Founded 1996 in Beijing, China, Deepcool is a manufacturer of PC cooling components and employs roughly 700 people in its Shenzhen factory. The company routinely smashes sales figures in its homeland and clearly knows a thing or two about thermal solutions. Why should this matter to my readers in the Western world? Well, having developed a distribution network in over 60 countries around the globe, Deepcool is now ramping up its presence in countries such as the UK and the USA. Today I will be taking a look at one of their Chassis and a special one at that! Today I have the Steam Castle BK Case.Until recent years small from factor chassis have been exclusive to HTPC or small form factor with older small form factor motherboards aimed at office and HTPC users mainly. With the surge in high quality and gaming focused small form factor motherboards, there has been a growing need to design and release an adequate and acceptable counterpart.
The Steam Castle Micro ATX case is designed as gaming case for hardware enthusiasts with the very impressive appearance, which is compatible to both Micro ATX and Mini ITX motherboards. In addition, to increase the amazing effect, 4 magic LED flash lights are pre-installed on the top. DEEPCOOL provides choices with fours colors as Black (the always classic one), White (Popular with APPLE), Red and Yellow. The case offers quite large space besides the Micro body, which is available for CPU cooling(air cooling up to 200 mm and liquid cooling up to 240 mm), two 2.5" SSDs, long graphic card up to 320 mm.
There is no denying this case definitely has a special look to it, so before we take a look at the technical specifications:
Packaging & Contents
DeepCool ships the Steam Castle in a brown cardboard box with an image of the chassis on its front highlighting the four turret vents which feature in the roof of the unit.
You will find a detailed blow-up diagram on the other side.
The left side list the enclosure's specifications.
The right side of the box is surrounded by a series of artwork.
Two thick foam spacers hold the chassis in place, while a sturdy plastic bag has been placed over the chassis to protect it from scratches and fingerprints.
You will get a large assortment of screws and some cable ties,alongside a manual.
A Closer Look - Outside
The chassis design is quite elaborate. The materials used feel sturdy. That said, overall build quality of the Steam Castle is good for a case of this price class.
The black chassis looks quite simple at first but its surface uses a soft but fingerprint-resistant finish.The chassis measures 406mm (L) x 278mm (W) x 420mm (H) in size.
The main side panel features a window which will allow users to show off their builds on the inside. Depending on the components used you may be able to view much more than the bottom of the graphics cards which is fine with me, companies spend time to make them look nice, it is about time we have cases that allow us to show off the bottom off the GPU.
On to the other side panel and it is mostly plain except for IO is located.
The IO consists of:Two USB 3.0 ports,Two USB 2.0 ports,Audio jacks (mic/headphone) and Power/Reset buttons.
There is a small dial at the top for controlling fans and lighting.
Although its entire front is solid, there are air vents that run along the sides of each piece, which allows air to enter the case while encapsulating noise well.A small DeepCool logo has been placed on the front.Above it is one external drive bay for 5.25" drive.
The front of the case features two slotted grilles on either side for ventilation. It also features a mesh intake near the top and two smaller ones at the bottom.
Hopping up to the top of the case you will find four cylinder objects,called punks.They’re simply there for design and nothing more, there are LED lighting in there which can be controller via the dial on the side of the chassis.
The small vent at the back is for any top mounted cooling and the four holes on the left and right sides at the back are once again just there for the sake of it.
Moving around to the rear of the case we start to get an idea of the internal layout of the case. We can see that the motherboard inside lies horizontally within the case, sitting on top of the power supply. The PSU bay itself features two sets of mounting holes, which allows you to install the unit with the fan facing either up- or downward. Due to the way this case is build, I would strongly suggest you install your PSU with the fan facing downward. In the top are the four motherboard-expansion slots, each held in place by a single locking mechanism. DeepCool also includes a 120 mm fan to push hot air out of the chassis. You may upgrade this fan to a 140 mm variant as the Steam Castle also features mounting holes for such a fan.
We can also notice the two hole for water cooling.
A small honeycomb mesh section.
Tipping the chassis on its side, it becomes apparent that DeepCool has also applied a plastic cover to the bottom to ensure their overall design looks as good as possible. The bottom of the case of course has four rubber feet, we can also see the hand hole that will allow users to remove the front panel with ease. A dust filter underneath the PSU bay will keep any dirt and grime out of the power supply. It is easily removed and can be cleaned well.
A Closer Look - Inside
The inside of the case is painted entirely in black, meaning it will complement most component choices aesthetically. As mentioned on the top half of the rear are places for either a 120 or 140mm fan, 2 x holes for water cooling tubes and of course the 4 x PCI expansion bays.
The interior of the chassis is split into two section, in the top half you have space for your motherboard and graphics cards, in the lower section your PSU and storage devices.The horizontal motherboard tray leaves plenty of room for cable management and to make sure all the components you want to install will fit inside the case, it comes with the motherboard mounts pre-installed and has a couple of holes inserted to help with cable management.
