We dinged September’s Antec Sonata Proto for being feature-poor. Can’t say the same of the flagship of Antec’s Dark Fleet line, the DF-85. This full-tower chassis looks great, is packed with fans, and includes luxury extras that wouldn’t be out of place in a case twice the price.

The DF-85 stands 23.5 inches high by 20 inches deep by 8.4 inches wide, and is constructed of matte-black painted steel. The entire front is taken up by hinged door compartments: three removable optical-drive doors and three mesh-covered front doors with 12cm three-speed LED fans—removable, washable dust filters included. The DF-85 also has two 14cm top exhaust fans and two 12cm rear LED exhaust fans. All four exhaust fans are two-speed and controlled by switches at the case’s rear. The case’s front-panel connectors include a hot-swap 2.5-inch drive bay (similar to the CM 690 II Advanced), three USB 2.0 ports, and one USB 3.0 port, fed by a pass-through to the rear panel, à la last month’s HAF X.

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Say this for the Pitstop PC-T1: It turns heads. Lian Li is known for its clean, all-aluminum chassis, which range from the budget to the exorbitant—mostly the latter. This time, it has spawned an all-aluminum Mini-ITX case that just happens to look like a spider. Practical? No. Ridiculous? Yes. Usable? Eh.

The Pitstop T1 comes flat-packed, like an Ikea desk. It has four two-piece legs, a main body piece, a motherboard tray, and two PSU brackets that hang from the rear and accommodate one standard ATX PSU. Given the three-segment body (spiders only have two) and four legs (spiders have eight), it’s not anatomically correct. Then again, most spiders aren’t Mini-ITX rigs, either.

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Like all the cases in Antec’s Sonata line, the Proto is a consumer case with an emphasis on quiet performance. In fact, it’s virtually identical to its predecessor, the Sonata III 500, except for a few small details. It’s not a gaming chassis—it lacks such essentials as cable management, toolless bays, multiple fans, or a removable right-side panel—but it doesn’t claim to be. It does claim to be silent, efficient, and affordable. So is it?

The Sonata Proto is on the small side for a mid-tower chassis, at eight inches wide, 16.5 inches high, and 18.5 inches deep. Its frame and side panels are steel, with a plastic front bezel and door. The side and top panels are painted a mid-quality matte black, with a glossy front panel and door. The door hides the front drive bays as well as the power and reset switches, and both it and the side panel have barrel locks on them. The rest of the case is unpainted metal. It supports microATX, Mini-ITX, and standard ATX motherboards, although a full ATX mobo will leave your rig feeling cramped. The motherboard tray is not removable and does not contain cutouts for CPU cooling backplates or cable management. In fact, the left side and top panel are one solid piece of rolled steel riveted to the frame, thus making the job of installing a system much harder than it needs to be.

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