robust, we’ve got water cooling support, modular storage, two good quality fans pre-installed, a modular top panel, fan controller, thermal monitor, cable routing, sound dampening material pre-applied, dust filters and a soft touch finish, which go a long way to justifying the £80 you’ll be spending at retail.

“Aerocools DS200 is a perfect choice for those who want high-end build quality and features, but want to take a break from the usual big names in the industry. If you want something competitive that stands out from the crowd, then you’ll be very happy with what this chassis has to offer.”

Pros