The inside of the case of the case is nice and spacious. There’s plenty of room here for two long graphics cards and you could easily fit an AIO water cooler in the back of the chassis. The DeepCool Steam Castle case is designed for m-ATX motherboards and as such m-ITX boards are also compatible.
Removing the top panel from the case.
The top of the case can accommodate 2 x 120mm/140mm fans or a 240mm radiator. However, you may need to remove the 5.25″ optical drive bay to accomplish this.
There’s a 200mm fan pre-installed in the front panel, which is perfect for providing a lot of airflow at low RPM. The front panel comes with room for a 120mm/140mm fan.
The hard drive case is removable and features two trays that can take both 3.5″ and 2.5″ hard drives depending on the individual users needs.
Installing a 3.5" drive within requires no tools or screws.
If you are wanting to install 2.5″ drives fear not, as there are holes that you can attach a 2.5″ drive with screws in each tray.
On the opposite side from the hard drive cage is where the power supply will go and there is a pair of rubber pads in place to help keep vibration to a minimum.
Speaking of the PSU, that vented area on the bottom we noticed earlier that will allow for PSU fan to get intake air also has a slide out dust filter.
Both the 5.25″ drive bay and a suspended hard drive caddy are completely removable.Both the bays are secured via screws.
Installation & Finished Looks
Getting everything installed inside the Steam Castle is an easy and straightforward process and I did not run into any issues at all.
As you can see we have a full size graphics card and PSU installed. The mITX motherboard is really the only component that is a small form factor.
Once everything is installed you can see there is plenty of room in the front of the case and this will of course come in handy for those who wish to install some water cooling gear inside the case.
All boxed back up and ready for power, the Steam Castle does one thing that i really like in cases. That is, from beginning to end, no matter what sort of build is housed inside, this chassis looks exactly the same fresh out of the box as is does now, keeping that slick aesthetic appeal that drove you to this chassis in the first place.
With everything connected, we now have the final product. The entire interior of the case is brightly lit and everything inside is very visible.
As depicted in the pictures, the lighting looks absolutely fantastic and it helps light up all the beautiful hardware inside very well.
Test System & Methology
Processor: Intel Core i5-3570K
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77N
Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S CPU Cooler
Memory: 4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1800MHz
Graphics Cards: Msi gtx 670 Twin Frozr
Power Supply: DeepCool Quanta DQ750 EVO
Boot Drive: Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB
OS: Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit
To test the thermal performance of the DeepCool Steam Castle I loaded my test system for 15 minutes using Prime95 and Furmark and recorded the maximum temperatures reached using CPUID Hardware Monitor. I then restarted the system and left it for 15 minutes before recording idle temperatures. I overclocked the system to 4.0GHZ and 4.5 GHZ for my tests. Room temperature was maintained at 20 degrees C for the duration of my tests.
Temperature
The DeepCool Steam Castle does a superb job, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less with a huge 200mm case fan at the front and a 120mm fan at the rear.
Added to that the case is heavily perforated and has excellent air flow. The final touch is that the power supply is at separate zone which means the air flows around the CPU and graphics card with the minimum of interruption.
Noise Level
The fans are quiet, so there is no need to worry about the tradeoff between great aesthetics and noise.
Conclusion
Jumping right into things, the DeepCool Steam Castle case offers great performance for that of an m-ATX case. There are no sharp edges and with the folded and riveted construction, the bare metal chassis feels solid, not to mention the luxuriously soft matte finish. The front 200mm intake fan is an ample cooling solution for most standard builds and looking back at my thermal graphs, we can see it was a top case in terms of temperatures. Aside from the 200mm intake fan, there is plenty of other options to allow users to get the cooling aspect of their build customized to their individual needs. Also, another aspect I think worth mentioning is all of the room inside the case that not only allows for good airflow, it will also allow users to install most anything they could want in an m-ATX rig from water cooling, to extra hard drivers or just allowing them to be left with a nice clean looking build that is not all crammed together. The Steam Castle was designed to be a fully functional case for a wide range of users with different skill sets and/or needs in an m-ATX case.DeepCool covered all the bases from adding a dust filter for the PSU to allowing for a dual radiator configuration for those users who want to go down the water cooling route. Aesthetically speaking, this is very much a love-it or hate-it design, but if you find yourself falling into the former category, there's a fair amount of potential in what's undoubtedly an eye-catching case.
In terms of value the DeepCool Steam Castle is a good case for the money (100 US Dollars), not only does it offer a special aesthetic, it is also highly functional and will give users the space and resources needed to get their rig built how they want. The cube factor of the case will also make it easy for users to be left with a clean looking build that they will more than likely wish to show off to everyone. When all is said and done the DeepCool Steam Castle is a great looking case that was designed well. If you are in the market for an m-ATX cube case this should definitely be on the list to be considered. There is not too much for me to say, we love it.