be quiet! Shadow Base 800 FX Black, Glasfenster, schallgedämmt

Be quiet liefert mit dem Shadow Base 800 ein rundes Gesamtpaket ab. Der Midi-Tower kann in so gut wie allen Aspekten überzeugen und macht vor allem optisch durch das neue Mesh-Design einiges her.

This case has a lot to love, and very little to complain about. No case is perfect, at least, not for everyone, either that or I’m just really fussy. If there’s one thing I would change in this case, it has to be the PSU shroud, as it feels like a wasted opportunity. Many modern cases have more ventilation, fan mounts and cable routing holes on the PSU shroud, and while the Shadow Base 800 benefits from a cleaner aesthetic, a little more practicality on the shroud would be a welcome upgrade. Of course, that’s hardly a deal breaker, I’m picking a minor thread and dragging it out here, really. That’s it, everything else is pretty fantastic, so go buy one right now! Seriously though, I get that this isn’t a cheap case, and dropping £200 in a box is going to make your wallet shudder. You can get a good PC case for half that, such as the be quiet! Pure Base 500DX, which comes with Pure Wings 2 fans, RGB lighting and costs just £109. However, the Shadow Base is much bigger, allowing you to install bigger and better hardware, such as flagship graphics cards, and both more and larger radiators compared to the 500DX. Being bigger and more durable means the Shadow Base has more materials in it, increasing the cost, but that’s to be expected. Plus, the Pure Wings 2 fans are great, don’t get me wrong, but the Light Wings 140mm fans are top-tier and also feature integrated ARGB lighting. You could buy a cheaper case and put your own fans in it, but buying four Light Wings fans is going to cost you £100, not a cheap investment, but still in line with the pricing of good quality Noctua, Thermaltake and other top brands fans. You would think that means half the price of the case is just the fans, but no, without these fans it’s still around £150, so honestly, with the fans (the FX version) it is a very good investment. This case does make more sense for those building flagship gaming systems though, it’s built to handle the biggest and the best, so one or maybe even two large radiators, a huge graphics card, a chunky power supply, an E-ATX motherboard, and still room left over for sticking a big manga action figure in the case or whatever it is the reddit kids do to look cool. When it comes down to that level of PC, £200 on a case is still likely to be the cheapest component of the whole build. be quiet! has a fantastic reputation for build quality and performance, and that certainly holds up today. I also think they’ve got some of the best-looking PC cases on the market, they’re clean, stylish, and surprisingly sophisticated looking, which isn’t easy to achieve when you include ARGB lighting, but it’s done pretty tastefully here, and that’s a refreshing change.

The be quiet! Shadow Base 800 FX is a voluptuous chassis that doesn't feel massive, being able to strike a great balance in that sense. At 180 dollars, it also doesn't feel expensive, as you get four retail ARGB fans, some embedded ARGB elements, as well as a capable controller. That said, it does feel that be quiet! could have added a bit more bang for your buck and in the process rectified some shortcomings of the case, because some aspects feel a little out-of-balance for a case of this price segment. The main selling point besides the well-designed and placed ARGB elements, being an FX variant, is the fact that it offers ample space for your hardware no matter what. If you like to go for custom liquid cooling, it can fit two 420 mm radiators easily. Want a thick radiator with push/pull configuration on the front? That's no problem either as you will have tons of room for your GPU regardless. All air coolers on the market will fit as well and no matter how long your PSU is - the Shadow Base 800 FX can easily hold it. Couple that with the details in design and engineering, from small things like the clean, white illumination around the power button or the sound dampening on the solid panel, to the thoughtful way you can easily gain access to each dust filter for cleaning. The fact that the cable mess of four ARGB fans and case wiring comes pre-routed well is also a very nice touch. The biggest drawback of a case of this size is the fact that, without spending additional money, you can't fit beyond a single 3.5" storage drive unless you find a way to mount the included PCB elsewhere. That seems like a weird departure from what we have seen with be quiet! in the past. Now, with the Shadow Base 800 FX, you have to spend an additional $10 to buy one of their HDD Cage 2 brackets - as such a potential additional $20 investment for two of those. One could argue that once you remove the overhead of packaging, SKU management etc, that be quiet! could have included these and gone for a $189.99 price point easily. In the end, even without this, the be quiet! Shadow Base 800 FX managed to impress with plenty of details, and the fact is that the HDD cages are readily available, so it isn't an unsurmountable shortcoming. As such, we can wholeheartedly give the Shadow Base 800 FX the Editor's Choice!

