Deepcool Steam Castle Review
Category : Cases
Published by Luca Rocchi on 23.07.14
Presented at Computex 2014, Steam Castle is a new cube case from Deepcool. The case features a unique design and is characterized by four large vents on top with multi-color LED backlight. Other than that the Steam Castle is compatible with mATX as well as mini-ITX motherboard. Since this is one of the first cases from Deepcool we're curious to find out what they've come up with.
Today
we will be checking out one of the latest cases from DeepCool, the mini tower
Steam Castle.
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Preview
Specifications
| Model |
Steam Castle B |
| Case Type |
Mini Tower |
| Dimensions |
406mm (H) x 278mm (W) x 420mm (D) , 6.8 kg |
| Material |
SGCC, plastic |
| Color |
Black |
| 5.25'' drive
bay |
1 |
| 3.5'' drive bay |
2 |
| Expansion
slots |
4 |
| Form factors |
Micro ATX, Mini-ITX |
| Cooling |
Front: 1x200mm (Included)
Top: 2x 120mm
Rear: 1x 120mm (Included)
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Bundle
Overview |
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| The Deepcool Steam Castle bundle is pretty straight-forward. The actual box is made out of cardboard with all the basic informations printed on it. Inside, we found the
Steam Castle wrapped up in a plastic bag, and safely placed inside two big pieces of styrofoam, so that even the roughest shipping can't break it. Along with the case itself, the bundle also includes an instruction manual, which is always helpful, and a few other things
like the plastic bag with enough screws needed to assemble your system and
a couple of zip-ties which should help you get a better cable management.
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Product overview
Overview |
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Deepcools
Steam Castle is a cube-case characterized by a unique post-modern
steam-punk style appearance. The front panel provides a 5.25" slot devoted to the installation of optical drives and fan controllers. Both side panels are pretty simple,
as the left features a large window, while the right one has all the I/O
connectors.
This model features two USB3.0 ports and two USB2.0 ports, standard 3.5mm audio jacks and a small wheel that allows you to choose the shade of LEDs positioned on the
top of the case. The top part of the Steam Castle case features four huge bumps that house LED strips. The build quality is quite good and
both the front and top are coated with a soft touch material. |
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Installation
Overview |
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| The Deepcool Steam Castle is compatible with mATX and mini-ITX
motherboards. The motherboard itself is placed in a horizontal position, therefore
there should not be any big problems with the installation of large heatsinks. The case
features two levels, where the bottom layer is for the PSU and SSDs/HDDs
which can be mounted without any tools thanks to tool-lest 3.5/2.5-inch
system. The second level features a space for the motherboard with a small window for the backplate mounting. For our system we chose to use
the ASUS Maximus V Gene motherboard with graphics cards of various length. After placing the motherboard in its seat we
had some wiring problems with longer graphics card, since the part of
the graphics card where you need to plug in PCI-Express power connectors was completely covered by the 2.5-inch
cage. Thankfully, that same cage is removable so it was not a big issue.
As far as the power supply is concerned, we used a standard sized PSU but struggled
to get a good cable management since the small area meant for the PSU is too short and without
a modular PSU you could have some problems.
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Ventilation options
Overview |
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| The
cooling part of the Deepcool Steam Castle is decent as it offers various cooling
options. The package includes two, 200mm and 120mm, 3-pin fans. Overall, the case is able to accommodate two 120 mm fans
at the top and one at the rear. In addition to those mounting places,
the Steam Castle can also house a 200mm at the front. As you could have
guessed, this means there should be enough room for a 240mm liquid
cooling radiator at the top. |
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Conclusion
| General |
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+ |
- |
| Deepcool's Steam Castle is a rather unique
case and designed for those who like somewhat different design or are
looking for a new modding project. Unlike what you might think, the Steam Castle is not a small case
at all, and with the right precautions, you should be able to install high-end video cards. The build quality is pretty good and the materials are pleasant to
the touch. |
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- Bundle
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| Manufacturing quality / Ergonomics |
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+ |
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| The Steam Castle is made of SGCC and ABS painted black and
these are definitely quality materials, both internally and externally. Although the side panels are quite light and thin, which is never a good sign, we did not observe any sharp edges. As for the mounting, we found some problems during the installation of
longer graphics cards as well as some problems with power supply, which
should make some problems during cable routing. During the installation, we struggled to correctly insert our small modular power supply and get a good cable management using the grommets
supplied with the Steam Castle. The maximum PSU size suggested by
Deepcool is about 160 millimeters, however, we found some problems with our Bitfenix Fury PSU. Another aspect that has left us perplexed is the 2.5" slot positioned at the front of the case, since there is a mismatch on the front panel and
it was missing the removable bay. |
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- Build quality
- Tool-less
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- PSU space
- GPU space
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| Design |
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+ |
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| Of course, the design is always a matter of taste. In our opinion,
the Deepcool Steam Castle follows stylistic choices that might not appeal to many. The design is post-apocalyptic design and if you are a steampunk modder you
will surely know both how to appreciate and to mod this PC case. Regarding the cooling, there are two 200 and 120 mm
fans which are pre-installed with the case and there is space for
additional two 120mm fans at the top. Deepcool has also thought of those who love cases with LEDs and neon since it has added four huge LEDs
on the top part of the Steam Castle. |
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- Design
- Water cooling solutions
- LED
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| Recommendation |
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+ |
- |
| An MSRP price of the Deepcool Steam Castle is $119.99 / €88.99 and will be available
soon. In our opinion, the overall quality is good, however, there are some aspects that could
and should be improved. The price is in line with other products in the same genre and we recommend this model to modders and
those looking for a rather unique design. |
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Gaming-PC
- Modding |
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| Rating |
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The Deepcool Steam Castle gets good
4 out of 5 stars. |
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