Page 4 - Installation and Conclusion
Now, for the fun part: Building my PC. I began by installing my motherboard into the case. The Antec DF800 FLUX supports ATX, mATX, and mITX-sized motherboards, which was perfect for my MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk in the ATX form factor. My motherboard has an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, Thermaltake TOUGHRAM XG RGB DDR4-4000 2x8GB memory kit, Samsung 970 EVO 1TB SSD, and Patriot P400 1TB installed. To make the most of the various mounting options, I installed the GAMDIAS Chione M3-240W for cooling. The radiator had no problem fitting to the top of the case.
Installing my power supply at the bottom of the case was a very simple process. I settled with SilverStone's Decathlon DA850 Gold 850W for this build, which has a length of 140mm. I simply slotted the power supply against the drive cage and used a screwdriver to insert the Phillips head screws. Antec recommends a maximum PSU length of 205mm, which mine cleared with ease. After installing my PSU, I routed all the necessary cables via the back of the motherboard tray.
The back itself was quite clean thanks to the space below the PSU shroud that extraneous cables can go into. The rear corners of the back made for a perfect divot to tuck the CPU power cable. Since all the pre-installed case fans are connected to the fan controller, I naturally hooked up the SATA power cable to my power supply. The Antec DF800 FLUX fan controller can support up to six fans, which is one fan short of the number of fans I decided to use. That is not a problem though, since that is what the motherboard PWM headers are for. Cable management is about what you would expect from an ATX case like this. I appreciate Antec's attempts to make cable management easier with their Velcro straps and additional zip ties. The front clearance between the panel and the tray came out to around 33mm and the rear clearance measuring around 25mm as mentioned on the previous page, which is a fair amount of space for cables to fit through.
I finished the build by installing my EVGA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card onto the top PCIe slot on my motherboard. The maximum GPU clearance length is 405mm as outlined by Antec, which was not a problem for my RTX 3060 Ti. If you choose not to go with a liquid cooler, air cooling is also quite flexible if it meets the 175mm height limit. I proceeded to plug in all necessary cables from the front of the case into their appropriate motherboard headers. The cable cutouts were large enough to fit multiple cables through, making for a clean setup. I proceeded to plug in all required cables from the power switch to I/O headers into their appropriate headers. One thing I need to mention here though is how tight the space between the reverse fan mount and my motherboard was. Measuring only 3cm of in-between space, it was a tight squeeze placing the reverse fan basically right up against the I/O cables. This was an issue I had brought up with the Antec P10 FLUX, so I am a bit disappointed to see they did not improve on this.
Speaking of the reverse fan, let us talk about that briefly. As aforementioned and as the name implies, the reverse fan reverses the direction of the airflow compared to a regular fan. This is made possible by the inverted pitch of the fan blades, which perform the function of intaking and exhausting air in the opposite direction of a conventional cooling fan. The main purpose of the reverse fan here is to help increase GPU cooling performance, since the exhausted air will be flowing directly towards your GPU. Furthermore, the extra ingested air will always benefit in cooling down your other components too. Therefore, I think this will make the reverse fan worth keeping. In the end, I was able to complete the installation without too much difficulty.
With the installation complete, I put the side panels back on and brought my PC back to life by hitting the power button. The tempered glass did a great job at displaying the internal components, especially the ones with RGB LED lighting. The front panel also clearly displays any RGB LED lighting coming from the intake fans thanks to the see-through mesh and glass window on the side. The Antec PDF800 FLUX was made for performance and some flash.
How does it hold up with noise though? The standard APH Networks sound scale ranges from 0 to 10, where 0 is silence and 10 is Canada Day in Ottawa, the DF800 FLUX is not the quietest of cases, although it is not deafening by any means. Even when using my PC for more intensive tasks such as gaming or intensive simulations, the case still managed to suppress the noise for the most part. According to the APH Networks scale, I would rate the Antec DF800 FLUX at a 3.5/10 under daily use, which is close to what we rated the DF700 FLUX. This is definitely louder than what I assume users would want, but one major improvement the DF800 FLUX presents over the DF700 FLUX is the fan controller can actually modify the fan speeds with your motherboard. Thus, users can change the noise output as much as they want with this mid-tower.
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Did the Antec DF800 FLUX prove to be a worthy successor to the DF700 FLUX? For starters, the DF800 FLUX is a solidly built chassis. The gaps are small and even. There is a good amount of storage options, which is always good to have. The geometric front panel is a nice addition for allowing airflow while also displaying RGB LED goodness from front fans. While the tempered glass side panel is nothing new, it is still nice to have for those who want to see the flashy RGB LED lighting in their components. Speaking of which, the pre-installed front fans look very nice and are further complimented by the built-in RGB LED lighting control button. The five fans included with the case is very generous. There is a fair number of storage options of all sizes for both HDDs and SSDs. The cable management system is perfectly adequate for a case of this size and is complimented by the fan controller on the back. The PWM and RGB LED lighting controller is a nice addition for users looking to add a lot of fans to their builds. The dust filters work just fine and are well-placed. Just like with Antec's P10 FLUX and DF700 FLUX, I like the reverse fan, as it helps add another source of cooling inside the case, specifically for the GPU. The two USB 3.0 Type-A ports are great to see. When it comes to improvements, I wish the exhaust fan mount at the back could accommodate 140mm fans. The inclusion of a USB Type-C port in front would also have been nice, given we are living in a year where that should be common for PC cases. It would be better if the there was not a tight squeeze with the reverse fan against the I/O cables when installing it. Having 4-pin PWM fans rather than 3-pin voltage-controlled fans would be much better for fan control. With that said, the fan controller that accepts a PWM signal and actually works -- unlike its predecessor -- does make up for this somewhat. On top of all that, the six-fan capacity of the controller plus the PWM headers on your motherboard should be more than enough to satisfy users who want to utilize various cooling options with this case. At a retail price of $120, this is $10 more expensive than its predecessor, which can be found for as low as $110 as of the time of writing. For the improvement of having a fan controller that can actually control the speed of the fans and a fancy geometric front panel, I would say the Antec DF800 FLUX is worth the price difference.
Antec provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
APH Networks Review Focus Summary:
8/10 means Definitely a very good product with drawbacks that are not likely going to matter to the end user.
7/10 means Great product with many advantages and certain insignificant drawbacks, but should be considered before purchasing.
-- Final APH Networks Numeric Rating is 7.5/10
Please note that the APH Networks Numeric Rating system is based off our proprietary guidelines in the Review Focus, and should not be compared to other publications.
The Antec DF800 FLUX is an airflow-focused performance case with flashy RGB LED case fans.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
