The Danger Den Torture Rack

Danger Den is a name both well known and well regarded in the enthusiast community, having built a reputation for churning out high quality, high performance liquid cooling kits. From their custom built kits to their high performance water blocks and pumps, Danger Den has a solution for everyone, whether it be the first time system builder or the experienced enthusiast. But today HaredwareLogic takes a look at one of Danger Den's newer products:  The Danger Den Torture Rack. As part of Danger Den's new enclosure line, the Torture Rack is aimed at those who switch components frequently, such as benchmarking enthusiasts and hardware testers.

The Torture Rack concept isn't the first of its kind, and for the past two years, I've used HSPC's Tech Station as the base of my test bench. While it's a very good product (especially for those who change parts in and out frequently), the design can pose a problem with some after-market cooling solutions, especially large air cooled units like Thermaltake's Big Typhoon, Thermalright's Ultra-120, and Zalman's CNPS9700. While HSPC has released a new and Tech Station revised with top deck for holding the hardware and the bottom deck for storing the peripherals and power supply, I wanted to see what else was out there before upgrading the HL test bench.

"The Torture Rack was originally created for internal Danger Den testing. A solution was needed that put the commonly changed components on the top level and the rarely changed items (hard drives, CD drives, PSU, etc.) on the bottom level out of the way.

The Torture Rack also has “wow factor” with acrylic panels.  The motherboard tray standard color is clear but is also available in red, blue, green and yellow UV colors. An optional top and front plate are also available for closing up the system after testing or for taking it to a LAN party."

Acrylic enclosures don't exactly have the best reputation in the DIY community; most are cheap, flimsy, and overpriced. But before you jump to any conclusions, put aside conventional wisdom as you read, and you might just find your next enclosure...

Constructed of 3/8" clear acrylic (Danger Den is working on a variety of colors), the Torture Rack weighs in at just under 13lbs. Its compact size (14.7” (W) x 12.1” (D) x 14.4” (H)) in no way limits its potential, as you'll see, the Torture Rack can house a quite impressive system.

Each group of accessories (screws, nuts, etc) is clearly labeled and the accompanying assembly hardware is separated by groups. As the clear acrylic shows the slightest smudge, Danger Den also includes a pair of white cloth gloves to keep the Torture Rack in pristine condition. They also come in handy should you ever want to challenge anyone to a duel, like in the Tom & Jerry cartoons.

We're not going to waste time showing how to assemble the Danger Den Torture Rack, as Danger Den has an easy to follow video on their site:

Danger Den Torture Rack Assembly/Installation Video

The six page instruction manual is also very de scri ptive and easy to understand, making assembly painless. From start to finish, I timed the assembly of the Torture Rack at 43 minutes: That included me taking my time to read the instructions before starting, and looking for blemishes or other issues during assembly.

Although Danger Den includes everything you could possibly need to assemble the Torture Rack, I would recommend using a good quality 5/16" Hex Head wrench or driver when putting it together.

Each side panel includes mounting spaces for a dual 120mm radiator. The radiator can be mounted either horizontally across the top, or vertically, covering one 120mm space on top and one 120mm space on the bottom. Those using non-Danger Den radiators may face some issues lining up the radiator barbs, but a little creativity can overcome most anything. This would include using spacers or mounting the fans between the radiator and Torture Rack.

As I use an external liquid cooling kit (Zalman's Reserator XT) for the HL test bench, my setup wasn't affected. I'd recommend contacting Danger Den directly if you have any questions or issues.