The Be Crappy! Dark Base 700 - in depth, actual review.

[Armakar]

Let's review the dark base 700, shal we? Be Quiets new case targeted at enthusiasts looking for options such as the h700i and Enthoo Glass lineups. I've notice none of the other reviews properly look at the issues around this case - if any of them have experienced them.

Also note, there is images via links for context, marked with red, bold, underlined text.

I chose the Dark Base 700 because be quiet is supposed to offer quality german construction - however I received a product that seemed to be crafted by a caveman bashing a stick. Let's begin.

Packaging
Starting with the packaging, this is one of the few things be quiet managed to do well - put a metal box inside a cardboard box. No complaints. Arrived well packged in a stylish box, with a fabric covering the case.

 

Unboxing and contents
Inside the box, there's not much to show. The case, and, well, that's it. The inside of the case however contains an accessory box - here comes the onslaught of problems.
First of all, the accessory box includes terrible screws for a $180 case. For starters, there is only FOUR screws to screw in a fan - which can not actually be used anywhere but the top radiator bracket, as they are too thin. Not even the screws used to mount the included fans are inside this kit, the bare minimum of spare case screws and motherboard screws are included. There are however some neat cable ties which are very well made, another thing Be Quiet! managed to do well - they seem to have discovered Velcro.

 

First look.
The PC does appear to look much smaller in the photos - however it's quite large IRL, slightly taller and quite a bit wider then my Enthoo Evolv TG - it's a respectable, appropriate size. It does resemble the Silent Base 600 quite a bit, but with RGB LED lights spanning the front panel - which are supposed to sync with the motherboard.. more on that later. Other than that, the case is quite bland - a large tempered tinted glass panel is found on the right side, however Be Crappy! did a poor job with this panel - it feels cheap, and you can forget about applying it without marks as there's no painted black outline on the sides to cover fingerprints - only the tops. Great. 

 

On the top of the case we find the Front IO, angled slightly towards the front. The USB type C was a

nice inclusion, and it's nice to see fan-hub controls making appearances.  Two things irritate me here however - the first is the power button stays a set light of White, which cannot be changed. At $180 I don't see why Be Quiet! didn't just made the LED's match. 
Secondly, as GamersNexus points out also, the USB type C connectors and fan hub controller are made out of recycled, filled USB 3 connectors, which spoils the clean look of the front for me.

Inside the Dumb Base 700.

 

Inside is, sarcasm aside, one of the acceptable places. There's a PSU shroud that spans the full length of the case.. however the odd removable panels on the powersupply shroud are quite useless - as taking them off spoils the clean look of the interior. You might as well route the cables you need such as 6/8pin cables through the motherboard tray, because it would look cleaner than taking these monstrosities off. 
Additionally, the gap between the powersupply shroud and motherboard spans the full length of the shroud - however it isn't wide enough to fit, well.. anything through it. If you want to route a cable through it, you'll have to first route it through the wider gap away from the motherboard, then slide it through. Poorly thought out.

 

The PSU shroud with a panel removed. Messy messy.

 

Sound dampening foam is  included on the top, side and front of the case and surprisingly it's spectacular - it did a good job insulating noise but most of all it doesn't easily "dent" like the foam found in cases such as the h440. It's very strong and thick - stuffing all my cables against it proved to not make a single indentation. 

 

Image of the excellent sound dampening foam.

 

On the left panel, away from the glass, we can see a clean layout from Be Crappy! - including several hard drive mounting options from SSD brackets to HDD brackets and cages that can be moved. The powersupply basement is roomy, and if you aren't using HDDs provides more than enough space to stuff your copy of Starwars Battlefront 2 in, should you never want to see it again.
Ah, the odd new fan hub/lighting hub from Be Crappy! Is found here. This isn't just a fan hub - while it does offer 6 4 pin headers, it also doubles as a lighting hub too. The ability to connect LED strips to the hub is present, with the front LEDs by default connected here. The issue with this (At least one of them, more on this later) is that it MUST be Sata powered, even if you aren't using the LEDs. A 4-pin header can be connected to the motherboard for the fans - but even if you don't use the case LEDs, you need to use Sata to power the fans. But wait, it gets better.
The front LEDs use a weird 3 pin conection, meaning you can't even connect them directly to your motherboard - you need to first connect it to the hub, then your motherboard. Pretty pointless if you don't have any additional strips - even if you have more than one, the hub only supports one additional input. I don't see the point in this failure of a hub - there's certain other "Hubs" that bring a heap of joy on a computer - this one brings nothing but questionmarks.
Lastly here, we find... I don't even know what this is. I seem to remember GamersNexus review praising this - but I can't see what it is used for. It's simply a metal plate that covers the back of the motherboard tray and is riveted. Removing it changes nothing, so I just removed it and threw it in the box - something I should have done with this entire case as explained later.

