Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
Both side panels are easy to remove thanks to the large thumb screws holding them in place. The thumbscrews are very comfortable to grip and can be easily unscrewed with your hands. With the side panels removed, we can view the interior of the Antec DF800 FLUX. The black color of the case is consistent all throughout the interior, which is nothing special per se, but is still nice to look at. The PSU shroud covers a good portion of the bottom with the exceptions of having an opening in the front for radiator mounting, some cut-outs just below the motherboard area, and ventilation holes directly on top of the shroud. The cutout on the bottom left side aids with handling the PSU when installing it, but is more traditionally used to display your power supply. The ventilation holes also offer support for two 120mm fans aside from allowing airflow from below and above the PSU shroud. The motherboard area is large enough to mount various motherboard sizes, including ATX, mATX, and ITX. The rear exhaust fan can be seen sticking out a bit on the top left-hand side.
Moving to the interior of the case, we can see more cutouts for cable management. I think the size of the cutouts is very good, especially for the thick eight-pin CPU power cable, which is usually routed through the top left cutout. The seven horizontal expansion slots can also be seen being held by standard screws. There are no vertical expansion slots, but those are not essential. On the left side, we can see the pre-installed 120mm exhaust fan. Unfortunately, the rear mounting position can only fit fans at a size of 120mm. The design on the back interior is about what I would expect from a mid-sized ATX chassis, with your top and rear mounting areas.
At the top, we can see mounting holes for case fans or radiators. According to Antec, the roof of the case is capable of fitting either three 120mm fans or two 140mm fans. It is also capable of fitting a radiator of sizes 120mm, 140mm, 240mm, 280mm, or 360mm. The maximum CPU cooler height is specified at 175mm. On the left side, we can see the pre-installed 120mm 4-pin PWM exhaust fan. Aside from the lack of a 140mm fan mount at the back, the general design of the interior is very good, giving users many options for fan mounting at the top along with a spot for radiator mounting.
As noted earlier, we can see the PSU shroud is not entirely solid when taking a closer look at the bottom. Three cable routing holes can be seen directly on top of the PSU shroud. However, I feel like these cutouts are a little too close to the motherboard area and could potentially make for a tight cable squeeze, especially for users with regular ATX motherboards.
What is interesting is the purpose of the two 120mm fan mounts on the PSU shroud to place a reverse fan, which is designed to intake air from beneath the PSU shroud. The reverse fan has been seen on other Antec cases such as the P10 FLUX and DF700 FLUX. This is also why the side panel on the right has ventilation holes, as it will draw air from the outside into the area underneath the PSU shroud, which will be directed towards the GPU through the reverse fan. However, as suggested by Antec, this only really works by mounting the reverse fan on the middle section, as the PSU blocks most of the area underneath the rear mount. The PSU's existence will greatly reduce the airflow, which will defeat the purpose of the reverse fan in the first place. I suppose you could place an additional regular fan on the rear mount to bring additional airflow over your power supply, but I would consider that unnecessary. In the end, I do not think there is anything wrong with just sticking to five fans, which is already a lot. That, of course, is not including the additional space on the top for radiator mounting or placement of other case fans.
Looking at the front, we have a better look at how the front fans are installed. The metal cage behind the intake fans has holes that allow the fans to be mounted at the front. Three Antec ARGB LED fans can be seen pre-mounted. Users can fit up to three 120mm fans or two 140mm fans. The Antec DF800 FLUX can fit up to nine 120mm fans, which is a lot. You can also remove the pre-installed front fans if desired and mount a radiator there, bringing the total number of radiator placement options to a respectable two. While it is a bit disappointing that the included fans are only voltage controlled, this problem can be mitigated by connecting these fans to the fan controller at the back, which the fan controller itself accepts a PWM signal. Regardless, I do wish these fans would have 4-pin PWM cable, since that would give users more flexibility in deciding the fans they want to include or exclude from being connected to the fan controller.
The front panel is easily removable so users can access the front dust filter for keeping the computer components clean. The case can fit graphics cards up to 405mm in length without the front fan and radiator. There is no additional GPU holder support for long and heavy graphics cards.
Looking at the back of the DF800 FLUX, we can see the various front cables routed closer to the left side. The clearance between the panel and tray at the front came out to around 35mm and the rear measuring around 26mm. Straps branded with the Antec logo can be seen holding the cables in place. I think cable management would be fine for this case with all the space below the PSU shroud.
A fan controller can be seen in the center with the pre-installed fans already connected to it. The controller is capable of supporting six fans with both PWM and ARGB lighting control, which helps with the nine-fan capacity of this case. This fan controller is powered by a SATA power connector. The LED button on the front panel allows the users to adjust the RGB LED lighting. The fan speed control itself comes from plugging the 4-pin PWM connector on the fan controller to a PWM header on your motherboard. Unlike the DF700 FLUX, this fan controller is able to actually control the fan speeds with the PWM signal. We had pointed out with the DF700 that the fan controller was unable to control the fan speed, so I appreciate that this was fixed with the DF800 FLUX.
When it comes to more storage options, we can see a single-bay cage underneath the PSU shroud capable of holding a 2.5" or 3.5" drive. This cage can also be removed if users need more room at the bottom. To the right of the fan controller, two drive bay sleds can be seen for installing a total of two 2.5" storage options. On the left side of the fan controller, we can see another 2.5" drive storage option, although there is no drive sled associated with it. Finally, we have a 3.5" HDD or another 2.5" SSD mount on the top left area of the back, bringing the total storage options on this case to an admirable six.
Overall, the interior build quality of the Antec DF800 FLUX is also solid. All the components needed for building a computer can be nicely accommodated and kept cool. The paint job quality of the interior is clean and looks just as nice as it did on the exterior. More importantly, there is a decent amount of room to route cables, and large accessible openings allow easy connections between the PSU and the motherboard. There is also a good number of mounting options for cooling fans.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
