Be Quiet Shadow Base 800 DX Review

We don’t get in many PC cases for review that can hold a triple-140mm-fan radiator on both the front and top simultaneously. And finding one that’s big enough inside to do that, but still small enough on the outside to carry the “mid-tower” label? That’s exceedingly rare. That combination was probably the hardest part, but manufacturer Be Quiet also figured, “Why not make it full EATX spec, too?” when finishing its design checklist. It did, and it fashioned a superb chassis for casual PC builders looking for a silent runner. That trifecta earns the Shadow Base 800 DX ($184.90) our latest Editors’ Choice award for quiet-running PC tower cases.

The Design: Perfecting the Basics

The Shadow Base 800 DX includes an ARGB stripe down each side of the face panel, which deviates only slightly from the basic black, glass, and mesh design we see repeated across most gaming cases. Though far from the first case we’ve seen to rely on ARGB stripes to stand out a bit, it does feel a little sturdier, and looks better put-together, than some of the models we’ve seen in its price class.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Front-panel ports are similarly typical of its target market, with a single USB 3.2 Type-C port fed by a Gen 2×2 cable and two Type-A ports fed from a first-generation internal header. A fully lighted power button dresses this area slightly, but the legacy reset button is replaced with an ARGB mode selector. Headphone and microphone jacks are both stereo-capable and separate, which may be important to anyone who wants to re-assign these.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The top panel’s mesh is far finer than that of the front, and may have been chosen as a means of trapping dust without the inclusion of a separate dust filter. Magnets embedded within its plastic frame keep the panel fixed firmly inside the top panel’s recessed fan mount, and a finger-groove at the back makes it easy to remove.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The bottom dust filter is in a far better position to trap dust, and it’s easy to extract from the front of the case. It’s long enough to cover both an intake fan at the front of the bottom panel and the power supply’s air inlet at its rear.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

A dual-pattern 140mm/120mm fan mount at the back of the Shadow Base 800 DX features screw slots that allow height adjustment for better radiator clearance and/or fan positioning. The ATX standard’s seven slots are served on a traditional recessed panel that’s far easier to use than the alternative (outward) type. Below that, a removable power-supply mount allows full-size units to be slid in from the back of the case, and its two sets of mounting holes allow the power supply to be flipped, if desired.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The cloth-faced bitumen sheet (for sound dampening) is a Be Quiet signature feature, but it only applies to the right-side panel of the Shadow Base 800 DX.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Behind the right panel are two double-drive trays and a huge power-supply tunnel that runs unrestricted to the front of the case. This tunnel does house a drive-cage mount, but no additional drive cage.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Looking more closely, the power-supply tunnel features rubber pads at the back for additional support of heavy power supplies, a dual-pattern 140mm/120mm fan mount just behind its front, and several holes outside the fan mounting area to allow the addition of a drive cage at various distances from the front radiator mount.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Looking at the back of the motherboard tray from a front angle, we can see three copper contact pads next to the front panel’s removable dust filter (more about those in a moment), the upper half of the two-bay 2.5-inch SSD tray, two of the three standoff holes that allow the case to support 13-inch-deep motherboards, and a 3.5-inch/2.5-inch double-drive tray screwed over the access hole for CPU cooler support plates. Of those who don’t know what most of those features are, simply knowing in advance that they’re available should help with any later component selection quandaries.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The contacts mentioned above serve the pins seen below, feeding the data, power, and ground leads of the Shadow Base 800 DX’s twin ARGB front-panel accents. (In other words, they’re just for the pretty lights.)

