BeQuiet! Dark Base Pro 901: Nearly flawless full-tower

Exterior

The new flagship BeQuiet! case is on sale now. The improvements over its predecessor are obvious, but there was a lot to draw from for the new Dark Base Pro 901. The ability to rotate the motherboard remained, and we can already reveal that it has a positive effect on cooling. This also makes this case suitable for the most powerful builds, which are associated not only with a lot of waste heat, but also with large dimensions of components.

Conclusion

To create such a sturdy yet flexible case with a number of demountable parts is a masterpiece in terms of craftsmanship. You have the possibility to adapt the case to your exact needs. Close both the front and the top panel to reduce noise or, on the contrary, open these parts and increase the cooling efficiency of the case. You can even flip the entire interior of the case from left to right, as almost every single part of the case’s interior can be removed and flipped.

From a cooling perspective, the CPU results don’t really match the price of the case, but these are naturally contingent on what the Scythe Fuma test cooler allows. With a more efficient tower cooler, or an AIO liquid cooler, or coolers that make more sense for this case, you wouldn’t have to look at the tail end of the leaderboard anymore. The options for installing coolers in the Dark Base Pro 901 are definitely above standard, which includes support for 420mm radiators for liquid coolers. A positive surprise is the cooling of the graphics card. With the tray flipped over and thus the graphics card “upside down”, with the ceiling open, it got down to Fractal Design’s Torrent level temperatures. Also due to the large space from the top of the case to the tower CPU cooler, it took the top spot for under-ceiling cooling.

If you need more storage, the case doesn’t disappoint here either. You can mix and match between the larger and smaller ones, but you can put up to sixteen 2.5″ and up to seven larger 3.5″ storage devices in total. The downside is having to buy five drawers to reach the maximum numbers. A great innovation is the touch function panel, through which you can control the decent backlighting of the case but also the speed of the fans. These can be connected directly to the front and top frame, through which they are then powered but also regulated. All connectors are also permanently illuminated, so you can always hit them in the dark. If you spend a lot of time behind the computer, you will also be pleased with the wireless charging with up to 15 W directly on the ceiling of the case.

We encountered only one difficulty during installation. The vertical grommet is quite narrow for the motherboard power cable used. Because of this, it was a struggle to fit the cover and once fitted, the cable would bend it. Other than that, nothing else interfered with mounting the components into the case. Cable management is great at the back to accommodate even a larger number of cables, and combined with the large number of Velcro pull tabs, the management was nice and easy.

The Dark Base Pro 901 is undoubtedly a great successor to the 900 model of the same name. Thanks to its superior customizability, everyone will find what they are looking for in a case. Whether the ability to create an extremely powerful workstation or the fastest gaming rig. And the operation can always be quiet. The “Top-notch” award is only appropriate for the Dark Base Pro 901.

English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš

• Contents
• Exterior
• Interior
• Testing methodology
• CPU and GPU cooling tests
• Motherboard cooling tests
• SSD cooling tests and under-ceiling temperature
• Conclusion