Antec Three Hundred Review

Tech News & Reviews Reviews and Guides
1

Hello People,

I am back after a long time with a review. This time its Antec Three Hundred, a ATX Mid tower Cabinet. This cabinet is placed in the same family as the Nine Hundred and the Twelve Hundred, i.e the “Gamer Series”. This is the entry level enclosure in that series.

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Let us see what this cabinet has for the targeted group.

[BREAK=Specification]

Specification

Type: ATX Mid Tower

Color: Black

**Unit dimensions: **

• 18" (H) x 18.3" (D) x 8.1" (W)

• 45.8 (H) x 46.5 (D) x 20.5 cm (W)

**Weight: **

• Net: 7.2kg

• Gross: 8.5kg

Power Supply: Not provided

Motherboard Compatibility: ATX

**Side Panel Window: **No

**Cooling System: **

• 1 rear 120 x 25 mm TriCool™ Fan with 3-speed switch control.

• 1 top special 140 x 25 mm TriCool™ Fan with 3-speed switch control

• 2 front (optional) 120 mm fans to cool the hard drives

• 1 side (Optional) 120 x 25 mm Fan to cool graphic cards

**9 Drive Bays: **

• External 3 x 5.25"

• Internal 6 x 3.5" for HDD

I/O ports

• 2 x USB 2.0

• HDA & AC’97 Audio In and Out

[BREAK=Packaging and Content]

Packaging and Content

The cabinet comes in a cardboard box with a very neat graphics. The front part shows the cabinet and the rear lists down the Specification along with the pictures of the cabinet. The Cabinet is enclosed by two thermocol foam and a polythene cover.

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The cabinet comes with very minimal content a set of screws, set of thumb screws and a manual.

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[BREAK=Closer Look]

Closer Look

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This mid tower comes with a neat appearance. The cabinet is fully made of steel, the finish is good, and so is the overall quality of the material. The cabinet is not so heavy at all, just 8.5 Kg. The PSU mount is at the bottom of the cabinet. The front IO panel & the power & reset button is located in the top of the front panel. It comes with the usual USB ports and audio input connectivity. Lack of eSata port is a let down here.

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The front panel sports a perforated bezel in the fan area, its covered by washable air filters . Two 120mm fan can be installed in the front as intake. The entire front panel can be removed very easily, once removed the 120 fan cages are exposed.

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The top of the case ports a 140mm TriCool fan, this fan can push out the hot air at 94.6 CFM, it isn’t noisy either and the rated noise level is 31.8dBA.

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The side panel has a provision for a 120mm fan. The side panel opens and closes in a swing type method, I prefer this as its very easy use compared to the slide method used in most of the cabinets.

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The rear is like any other normal cabinets, comes with a pre installed 120mm TriCool fan rated 79 CFM @ 2000 RPM and 30dBA. There are 7 expansion slots.

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The cabinet comes with 4 rubber feet.

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[BREAK=Inside Look]

Inside Look

The interior of the cabinet has a decent amount of space to fit in most of the hardware components. The Hard Drive bay is fitted in a conventional way, the drives can be fastened by using the provided thumb screws. Maximum of 6 HDDs can be installed, but if the GPU is too long(eg.8800GTX) the HDD cannot be placed in the slot next to the GPU. The PSU is mounted in the bottom of the case , but i didn’t find any foam or rubber feet in the PSU area to dampen the vibration of the power supply, kind of disappointed in this.

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For routing the cable, as we can see from the picture there is a decent amount of space behind the HDD tray, the cables can be secured in that place using the cable ties. That is a neat accommodation for the cables. Decent amount of cable management can be done in this cabinet.

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No screwless design in this cabinet is another let down because I find most of the cabinets these days sporting that design.

The placement of the fans in this cabinet is great and i prefer these placements. The front intake fans does a great job cooling the hard drives and there are enough space between two drives to let the air reach the motherboard and other components. There is no block between the fan and the hard drive as you can see in this pic.

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[BREAK=Installation , Thermal Performance & Cable Management]

Installation , Thermal Performance & Cable Management

I had to do two different component installations in this cabinet. First is to check the thermal performance and another one for cable management.

