I haven't tried one of these yet but my own system is in a nine hundred for the past year. I like it but I agree with the comments about the top USB Ports being on top. I did put a 4 port front panel USB on it so the top one rarely get used in my case because it resides on my bench. Great for the floor though!
Why is it, that with all the USB items everyone wants to plug in, that we struggle to find cases with more than 2 USB ports? I am selling the crap out of systems to business because I put 4 USB port 3.5" front bay panels. I believe I give my customers many reasons to buy from me, but this seems to be the biggest buying trigger I have!
Not sure who or how the case manufacturers do market studies, but this can't be slipping past them so easily.
I just built a new pc with this case, upgraded from a 5-6 year old Antec case.
The panels are a little thinner, yes. Honestly I don't see it as a problem if you aren't the type to open your case up frequently (I'm not). However if you intend to tote this case around (LAN parties, whatever) it may not be the case for you. Mine was delivered in perfect condition, no dents etc.. and the paint job is perfect.
The HD bay isn't removeable and the door doesn't have nice latch like my last Antec, but again if you aren't popping it open and moving drives around every week I don't see it as a problem.
What is nice are the 140mm and 120mm fans (old one only had 80mm) which makes the case much quieter, and cooler too. The dust filter in the front is nice, but I added a piece of foam to the side vent since it doesn't have a filter there. May also add another 120mm fan there, depending on how things go.
Every case has its strengths and weaknesses. Personally, I have an old Cooler Master ATCS aluminum that I never plan to get rid of. Recently, I built a box using the 900 and was very impressed. The build quality is only slightly above average. Yes, it weighs a ton. No, it is not the easiest system to install components (but most of us will only make major changes once every year or more... so who really cares?!). ...and oh is she a noisy bugger. But I'll be darned if she isn't the best designed case I have seen for cooling. I am sure you can get better, but not without liquid cooling (at least that I have seen).
In short, it is good to hear that Antec stays true to this paradigm with the 300. I always love seeing "value" enthusiast parts (ATI 4850), but then again, the enthusiast market isn't about buying the best... more making it perform the best (ahh memories of my old AMD 5x86 133 @ 200 smoking Pentiums). I will likely build my next linux box on one of the 300s. Great review.
A good friend is a master auto mechanic. He always says that every design engineer should have a mechanic with a folded newspaper behind him, and every time he makes a poor choice, the mechanic whacks him with the paper. "Bad engineer!!"
So...
1. Doors. Ever catch one with your elbow while walking by?
2. Tray-style optical drives. See #1. Why are slot drives so rare?
3. Top mounted ports and buttons. They may be great for those who have their PC sitting on the floor, but if yours happens to be sitting on the floor, but, if it happens to reside on top of a 36 inch high bench (as in my shop/office) it can be difficult to see where anything goes without a ladder.
We use a lot of Centurion 5 cases for custom builds. Cheap and attractive.
Umm, where do you see doors? And I hate slot-loading drives - have seen too many transport mechanisms fail. With a tray load the motor can go and it is still functional, you just need to leave a paperclip in the eject hole.
I like the top-mounted forward facing buttons and ports of the 300. Good compromise for different locations. The Centurion 5 (I've used several) can be difficult to reach the USB ports if the system is near floor level.
I bought this case about three months ago. I love it. I have it with a single 4850 X2 and four hard drives in RAID 5 on a controller card. The system runs cool and relatively quiet. I had to purchase extra fans as only two were included.
The biggest drawback was no external 3.5 bay. Since nearly every computer nowdays needs a media reader and nearly every media reader is 3.5 external, make sure you buy one with an adapter bracket.
Oh also, I don't use the fan on the side without the filter. The airflow with just two front fans, a top fan and a rear fan is more than sufficient. The side fan only really serves to bypass the dust filter system without adding that much additional cooling.
The two front fans (not included) blow air right over the bank of hard drives keeping them cool. Really a good case at a great price.
I built a system for my brother-in-law in one of these. I liked it overall, had more areas to hide excess wires in than most cases in this price range I have used. Also liked that they included a spare fan to replace the possibly broken one with (the one I got indeed did not start on low speed). Did not like that some of the front panel cables were too short to connect to the motherboard I used without running right across the face of the motherboard. Also, the reset button is really small. I couldn't press it far enough with a finger to trigger a reset, I had to use a pen or other smaller implement. Also wish they had included the fans with connectors to motherboard fan headers. I had to use 4-pin connectors on the power supply just to run the included fans, as the rest of the system was SATA connectors. Overall I liked the case though.
