Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
CaseandPowerSupply
Antec Dark Fleet DF-85
(
http://www.antec.com
)
Antec CP-850 850W power supply
The extreme system is destined to become Robert's new main office desktop
system, and our first requirement for the case was that it have lots of drive
bays. Initially, the system will have six drives—an SSD boot drive, four 2 TB data
drives, and an optical drive—but for future expansion we wanted a case that
provided room for at least four more hard drives. Obviously, cooling efficiency
is important for such a heavily loaded system, so we also wanted a case that
made provision for lots and lots of fans.
There were literally a dozen or more cases available from Antec, Cooler Mas-
ter, ThermalTake, and other good companies that met our broad requirements,
most of them server and gaming cases. So, we decided we could give more
weight than usual to appearance. Based on how Robert wanted his new system
to look, we quickly narrowed down the candidates to two finalists: the Antec
Twelve Hundred, shown in Figure 5-1, and the Cooler Master HAF X, shown in
Figure 5-2. Both have the pseudo-Victorian mechanical “steampunk” styling that
appeals to Robert. Their features are similar and the Twelve Hundred was $30
cheaper, but Robert preferred the styling and red illumination of the HAF X.
It was a close call, but Robert finally decided on the Cooler Master HAF X. He
was literally in the process of ordering a HAF X from NewEgg when he received
an email from our contact at Antec announcing the launch of the Dark Fleet
DF-85 case, shown in Figure 5-3. Now
that's
steampunk. The DF-85 wasn't yet
available in retail channels when we started building this system, but Antec
was kind enough to send us an evaluation sample that we suspect was literally
from the first pallet off the boat.
Figure 5-1.
Antec Twelve Hundred
Figure 5-2.
Cooler Master HAF X
Figure 5-3.
Antec Dark Fleet DF-85
