Gadgetory

look what I have that looks familiar and old this was the case of the year for 2016 so well this is revision - no it's bad at all let's check it out right after this hello I'm looking for some fans well are you married yeah I have a ring what is your favorite number I would say three do I have the perfect fan for you this is the new Thermaltake ring trio twelve fans with good static pressure for radiators it is a beautiful frame with double side and center ring illumination with soft and super-bright spill with razor chrome and compatibility control it through your smartphone the RGB plus software on the PC or Amazon Alexa well I'm gonna take these home perhaps you should to check them out in the description below all right you people so it is better if you familiarize yourself with a dark base 900 Pro and what made it so special and the fact that it won our case of the Year award for 2016 you can check out that video right over here but I want to know what makes the rf2 so special today so here's a list of all the new features with Raph two blackout sections on the T G panel and new i/o upgraded fan controller new plastic drive slot covers new silent wings three fans and the power supply shroud so price-wise it is not very competitive at $270 this is a $20 price premium over the original and they say not competitive because the evolve X just launched at $200 so there's that for comparison but this close to $300 price point may be justifiable because not many cases can do what the pro 900 delivers now one thing I was hoping we'd see changed is the brushed aluminum exterior it was fine two three years ago but the sandblasted surface kind of has made its way into the modern time and just a better way to go to eliminate any fingerprints and ref2 you would have been the perfect release to integrate that unfortunately it is not the glass panel mount is still the same for short thumb screws with rubber housing on each peg and a slight lip at the bottom to hold the panel and a black out top and bottom sides to hide the frame underneath now from a feature standpoint this thing is absolutely loaded I'm talking about a Qi charger up top convenient not only for phones but for peripherals as well the chassis is both silence and airflow focused with noise dampening material throughout and ventilation channels surrounding the frame with three 140 more fans included which are fantastic silent wings three the top IO is good with a type C gen 2 port and fast charging port as well the front door can be switched to open from either side to accommodate your layout and it's one of the only few full towers that still has a removable 5 the quarter inch drive bay I would call them outdated but at least in this scenario it is removable and many people are requesting them to be included on future cases the fan controller hub is super handy for case of the size it's good for 8 4 pin fans with this front toggle for speed and you also have this dual channel configuration with performance and silent modes and of course these all can be controlled via PWM cable through your motherboard you can also connect the included dual LED strips into the hub for some interior or exterior illumination with solid or blinking modes and you also have a 12 volt RGB plug for more strips and this can also be controlled via your motherboard these strips are super bright and colorful but they are solid and kind of limit your installation of them inside the case for water cooling you can install up to 420 rad at the front and the top you just have to remove the 5 in the quarter inch drive cage and maybe the Chi dock as well to get everything mounted properly but I was hoping for an upgraded rail system like we saw with the dark bass 700 for the top fans but by far the most unique element of the pro 900 is the modularity of the interior like these plastic covers over the drive cages that can be extended in multiple levels because of these ridges on the back side to allow cables to pass through a 4e ATX motherboards now I wish to refine these brackets and this whole design because they're not comfortable to work with for example needing to compress all three pieces at the same time on one of the sides in order to extend them or push them back is just not user friendly as for clearance with these cages installed you have 35 millimeters from the so enough for standard reader and since the fans are installed on the outside of the frame that all space is good for the rad the motherboard tray is also fully removable it's height adjustable to accommodate the radiators up top and the entire tray can be inverted if you desire to build such a system and all this remains in the RAF - but now we have a new power supply shroud so this one's actually been ported over from the dark base 700 and that the top plastic pieces can be removed to reveal additional functionality of the shroud like an SSD mount right in the center it doesn't particularly look good but installation is easy with the caddy and dual 120mm fans on either side so these plastic covers close those sections that are not used with 63 millimeters available for cooling hardware at the front and of course the entire thing is removable so you can access your power supply and this is where the experience might get a little frustrating since the shroud is screwed on both sides of the case and removing it isn't so simple but this is what the rf2 looks like without the main bottom shroud it's low buoyant it's kind of bulky for the hardware there's lots of room available for water cooling experimentation but then you'd install the shroud last and unfortunately it's not an easy drop in place solution you have to almost force it in place and go at a certain angle so it doesn't catch one of the front pegs it looks fantastic once installed and I do appreciate the extra cooling and storage functionality plus the good spacing to pass any bottom cables but the overall user experience is poor and I think that might be one the inevitable consequences because of this whole inverted layout because the power supply shroud can also be installed on the opposite side therefore it has to be symmetric and match the alignment on both sides I just wish that it was refined a little bit more so the user assembly is easy and speaking of the other side cable management is fine but feels dated given there are no additional panels to close up the section and hide those cables but you could say it's not really necessary given the science panel is solid anyway cooling in this case where the default fans is okay I got to 80 degrees Celsius on the CPU and 82 degrees Celsius on the GPU this is with the fans at maximum 1600 rpm and the system wasn't loud with the five fans at full blast but you could definitely lower the fan rpm for a much quieter system alright so for conclusion I would say that the ref tube brings appropriate upgrades over the original while keeping the modularity at its core the power supply shroud section being the main addition to this enclosure I like how it looks and unlike the additional functionality but I don't like the assembly process and the additional $20 price premium over the original and for case that is two years old and that expensive I'd still say dark bass pro 900 ref 2 is still kind of competitive because it can do something that not I can't think of another case that has the ability to invert the layout and it does it quite well despite the low hiccups with the user assembling with a shroud you know it does cater to builders who want to experiment with this whole interior modularity and like flipping your system and maybe populating something that you would normally not do in a regular style chassis so the question is are you that person I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below I'm Dimitri thanks for watching make sure to check out this other relevant content subscribe for more we'll see you the next video