be quiet! Dark Base Pro 901 Full-Tower Case Review

Build Quality

Build quality isn’t even in question here, the moment I took it out of the box, I could tell I was working with a very case indeed. For something that you can largely dismantle into its components using your thumbs and basic tools, it feels incredibly robust too, not that I was expecting anything less. Take a look at the blown-apart image from be quiet! above, it shows you how all these parts are removable and assembled, which I think is pretty freaking cool. Everything feels thicker and heavier than it needs to be, not that that’s a bad thing, of course.

The front panel is robust, coming with solid panels that provide maximum noise isolation and an indirect airflow pattern. For most scenarios, this will be sufficient, as there’s a surprising amount of air intake thanks to the overall height of those side vents. But the overall construction of the more airflow focused

The thick panels are certainly robust, but there’s a quality to every component that goes a long way to explaining the high retail price. Everything fits in its appropriate place with minimal effort, or the turn of a thumbscrew, but at the same time, fits tight and securely, so nothing rattles or feels wonky. In short, you can just tell it’s been engineered to a higher standard than your typical PC case.

There are dust filters on all the intakes, and they’re all very tightly fitted but easy to access and remove should you need to give them a clean. It’s all designed so you can just clean it with a Hoover or air compressor too, nice and simple.

There’s a full-length filter on the top, front, bottom and sides of the case, along with the mesh front panel, additional radiator mount, and the right side panel sealed cover.

…and then there’s the GPU support bracket, the optical drive cage, and even an alternative cable routing cover for use with wider motherboard formats, ensuring that if you have a configuration in mind, this case can support it.

I know GPUs are big now, but damn, this has to be the largest support bracket I’ve ever seen.

The motherboard tray is fully removable, allowing you to rotate the case into a left or right-facing orientation. Despite all the modularness of it though, it’s robust even though it can be taken apart with surprisingly few screws.

There are folded metal cable guides, with plenty of cut-outs for cable ties to keep things tidy. However, these are completely removable too, should you need to strip it down for some other purpose.

The largest sections also provide Velcro straps for anything more bulky.

The HDD cage is fully removable, and also features slide-out metal enclosures for each bay, again with thumbscrews and anti-vibration mountings. Furthermore, these drive trays can be slotted into those slots in (see picture above), or you can buy more to add a full bank of HDD bays in the front of the case.

And finally, all the fan trays are fully removable and each comes with a built-in fan hub, so you can wire the fans to the tray.

This way, when you put the tray into the case, it’s a single cable to the motherboard. Even the front panel RGB uses a similar system, so there’s no actual cable to the panel, just some metal pins that connect when it’s in place.