The rear layout of the Be Crappy! Dark Base 700.

 

The front panel has a clean look - as previously mentioned has LED strips spanning the front and feet, with a be quiet! logo at the front. At this point, I'd honestly rather be sporting the EA logo.

Taking off the front panel is as simple as pulling it - and is surprisingly smooth yet sturdy. A poorly made dust filter spans the intake -  a single clip at the top connects it to the case and even then does a poor job, struggling to keep it steady.

This panel however, screams quality. A brushed aluminium look to shout it outlout, with the strongest front panel I've ever seen, made out of what appears to be reinforced plastic sitting atop some aluminium. Top notch quality on all the panels, as a matter of fact.

Apparently Be Quiet! have tried to innovate - a huge mistake from them. Taking the front panel off reveals a metal-to-metal contact toward the bottom, which I believe is used to power the LEDs. Since it uses no wires, taking the front panel off while the PC is powered seems like a terrible idea - I don't know exactly what would happen, but according to a GN review it can short the LEDs. Great innovation. Other than this, the front panel is great.

The Be Crappy's front panel. Excellent quality.

 

Behind the dust filter we find a single silent wings 3 fan - highly generous from be quiet! to include a whole 140mm of intake. Apart from - hang on, this isn't a silent wings 3 fan, and neither is the one in the back. It's some kind of manufacturer remake to save money. There's no sleeved cables, like the other silent wings 3, the wires come out a different angle, and the mounting mechanism isn't the same. It doesn't even use the same rubberised screws as the normal silent wings 3.  Either way, with their $180 case, be quiet was generous enough to include two.. something wings 3 fans - one in the front, one in the back.

 

The interior is of course invert able, but I didn't touch mine. Something I did touch however, is asprin to cure the headache the crappy radiator bracket at the top gave me. This radiator bracket is on a new level of poorly designed - I'd rather Cooler Master made my entire build using the same quality materials as the H500P. Where do we begin?
First of all , the bracket needs to be removed if you want to route any cables through the top of the motherboard, you'll have to remove this bracket, because it blocks off any header bigger than the brain of whoever designed this case. That's not the problem however, oh no.
The problem resides in how close this thing is to the top of the case. If you want to screw a radiator in using short screws from the top, you better pray they are flat screws, because any screw with a raised head won't fit in this bracket without forcing it. You can forget about using spacers too - I had to remove all the spacers included with my EVGA CLC 280 to even fit the bracket back in the case.
Lastly, the radiator is stupidly tight. Trying to slide this thing into and out of the case is about as smooth as a car driving across mount Everest. Again, poor quality and poorly thought out.

The finished build, after death (Explained below).

 Next we had the joy of moving the included something wings 3 fan to make room for another. Oh joy. Be Quiet! decided for no good reason to use some odd, thick, sharp screw, and tighten it so much that it ripped the adhesive off the something wings 3 fan on the rubberised mounts. I'm sure they used this screw as the mounting mechanism isn't the same as the silent wings 3 mechanism. No problem, I glued it back in. These odd, thick screws weren't even included in the screws box, so you better go to a hardware store and pick up the same screws used to mount industrial drain pipes if you want to match the screws for a clean look - I'm sure they are similar sizes. They're also sharp on the ends as it's not a flat bottom, so be careful! trying to screw it in/out.

The ridiculous screws.

Lastly, the tempered glass panel needs to go back on. I lined it up and picked up a screw and screwed it in with my hands. I picked up a second, which looked oddly different. After some examination - this screw had the piece of rubber in between the glass and the metal stuck to it - and as such it wouldn't budge. A pair of plyers solved this by ripping the adhesive off again and re-glueing it. When I made it to the last screw, I noticed this also had a piece of rubber missing - but it wasn't stuck to the screw. I did a bit of digging around, and found it under my desk. The mounting method is infact so poor that not only does the rubber not even cover all the metal parts of the glass mounting mechanism, but it just.. falls off. The slightest gust of air and you'll lose it. What poor construction. 

 

 

Build done - how is it?

After all the pain above, the rest of the build was smooth. The powersupply went in fine, there was enough room for my GPU and my radiator looked pretty clean after somehow getting the screws flat enough to fit in the bracket. I won't lie, the build does look pretty clean. Let's power it on!
At first, it was all great! My PC booted and worked just fine and the fans were remarkably quiet, though so is any fan at 400RPM.  I briefly checked the BIOS to see if my overclock remains - which it did. Temperatures are remarkable for such a closed-off case - 24C idle on my 8700K @ 5GHZ. Windows updated, ofcourse since I didn't update windows in 2 hours this is to be expected. Silly me. I booted to windows and noticed the lights aren't synced.