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The 800 DX’s cable shroud hides the three extra mounting points that the case includes for installing 13-inch-deep motherboard standoffs; I put a yellow dot to highlight the one visible hole in the below image. The purpose of the photo is a bit more direct, as it shows the 65mm gap between the front panel’s radiator mount and the removable vent panel over the bottom area. You may want to use something thinner than 65mm for the front radiator, though, as Be Quiet rates a 39mm distance between the front-panel radiator mount and the front fan of a top-mounted 420mm-format radiator.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The Shadow Base 800 DX’s three included fans are factory-mounted to the top of the back panel, the back of the top panel, and the middle of the front panel. We normally mount the radiator of our all-in-one (AIO) cooler where that top fan is currently located; we suspect you will want to relocate it, too.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Our current standard component set for testing ATX-and-larger cases includes a 240mm AIO cooler from Corsair and an SFX power supply from FSP. That SFX power supply just happens to include cables that are barely long enough to serve this case, and a PS/2 form factor adapter plate that fits full ATX power-supply bays.

Building With the Shadow Base 800 DX

The Shadow Base 800 DX officially includes an installation guide, an adapter plate for mounting hard drive brackets into the front of the power-supply tunnel (but no hard drive brackets), and a ton of screws: 13 #6-32 screws for PSU and motherboard, eight regular M3 screws for 2.5-inch drives, eight knurled M3 screws for 2.5-inch drives, eight #6-32 shoulder screws for 3.5-inch drives, and eight rubber grommets for damping the drive shoulder screws. You also get a Phillips #2-to-hex adapter for installing standoffs, one additional standoff, and six cable ties.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The internal and header cables for the chassis include SATA power and ARGB input for the ARGB controller, power LED and switch leads for the lighted power button, HD Audio for the headphone and microphone jacks, a first-generation 19-pin USB header for the two Type-A ports, and a Type-E internal connector for the Gen 2×2 link to the front panel’s Type-C port.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Our full ATX motherboard leaves a lot of space within this full-spec EATX case. Keeping our cooler in the same place as it was mounted in competing cases meant moving the top fan to a different spot. We put it just below the center fan on the front panel to blow cool air toward the graphics card.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The Shadow Base 800 DX’s diffuser strips are thick enough to effectively hide the bright spots of individual LEDs on its ARGB strips, though we can still see patterns through them. Shown is our motherboard’s pattern, which we selected from the case’s integrated ARGB controller by depressing and holding its mode button for around three seconds.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Testing the Shadow Base 800 DX

Onward to our thermal and acoustic tests! The Shadow Base 800 DX takes second place in CPU temperature behind its kin, the Dark Base Pro 901 with its mesh-front configuration, narrowly edging out the SilverStone Seta H1 and the NZXT H7 Flow.

The effectiveness of our all-in-one cooler’s fans on voltage-regulator temperature often depends on how close the AIO is to the top of our motherboard (where the hot heatsinks are). With that in mind, we think that the 800 DX’s drop to fifth place in this metric might be due to the case’s excessive leftward offset for top-mounted 240mm and 360mm-format radiators. The difference between first and fifth place is only 4 degrees C, though, so nothing too drastic here.

The Shadow Base 800 DX’s fourth-place finish in GPU temperature is slightly more of a concern than its fifth-place voltage-regulator results, because it’s a full 11 degrees C behind the leader. We say “slightly” because our GPU is capable of withstanding far greater temperatures than the ones experienced here.

We expected a case from Be Quiet to…make less noise than its competitors, but it actually finished on par with the samples from NZXT, SilverStone and Thermaltake. At least it was consistently quieter than the Dark Base 901 Pro’s mesh-faced configuration.

Verdict: We’re All About That Base

Rather than pack the Shadow Base 800 DX with a bunch of extras and charge a premium for those, Be Quiet surprised us by delivering a very high-quality product with a balanced feature set at a reasonable price. Users trying to go big on liquid cooling in a custom loop requiring two big radiators, but looking to not drop major coin on the case, will be pleased. (That frees up more money for costly fittings and pumps.)

Granted, this is not an out-of-the-box bling box for the RGB hounds in the crowd. But for under $200, you get a high-quality chassis maxed out for ports, cooling, and the biggest parts (boards, cards, and more!) to make your PC soar, without the soaring bulk of a mega-tower.