The latest Shadow Base 800 FX midi-tower by be quiet! is currently available in black and white colors both of which sport a tinted tempered glass left side panel and a right panel made out of SGCC (galvanized) steel. Just like many of its predecessors the Shadow Base 800 FX sports a plethora of features including a thick insulation mat behind its right side panel for reduced noise levels, removable air-filters (top/front/bottom), mesh fascia for increased airflow levels, integrated 8-way fan controller with ARGB hub, rotatable PCIe slots, top USB 3.2 Gen2 type-c connector, four pre-installed LightWings 140mm PWM fans (1500RPM) and of course a PSU area shroud. Also being among the largest midi-towers ever released by be quiet! the Shadow Base 800 FX has enough interior space for up to E-ATX sized motherboards, three 3.5" and seven 2.5" drives (single 3.5" and three 2.5" tool-less trays included), eight 120/140mm fans and/or two 240/280/360/420mm radiators, 180mm tall CPU coolers, 250mm long power supply units and 430mm long graphics cards. So, time to see what you can all expect from the latest Shadow Base 800 FX midi-tower by be quiet!

The be quiet! Shadow Base 800 FX goes for 210€ in the white version, and this variation is the most expensive of the Shadow Base 800 series. You get four quality 140mm fans ( Light Wings 140mm) and an 8-port PWM/ARGB hub at this price point. Given that each of these fans costs around 30 euros/dollars, and if we also assume that the hub costs around the same amount, then you can easily see why this product is priced at this point. Yes, at this price, you can look at other options from Fractal Design and Lian-Li, but it all depends on what you want to do with the system parts you have in hand. After so many years of building systems, either for me or for others, I firmly believe that the chassis choice has mainly to do with the looks and compatibility with the parts that you want to use. Usually, thermal performance is not the first priority, for most users at least, since adding more fans to increase airflow and remove heat more effectively is easy. The Shadow Base 800 FX looks impressive in white, with its fans’ nice RGB lighting effects and the LED strips at the chassis front. This is a large case, allowing you to build a high-end system with a strong cooling solution, either a colossal air cooler or a large water cooler, with up to 420mm radiator(s). Thanks to the four pre-installed fans, the airflow is pretty good, and the provided PWM/ARGB hub is a highly welcome feature, allowing you to install many fans without worrying that you will left out of available headers. Although it uses noise-damping material on one of its two sides, the tempered glass and the front mesh panel don’t allow for increased noise-damping performance. To keep the noise inside the case, you have to tightly insulate it, which will lead to increased operating temperatures since, besides noise, you will also trap heat inside it. The best way to keep noise output low is to use quality low-speed fans and make a suitable fan-speed profile to control them all. The Shadow Base 800 FX is a chassis for high-end systems with large coolers and graphics cards. If you plan to use it for a mid-level system, you should look for a smaller chassis else your system will look small inside the large interior of the Shadow Base 800 FX.

Once again, be quiet! have come to market with a solid case design with their new Shadow Base 800 FX, and thanks to the Shadow Base 800 series' various options, the series has the ability to support a wide range of price points and a variety of aesthetic preferences. All of these cases support EATX motherboards, all of these cases support large liquid cooling setups, and all of these cases support the same I/O capabilities. With its added RGB lightning support, the FX Black model of the Shadow Base 800 that we are reviewing today is aimed more at the "gamer" crowd than this case's more simplistic counterparts, but the case still retains the understated aesthetic that would make this case well suited to an office environment, assuming that you don't have this case's lights on RGB rainbow mode. The sheer size of the Shadow Base 800 FX makes this case ideal for almost any conceivable hardware setup, and if you get your measurements right, this case can support two 420mm liquid cooling radiators. This case is large enough to accommodate a lot of large components, and has been made with large liquid cooling solutions in mind. Want a monstrous workstation with a large Threadripper CPU or Sapphire Rapids Xeon processor? This case is a solid choice for you. The best thing that I can say about the Shadow Base 800 FX is that the design is simple and easy to use. There is plenty of space for cable management, the case supports tool-free SSD or HDD installation, and it is easy for users to route cables to the back of this case to give your system a clean aesthetic. The case is robust, its included fans provide ample cooling, and if you want to install your GPU vertically, you can easily rotate this case's PCIe slots, though you will need to buy a PCIe riser card. For the Shadow Base 800 FX, we are giving be quiet! our OC3D Approved Award. This case gets all of the fundamentals right, and any case from the Shadow Base 800 series would be a great choice if you are building a PC with large form factor components. AMD needs to hurry up and launch their next-generation Threadripper processors, as I'd love to see this case filled with beefy workstation grade hardware. That said, there is also a lot of large gaming hardware these days, especially within the high-end GPU market.