I just started using this case for the computers I build for the place I work. They are relatively cheap for some of the features they come with. My main concern was good airflow with filtration, since I don't have time to make it around to all the computers to clean all the dust out of them each year. So far I haven't had one problem, other than it would be nice if it was a bit smaller but oh well.
Honestly, for the money it's merely decent. I've been going over and through a lot of cases and the Antec 300, 900 and 1200 did not impress me at all. I went out this past Saturday to pick up the 1200 at Fry's electronics after hearing how great it was on the net and when I saw it in person I totally changed my mind about the Antec 300, 900 and 1200 cases. All of them are cheaply made with very flimsy and poor panels. One of the 1200s on display was already broken and the panel would not even close properly and didn't appear to be bet at all, I believe it was a bad manufacturing process. The 300s I saw in person were even worse. I ended up getting a CoolerMaster HAF 932 at $160 as opposed to getting a 1200 that was on sale for $109 at Microcenter here in Illinois. All in all I'd go and buy a cheap 30-40 buck case from Aspire before spending the extra 10 or so on a 300 or 900.
I don't know about the 1200, but the Antec P180 (my case) has nice panels, which are a bilayer of metal and plastic (for noise reduction). Aewsome case for around $60 AR.
Recently I built a new system with this Antec 300 case, and out of curiosity I moved over most of the components from my other Antec Solo system.
The increased airflow, even with no additional fans, lowered temperatures by an average of 6.5 degrees (Celsius) compared to the Solo case.
The trade off was of course increased noise. To minimize this, I tried to choose low-noise components and I did a few noise-reduction tweaks such as suspending the hard drive (makes a huge difference). It's still not as quiet as the Solo, but quieter than my previous Dell 8300.
I just bought this case yesterday. Good design overall. Took about 35 minutes to install everything. I have 4 HDs, 2 DVD-ROMs, a large tower heatsink and a Double slot 8800 GTS.
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gemsurf - Saturday, September 13, 2008 - link
I haven't tried one of these yet but my own system is in a nine hundred for the past year. I like it but I agree with the comments about the top USB Ports being on top. I did put a 4 port front panel USB on it so the top one rarely get used in my case because it resides on my bench. Great for the floor though!Why is it, that with all the USB items everyone wants to plug in, that we struggle to find cases with more than 2 USB ports? I am selling the crap out of systems to business because I put 4 USB port 3.5" front bay panels. I believe I give my customers many reasons to buy from me, but this seems to be the biggest buying trigger I have!
Not sure who or how the case manufacturers do market studies, but this can't be slipping past them so easily.
walk2k - Saturday, September 13, 2008 - link
I just built a new pc with this case, upgraded from a 5-6 year old Antec case.The panels are a little thinner, yes. Honestly I don't see it as a problem if you aren't the type to open your case up frequently (I'm not). However if you intend to tote this case around (LAN parties, whatever) it may not be the case for you. Mine was delivered in perfect condition, no dents etc.. and the paint job is perfect.
The HD bay isn't removeable and the door doesn't have nice latch like my last Antec, but again if you aren't popping it open and moving drives around every week I don't see it as a problem.
What is nice are the 140mm and 120mm fans (old one only had 80mm) which makes the case much quieter, and cooler too. The dust filter in the front is nice, but I added a piece of foam to the side vent since it doesn't have a filter there. May also add another 120mm fan there, depending on how things go.
Zap - Friday, September 12, 2008 - link
I was under the impression that the replacement to the SLK3000 series were the New Solutions NSK series.basbrian - Friday, September 12, 2008 - link
Every case has its strengths and weaknesses. Personally, I have an old Cooler Master ATCS aluminum that I never plan to get rid of. Recently, I built a box using the 900 and was very impressed. The build quality is only slightly above average. Yes, it weighs a ton. No, it is not the easiest system to install components (but most of us will only make major changes once every year or more... so who really cares?!). ...and oh is she a noisy bugger. But I'll be darned if she isn't the best designed case I have seen for cooling. I am sure you can get better, but not without liquid cooling (at least that I have seen).In short, it is good to hear that Antec stays true to this paradigm with the 300. I always love seeing "value" enthusiast parts (ATI 4850), but then again, the enthusiast market isn't about buying the best... more making it perform the best (ahh memories of my old AMD 5x86 133 @ 200 smoking Pentiums). I will likely build my next linux box on one of the 300s. Great review.
JohnMD1022 - Thursday, September 11, 2008 - link
A good friend is a master auto mechanic. He always says that every design engineer should have a mechanic with a folded newspaper behind him, and every time he makes a poor choice, the mechanic whacks him with the paper. "Bad engineer!!"So...