 

But hang on - isn't the lighting suppoused to sync with Asus Aura? I ventured to asus aura to investigate the situation. After playing around, I decided to press the "Off" button to restart asus aura and see if that fixed it. Poof. Every fan in the system stopped spinning and the lights changed to white. Trying to manually change the lights back does nothing. I open up the back of the case and disconnect the lights from my motherboard - nothing, they stay white. 

So, I did some troubleshooting. I plugged a fan into the motherboard directly, instead of the 4-pin and.. it works! Maybe the hub isn't powered? Well, the sata is in, the lighting was connected to the motherboard and a 4pin header went from the fan hub to the motherboard. It turns out, the PCB decided to die after making contact with Asus Aura. Maybe it's Be Quiet's way of sabotaging asus for not including the dark base 700 as asus aura ready - or maybe that's why it officially doesn't state asus aura compatible?
 

Well, that's that then. After I finish writing this brilliant review, I'll have the joy of tearing down this build and sending it all back. Do I order a replacement? Why not. I will admit, although working in this case is horrendous, it is quite a show piece - the lighting is subtle when it does work, and when the fans work they're whisper quiet. I'll try my luck with another. 

 

After my experience, let's rate it out of 5 in each category the consumer finds useful. 

 

Function - 5/5.
The included fanhub is pretty good, brushing aside that it broke with 30 minutes usage. The option to select between 3 chanels, and auto, as well as having different performance or silence options for each side of the bracket is quite useful. USB type C is included which is great, the front IO is great, and the RGB is apparently suppoused to sync with any motherboard. A power supply shroud, decent cable management, SSD brackets, a TON of modularity, sound dampening foam, you can't ask for much more function.

Build Quality - 2/5.

This case has been praised by multiple for spectacular build quality - but I highly disagree. Slapping metal everywhere and on the inside doesn't make a quality build - half of the screws were ridiculously tightened, adhesive was coming off left and right, the glass panel mounting mechanism was poorly designed, the radiator bracket was poorly designed, the fan hub blew up in 30 minutes, little more could have gone wrong here. The review speaks for itself - dud or not, the build quality of this case was something I would expect of a case I paid $50 for.

If we ignore the adhesives used, the odd-screws and the dead-fan/led hub, the quality of the box itself is outstanding. I've built in many cases, low-end to high-end and this one honestly is the highest quality case I've ever worked in, if we are strictly speaking about materials used. Few parts of the case feel cheaply made (of the parts that work properly) - solid metal and craftsmanship from Be quiet!.

Design - 4/5. 
I love the design of this case - the choice to use the style of the Silent Base 600 with the features of the Dark Base 900 was spectacular. It's got a clean look few cases can match - a fantastic PSU shroud, subtle lighting and logos, a brushed aluminium look contrasts well through ought the case. Of course this is subjective, but I love the look. 

Noise -  4/5.

You can't complain here, the Something Wings 3 fans do keep to the brand name, and the high quality dampening foam does a spectacular job of absorbing noise. I dropped one point, as I feel a little more sound dampening foam could have been included in many places, as well as rubberised mounts for the something wings 3 fans.

 

Airflow and Temperatures -  4/5.
The airflow was very good for such a restrictive case, I saw around a 5 degrees drop in temperatures from my Enthoo Evolv TG - and that's with less fans. It also has marginally better exhaust options, as the taller height of the case allows for larger vents at the top.
 

Value - 2/5 - 4/5.

The airflow is great, the noise is great, it's got great function and it looks great. Why the 2? Well, I value my time. My time was spent building in this case, to disassemble it and send it back. The poor, poor build quality and quality control of this case spoils any hope of value for me.
If however you can get a case without the multiplex of problems - without the dead fan hub and stiff screws, and with adhesive stronger than the bacteria on the bottom of your shoe, then I think this case has far better value than the Enthoo Evolv - priced almost the same, it beats it in pretty much every aspect. I think it looks cleaner, it's more spacious, uses higher quality materials (though applied badly), however the poor build quality drags it down significantly. 


Overall - 3/5. 
As above, I love this case. But the build quality and dead parts dragged it down so much that I would struggle to recommend it until Be Quiet or my retailers can resolve this issue.

