| Article Index |
|---|
| Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case |
| Page 2 - Drive Bays |
| Page 3 - On Top |
| Page 4 - Back and Sides |
| Page 5 - Conclusion |
| All Pages |
The Antec Nine Hundred Gaming case, a good looking midi tower case with lots of drive bays and lots
of cooling fans. We take a more in-depth look at this ‘Ultimate’ gamers case.
Retailing at around AU$195 without a power supply, the Nine Hundred is in the middle pricing bracket for gaming cases. The price is kept (reasonably) low due to the Nine Hundred using a steel construction instead of the more expensive (and substantially lighter) aluminium construction quite often used in higher –end gaming cases these days. The use of steel has made the Nine Hundred a couple of Kg heavier than a lot of its competitors, which will be annoying if you are frequently moving your PC around, such as taking it to LAN events, but it’s only a couple of kilos, you can probably use the exercise anyway :)
The front of the Nine Hundred is top to bottom perforated metal, allowing for maximum air flow into the system and particularly over the drives, there is however no filters for the incoming air, so I hope you don’t have a dusty room, because all the dust will soon be inside your case.
Drive cooling is well taken care of with two Antec Tri-Cool 12cm fans mounted directly in front of the hard drive bays, with another mount for an optional 12cm fan at the rear of the top hard drive bay, so your drives should stay icy cool. These fans are accompanied by blue LEDs when the power is on, because if a case doesn’t have blue LEDs it’s just not cool is it? All the fans included in this case are Antec Tri-Cool fans, which come with 3 different speed settings controlled by a switch, so noisy or quiet is up to you.
Drive Bays
There’s a total of nine 5.25” drive bay slots in the front of the tower, by default there are 3 slots available to be used by optical drives or other 5.25” drive bay devices, the other 6 slots are filled with two hard drive cages, able to hold 3 x 3.5” drives each. These hard drive cages can be removed to allow for more 5.25” drive bays, or even moved to the top of the case to mount your optical drives down low. I’m not sure why you would, but the option is there for you.
All drives are installed the old fashioned way, with screws, there are no drive slides in this case and the hard drive cages must be removed from the case to install a hard drive (if you want to screw it in), which means you have to undo all your neat cabling and pull the whole cage out the front, rather annoying.
Up on Top
On the top of the Nine Hundred you find the power and reset switches, with the standard I/O ports such as USB, Firewire and Audio in between. There is no power LED - that is taken care of by the LEDs in the front fans I suppose, but there is a HDD activity LED next to the reset switch on the top I/O panel, a nice bright blue one. Behind the I/O panel is a recess to hold things like your MP3 player, or store your wireless mouse, it also comes with a rubber non-slip, anti-vibration pad so whatever you have in there doesn’t rattle around and drive you nuts.
Behind the ‘goodies holder’ I guess we’ll call it, is a massive 20cm exhaust fan, which even when running silently and at a low speed still moves a substantial amount of air. The location and inclusion of this fan is a very smart design move from Antec, as hot air rises having it extracted from the top of the case is the most logical solution, something that has been sadly missing from so many big name cases for many years. Again this is an Antec Tri-Cool fan and is speed controllable by a seperate switch.
The Back and Sides
The back of the Nine Hundred almost looks like it’s upside down, that’s just because Antec have positioned the power supply at the bottom of the case like a few of their previous models. I’m still undecided with having it down low, it does make it more difficult when assembling then PC, but does help keep a neat appearance as well as allowing for the large fan at the top of the case. So I guess in the end, the good out-weighs the bad.
The rear of the case also has two grommets (holes) for water cooling tubes to pass through. External water cooling setups are becoming more and more popular, but usually involved cutting through your case or simply leaving the side of the case off, which reduces the airflow and cooling efficiency. The pre-made holes on the Nine Hundred won’t look out of place if you don’t use them, but it’s another good inclusion by Antec. A third 12cm Tri-Cool LED fan is included in the rear as well, in the normal spot beside the motherboard rear I/O panel.
A window side panel is standard with the Nine Hundred, because looks DO count with a case like this. The window shows off the motherboard and Power supply area inside the case, with a triangular section of the window covered with black mesh and housing a 12cm fan mount aimed at the graphics cards. There’s no fan included on this mount but it’s nice to have the mount there and unlike a lot of other cases, you can barely tell there’s even a hole there in the first place. There is no CPU cooler duct included in the side panel of the Nine Hundred, but with the amount of fans this thing has I don’t think inside case temp is going to hinder the CPU cooler in any way, shape or form.
Inside, the Nine Hundred can house a Micro-ATX or standard ATX board up to the standard size of 12”x9.6” which should cover almost all the normal gaming motherboards out there, but is too small for most dual-CPU motherboards. The distance from the motherboard to the side panel is quite substantial and big enough to fit even the largest CPU coolers available on the market, so it’s certainly not cramped in there.
Conclusion:
The Antec Nine Hundred “Ultimate Gamer Case” is a good looking case, has a solid construction and enough cooling built-in to cool a nuclear reactor, but unfortunately it is not without its flaws. I would have preferred if the top I/O panel (usb/firewire ports etc...) were on the front, but that’s just personal preference I guess, as my current case just fits under my desk and you can’t get to the top easily.
A total of 9 drive bays means expansion room will never be a problem with the Nine Hundred, but with the lack of drive slides and the fact you have to remove the hard drive cages every time you want to install another hard drive, I hope it’s not something you have to do often. The lack of filtration in the front of the case is also a disappointment, especially when you’re showing off the inside of the case, which will be filled with dust in no time.
If you’re going to build a hardcore machine and never touch the insides again, this is definitely a case to consider, however if you’re the type who’s always changing drives and components, I think there’s better cases on the market for you.
OzHardware Rating – 6.5/10
This product can be purchased at www.techbuy.com.au
Direct Link http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/65485/.asp
