Ok so rarely do people post reviews here but I figured I would 'cause... well 'cause dammit.
Firstly I purchased this case in a fit of rage tonight. It cost me $169 after taxes at Best Buy. You can easily get it for around $140 shipped if you search.
In the box is a set of 3 120mm 3 speed fans. The front two have blue LED's. The real kicker is the 200mm 3 speed fan on the top. With the other fans disconnected this thing moves enough air to cool the case. I had an existing Aspire 120mm blue led fan from my XQPack (which by the way sucks the big one) that i slapped on the side. So i'm up to 4 120mm's and 1 200mm. Damn skippy.
When at full speed the case is annoyingly loud. It is not as loud as other cases I've had but it sits on top of my desk so it's a pain. However the benefit is that my components stay very cool. Even with stock cooling on my P4 3.06 (Yeah yeah it's ancient) I never go above 40*C. Compare that to my Aspire XQPack which regularly saw 55*C and then would cause the system to crash. Also because of the 120mm on the side the video card will now reach no higher than 55*C (X850XT AGP) when it would regularly see 75*C and then crash the system.
The case, just like any other antec case, is a joy to work in. Everything is well placed and just works. The fan positioning is great, they create strong air flow from the bottom front to top back. The PSU is housed at the bottom of the case which is different but seems to work well.
Another bonus of this case is that it has 6 spots for 3.5 inch hard drives. All of these hdd bays are behind the two front 120mm fans so they recieve ample cooling. There are two problems with the front HDD/Optical Drive bays. Firstly they sit way to close to the motherboard I have installed in this case. All IDE/SATA cables have to be folded and ziptied to achieve anything other than a rats nest. Secondly the hdd bays slide out from the front so you are required to take both sides off and remove 8 screws for each set of 3. (Honestly at this point I'm just bitching)
The build is antec's usual steel and plastic. When the sides of the case are removed they are flimsy, however they become strong as they are attached to the case. The mesh on the window side of the case could be attached a little better as it uses some hot glue to attach in certain key places.
All in all I would give this case a solid 9 out of 10. The only thing that could make it better would be frontal placement of the USB/Audio ports, more room length wise (1/2 to 1 inch) and better attachment of the mesh on the side.
Pics in a second.
That's a DVD sitting on top of the 200mm fan for size comparison. It's friggin huge. There's nothing else to describe it.
. I agree antec case have very good built quality. All that money and new screwless drive mount? After using a screwless case, I would never go back to a screw mount drive case. Not that I take my drives out everyday or anything like that.
Wich I'm still stoked about so I don't care.
