Be Quiet! Shadow Base 800 FX review

The Shadow Base 800 FX is great. It's a generous size without taking up too much space. It's colourful and covered in LEDs without being tacky. It comes with four reliable 140 mm fans for quieter operation and heaps of airflow. Most of all, it's just easy to build into. For that reason alone, I'm sold.

I tested this PC case the only way I know how: building a gaming PC inside it and measuring how well it runs. For this build (full build log here), I opted for an ASRock Z890 Steel Legend WiFi loaded with an Intel Core Ultra 5 245K. To keep the processor cool, a Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5 air cooler. On the graphics front, one last hurrah for AMD's outgoing RX 7900 XT. All of these went together without issue inside the Shadow Base 800 FX. Like, zero issues.

There are a few ways that the Shadow Base 800 FX makes life easy for budding builders. First off, the motherboard tray is set back to leave ample space for a top-mounted radiator—you can fit up to a 420 mm radiator, or three 140 mm fans, in the top of the Shadow Base. That leaves plenty of room in the front of the case for another 420 mm radiator, or again three 140 mm fans, though any fans can be tucked neatly out of the way behind the front mesh.

Speaking of fans, you needn't worry about buying many more for this case. It comes with four 140 mm Be Quiet! Light Wings fans—three in the front, one as an exhaust in the back. They are supremely quiet in operation. That's a combination of both their size and construction—larger fans mean you can run slower RPMs while maintaining good airflow, and Be Quiet! claims a low-noise fan blade design with a lower-noise rifle bearing.

They're pretty smart-looking fans. There's RGB only around the circumference of the fan that looks superb through the front mesh of the case. The longevity of these fans is a little lower than some high-end options at 60,000 hours, especially compared to Be Quiet!'s own Silent Wings 4 at 300,000 hours, but a three-year warranty certainly isn't bad.

In my tests, these fans provided ample airflow to the components within. While largely dependent on the choice of chip and cooler used across both CPU and GPU, I measured the Core Ultra 5 245K at no higher than 65°C and the RX 7900 XT no higher than 69°C while gaming. The CPU reached 76°C during more intensive testing, such as Cinebench 2024. All of which is absolutely fine with me.

When it comes to noise reduction, this Be Quiet! case comes with insulation on the closed side panel. A layer of dense foam. There's none on the front, top, or tempered glass windowed side, however, which does make me wonder how much difference it really makes to the overall noise of the build. That said, it's hardly a loud machine with the fairly easy-going components and cooling I've put inside it.

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Another reason I found building inside this case so gosh-darn simple is the serious amount of space behind the PSU. It's cavernous back there. You really don't have to worry about PSU cables or tidying them up all that much, especially when there's a couple of inches of room for your cables behind the panel.

The motherboard panel also has long, uninterrupted cable cut-outs across the top, side, and bottom of the motherboard plate, making light work of any cable tidying. My only small issue with the design is that, while there is a cable cover down the side, it does leave a lot of the cables still quite visible from the front.

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In Be Quiet!'s defence, the whole cable tidy comes off with a single Philips head screw. In fact, most of this case is pretty accessible with minimal tools required—if any.

There's a controller included in the Shadow Base 800 FX, to control the included fans, the lovely RGB light rings on each, and the embedded LED lighting strips down the front of the case. This controller comes pre-installed on the rear of the motherboard plate, which comes away with a single thumbscrew for easy removal and access to a motherboard's rear.

With the front panel lighting and four fans connected, two cables a piece, there are still three four-pin fan headers and three 5-volt RGB headers spare to use for further expansion/add-ons.

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The rear motherboard plate also has room for a 2.5-inch drive, and there are three total 2.5-inch SSD mounts within easy reach in the Shadow Base 800 FX. There's room for more, but there's only a single HDD (3.5-inch) cage included as an optional extra.

With airflow, cable management, lighting, and cooling sorted, I've only dust to deal with. Thankfully, very little inside the case itself, as both the top, bottom, and front of the case have built-in dust protection. The top and front are magnetically attached, and the rear slides in and out with ease.

Bonus points: the front panel can be removed with minimal force, and the RGB lighting on it is connected via a few stable contacts to a connection on the case proper. It goes back on just as easily.

The Shadow Base 800 FX is impressive for its largely tool-free, convenient, spacious build experience. And I say this as someone with a slight bone to pick with older Be Quiet!'s previous cases. I'm going back quite far here, getting near a decade (oh my god, I'm so old); though I own a Be Quiet! Dark Base 900.

This case has been in constant use over the years, from my PC to my partner's, and much of the time I've been slightly scared to open it and change anything drastically. It's well built and has stood the test of time, but trying to shift the PSU shroud or flip the motherboard mount is not worth the hassle.

By comparison, everything on the Shadow Base 800 FX falls away with ease, magnetically attaches, requires one screw, if any… case design has changed a lot over the past 10 years, and the Shadow Base 800 FX is one of the best examples of that.

Coming in at $190/£180, you wouldn't be putting a foot wrong with the Shadow Base 800 FX for the money. Especially considering the four 140 mm, RGB fans you're getting included for the fee. Though if you are looking to save money, the Shadow Base 800 DX is more or less the same with non-RGB fans for $135/£140, or there's the straight Shadow Base 800 with no RGB whatsoever for $96/£130. Any of which would work great for your next gaming PC build.