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

Hardware Support

There’s a lot going on with the front panel here, with five USB ports; 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A and 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, and a pair of audio jacks. There’s a power button in the middle, but also fan control and ARGB lighting control. There are connectors on the interior, with 2 x PWM hubs for 2x 3 fans each, a nice upgrade from the old model that had 1 x PWM hub for 2x 4 fans. The fan controller offers a 5-step adjustment as well as full PWM.

This is a full-tower case, so it’s unsurprising that its hardware support is pretty fantastic. For starters, it’ll handle just about any motherboard you can think of, with mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX, XL-ATX and E-ATX form factors supported. The cable routing bracket is fully removable to make even more space if it’s needed.

Naturally, the longer motherboard supports means that there are also 8 expansion slots, so multiple high-end graphics cards for workstations won’t be an issue here. Much to my surprise though, there are no details on their website (or their handy review guide) that states the maximum graphics card supported, or the maximum CPU cooler height. However, the case is “bloody huge” using all my technical knowledge, so I can’t think of a single high-end RTX 4090, for example, that wouldn’t fit in here just fine. The case comes with support for vertical GPU mounting too, with the entire rear bracket being rotatable, however, you will need a riser cable. Keep in mind the 900 series didn’t support vertical GPU mounting, or come with a bracket, so again, a nice upgrade.

When it comes to cooling, the case comes with three Silent Wings 4 140mm PWM fans, that’s a nice upgrade from the Pro 900 Rev 2 which featured the Silent Wings 3 fans. The case will take 3x 120/140mm in the top, 3 x 120/140mm in the front, 3 x 120mm on the side, 1 x 120/140mm in the back, and 1 x 120/140mm on the PSU cover, giving you up to 11 fans in total.

Unsurprisingly then, radiator support is really excellent too. With 120/240/360mm supported in the top, 120/140/240/280/360/420mm supported in the front, 120/240/360mm on the side, and 120/140mm in the back.

PSU support doesn’t appear to be documented either, but the PSU shroud is long, the case is wide, and much like the GPU support, I can’t imagine there’s a PSU in my storage area (I have, a fair few…) that wouldn’t fit in here, so it’s of little concern.

One neat trick about the PSU shroud I do love though, is that it hides a 5.25″ drive bay. That’s right, you can put a hot-swap bay, card reader or even an optical drive in this case! Just pull down the bottom part of the front panel…

And ta-da, there it is! I think that’s actually pretty cool.

There’s plenty of room for storage too, with the side panel cooling mount blocked off, it becomes an HDD/SSD mounting rack, allowing you to put a lot of storage here should you need it. There’s a more traditional HDD cage in the bottom of the case too, again adding more 3.5″ and 2.5″ bays, and you can separate them should you only need one of them here. However, for 420mm front radiator support, this will need to be removed completely.

Now, as you can see, the motherboard area is in a standard orientation here. That means the tempered glass is on the left side of the case, and the solid panel is on the right. But… what if it wasn’t? Well, you can swap the side panels over, and flip around the interior of the case. This will invert the motherboard 180 degrees, but it also means you can have the glass on the other side too. Honestly, I’m getting dizzy at the number of options here, and the high price is starting to make a lot more sense.