 

Final words and recommendations:

Though I have highlighted the negative, it's hard not to dwell on the drawbacks when your spending as much on your case as you are spending on your PSU. Yes, I do think several issues have arose, the fact that attempting to sync my lights killed the fanhub, the crappy adhesive used, the false-advertising of fans, the awful radiator bracket and the lack of stock intake fans (I used three extra silent wings two fans) all are fairly problematic issues that should be taken very seriously. I can only hope Be Quiet! addresses these issues, as I refuse to believe my case was simply a dud. The fanhub dying could be a dud, however the adhesive and ridiculous screws certainly aren't.

 

On a more positive side, the things be quiet did get right with this case they nailed. Aside from adheiseve, the materials used to make this case far exceed that of any case I've used or worked with. No material feels either cheap or standard, everything feels sturdy and high-quality, far more than my Enthoo Evolv which felt like handling a sharp metal box. Metal is used where appropriate, and any plastic used is incredible hardened. Even the sound-dampening foam is probably more sturdy and hard then the majority of materials found in most mid-range cases. 
The noise to temperature ratios is something case manufacturers struggle with, but with the addition of another intake fan, I had fantastic results. An idle temp of around 25C on a 8700k at 5ghz is fantastic, bear in mind this was on the lowest fan-hub setting - silent 1. 

Lastly, the design of the case is spectacular. No other case looks as simplistic yet high quality and feature-packed as this - every other case around this pricepoint seems to have drawbacks - the Enthoo evolv has poor temperatures, the Dark Base 900 has no powersupply shroud, the 570X has a heap of issues and the H700i is far too expensive.

So, to conclude, if you get a unit with no dead fan-hub, a unit without the incredibly tightened screws, you have thin, flat screws to use for the top radiator, and your vastly careful with the use of adhesive, this case is fantastic and I can't flaw it.

My experience however.. as discussed, is awful. I can only hope Be Quiet! meet me half way and agree to send a replacement PCB for the fan hub, rather than returning it and rebuilding.

I recommend this case to anyone willing to take a leap of faith in the high-end market. If it was functioning properly as mentioned above, I would for sure take this case over any other high-end case, it beats the Evolv in every fashion, towers over the h700i (figuratively) and the rest of the NZXT lineup - again, assuming you get a functioning model.

 

Thanks for reading! If you have any question about the case, I'll be glad to answer in the comments.
 

 

 

 

 

[Armakar]

[Armakar]

[Bananasplit_00]

you can upload more then one picture to your posts ya know

 

anyway this was a pretty nice review but a few pictures of all the shitty stuff would have been greatly apretiated, but thats not really something you really think off when building tbh. have you done a review on the Define C yet? i am a big fan of it myself

[Armakar]

38 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

you can upload more then one picture to your posts ya know

 

anyway this was a pretty nice review but a few pictures of all the shitty stuff would have been greatly apretiated, but thats not really something you really think off when building tbh. have you done a review on the Define C yet? i am a big fan of it myself

I've edited it with links to various images.

I haven't tried the define C yet - however from what I understand it's fantastic. However, this case was by far the best suited case for my build and personal taste - It's immensely quiet with outstanding quality, I am just appauled at the fact an attempt to use Asus Aura killed it, as well as the various other mentioned issues.

[Mr.Meerkat]

Wrong subforum! Would have thought someone with 1K+ posts would know that there's a "user Member reviews" subforum  

 

Nonetheless, thanks for the detailed review  

[Bananasplit_00]

2 minutes ago, Armakar said:

I've edited it with links to various images.

I haven't tried the define C yet - however from what I understand it's fantastic. However, this case was by far the best suited case for my build and personal taste - It's immensely quiet with outstanding quality, I am just appauled at the fact an attempt to use Asus Aura killed it, as well as the various other mentioned issues.

im not big on TG, im one of the few that just straight prefer an acrylic panel because:

 

no tint

much more durable(to drops, not scratches. it scratches like a bitch)

cheaper

solid implementation has existed for absolute ages

 

but people keep saying TG is just straight up better... have fun when you drop that panel 5cm.

 

anyway im a big fan of how the Define C is built, its a relly solid frame but i do have my gripes with it, id make it about a centimeter wider to fit a 3.5" drive behind the back panel and id open up access to the basement either by haveing the PSU shroud removeable or just haveing a slide mechanism on the top and a better entry way from the back. building my current rig in it was a HUGE pain because of the lack of space to mount a pump and reservoir when you have a 45mm 360 rad in the front and a 240 rad in the top, so i ended up haveing to do a load of crazy shit to make it work in the end. an AIO cooled system would be ez pz to install, but once you go custom loop it can be a pain because of the lack of space

[W-L]

-Moved and Merged to Member Reviews- 

[Armakar]

1 minute ago, W-L said:

-Moved and Merged to Member Reviews- 

Thank you.