1. Doors. Ever catch one with your elbow while walking by?
2. Tray-style optical drives. See #1. Why are slot drives so rare?
3. Top mounted ports and buttons. They may be great for those who have their PC sitting on the floor, but if yours happens to be sitting on the floor, but, if it happens to reside on top of a 36 inch high bench (as in my shop/office) it can be difficult to see where anything goes without a ladder.
We use a lot of Centurion 5 cases for custom builds. Cheap and attractive.
strikeback03 - Friday, September 12, 2008 - link
Umm, where do you see doors? And I hate slot-loading drives - have seen too many transport mechanisms fail. With a tray load the motor can go and it is still functional, you just need to leave a paperclip in the eject hole.I like the top-mounted forward facing buttons and ports of the 300. Good compromise for different locations. The Centurion 5 (I've used several) can be difficult to reach the USB ports if the system is near floor level.
rallycobra - Thursday, September 11, 2008 - link
I would spend a few bucks more and get a Cooler Master. Much better internals with easy drive access. Better ventilation too.faster - Thursday, September 11, 2008 - link
I bought this case about three months ago. I love it. I have it with a single 4850 X2 and four hard drives in RAID 5 on a controller card. The system runs cool and relatively quiet. I had to purchase extra fans as only two were included.The biggest drawback was no external 3.5 bay. Since nearly every computer nowdays needs a media reader and nearly every media reader is 3.5 external, make sure you buy one with an adapter bracket.
Oh also, I don't use the fan on the side without the filter. The airflow with just two front fans, a top fan and a rear fan is more than sufficient. The side fan only really serves to bypass the dust filter system without adding that much additional cooling.
The two front fans (not included) blow air right over the bank of hard drives keeping them cool. Really a good case at a great price.
strikeback03 - Thursday, September 11, 2008 - link
I built a system for my brother-in-law in one of these. I liked it overall, had more areas to hide excess wires in than most cases in this price range I have used. Also liked that they included a spare fan to replace the possibly broken one with (the one I got indeed did not start on low speed). Did not like that some of the front panel cables were too short to connect to the motherboard I used without running right across the face of the motherboard. Also, the reset button is really small. I couldn't press it far enough with a finger to trigger a reset, I had to use a pen or other smaller implement. Also wish they had included the fans with connectors to motherboard fan headers. I had to use 4-pin connectors on the power supply just to run the included fans, as the rest of the system was SATA connectors. Overall I liked the case though.gmoney7771 - Thursday, September 11, 2008 - link
I just started using this case for the computers I build for the place I work. They are relatively cheap for some of the features they come with. My main concern was good airflow with filtration, since I don't have time to make it around to all the computers to clean all the dust out of them each year. So far I haven't had one problem, other than it would be nice if it was a bit smaller but oh well.th3pwn3r - Thursday, September 11, 2008 - link
Honestly, for the money it's merely decent. I've been going over and through a lot of cases and the Antec 300, 900 and 1200 did not impress me at all. I went out this past Saturday to pick up the 1200 at Fry's electronics after hearing how great it was on the net and when I saw it in person I totally changed my mind about the Antec 300, 900 and 1200 cases. All of them are cheaply made with very flimsy and poor panels. One of the 1200s on display was already broken and the panel would not even close properly and didn't appear to be bet at all, I believe it was a bad manufacturing process. The 300s I saw in person were even worse. I ended up getting a CoolerMaster HAF 932 at $160 as opposed to getting a 1200 that was on sale for $109 at Microcenter here in Illinois. All in all I'd go and buy a cheap 30-40 buck case from Aspire before spending the extra 10 or so on a 300 or 900.kmmatney - Thursday, September 11, 2008 - link
I don't know about the 1200, but the Antec P180 (my case) has nice panels, which are a bilayer of metal and plastic (for noise reduction). Aewsome case for around $60 AR.Klinn - Thursday, September 11, 2008 - link
Recently I built a new system with this Antec 300 case, and out of curiosity I moved over most of the components from my other Antec Solo system.The increased airflow, even with no additional fans, lowered temperatures by an average of 6.5 degrees (Celsius) compared to the Solo case.
The trade off was of course increased noise. To minimize this, I tried to choose low-noise components and I did a few noise-reduction tweaks such as suspending the hard drive (makes a huge difference). It's still not as quiet as the Solo, but quieter than my previous Dell 8300.
Stan11003 - Thursday, September 11, 2008 - link
I just bought this case yesterday. Good design overall. Took about 35 minutes to install everything. I have 4 HDs, 2 DVD-ROMs, a large tower heatsink and a Double slot 8800 GTS.