Test Setup:

Intel e7200

Asus P5N-MX (m-ATX)

2GB DDr2 Ram

ATI X1900XT

Hitachi 320GB & Seagate 160 GB 7200.9

Antec TP Quattro 850

Thermaltake Thunderblade 120mm fan- Front Intake

Antec TriLed 120mm – Side Intake

Installing the above components were easy, I made sure no cables interfere with the airflow. Thanks to the thumbs screws installing the hard drives were as easy installing them in a tray and sliding it.

Thermal Performance:

The thermal performance is good, especially that of the HDD temp. We used one intake in the front and another one in the side panel (78 CFM+ 56 CFM respectively). Exhaust is the TriCool fans in the rear and the top (79 CFM + 94 CFM respectively).

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Cable Management Setup:

Since the motherboard in the test setup is a m-ATX board. We decided choose to show the cable management with an ATX board.

AMD Athlon 64 3000+

DFI NF4 Ultra-D

X1900XT

Hitachi 320GB & Seagate 160 GB 7200.9

Antec TP Quattro 850

No Ram :stuck_out_tongue:

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As you can see from the pictures, I have routed the cables in the space behind the Hard Drive cage. A very good airflow can be guaranteed in this cabinet.

[BREAK=Conclusion]

CONCLUSION

Finally the concluding part of this review.

**Pricing **

The Antec Three Hundred officially costs Rs.3950. The pricing has to be little more aggressive to take on the competition.

-Pros:

Good quality Steel & Finish

Inclusion of two TriCool Fans

Very good cooling system

Provision for two Front Intake Fans

Easy installation of HDDs thanks to the included Thumb Screws

Easy removal of Front Bezel and side panels

Washable air filters

Decent Cable management capabilities

-Cons:

Not a screw-less design

No eSata connectivity

No dampening in the PSU area

Pricing

Warranty Information : A standard 1 Year warranty is provided for this cabinet.

Our thanks to Mr.Shunmugavel of Cyber Space Abacus Pvt. Ltd for providing us with the cabinet and other components.

2

nice review :cool2:

3

Nice. Detailed review. :smiley:

Pricing is little odd as I thought it will be cheaper.

Anyway, great work. Waiting for Antec 1200

4

good one Saiyan !

nice read

5

^^yup, a 3k price is more appropriate

6

Nice Review !

But from the looks of it, the CM 690 is far superior to it in the space/cable management ,thanks to the side HDD screwless cages. Also in most mobos, the 8-pin ATX connector is on the top left side of the mobo. There is no vent for re-routing that also it seems :frowning:

All in all you can see your cable management in ur CM 690 and compare to this ! The HDD cage looks fugly to me bigtime

3k is at max what it should sell for !! Then only can be recommended say against an Elite 330

7

nice review from what I can read in the texts…:unamused_face: I hate websense…

8

Great job saiyan…

9

nice review.

10

Very Nice Review Saiyan :slight_smile: Detailed review and crisp images :stuck_out_tongue: Repped and Dugged :)[B]

Please digg the review here Digg - Antec Three Hundred Review[/B]

11

HDD cage ain’t that bad , the drives will be exposed to the fan directly and the temperature is pretty good, almost 3 to 4c less than what i get in my CM 690 with the air filter removed. But the side mounted hdd cage would have helped a lot.

C’mon it can be compared to the CM Elite 590 if not the CM 690 :slight_smile:

12

Good review. Me think CM690 is still the cabbie to get in 4K :slight_smile:

13

Good review :slight_smile:

14

Nice Review..:slight_smile:

15

Great review Saiyan, thanks a lot mate, especially for all the people upgrading!

The build quality of this is better than the CM690?

16

^ I really can’t comment on that because my CM 690 cabinet is a heavily modded. But the Antec Three Hundred’s quality and finish is upto my satisfaction.

17

Very Nice review saar. :smiley:
Really appreciate the effort- esp using an ATX mobo for the setup pics. :slight_smile:
Should be cheaper as CM690 has more space for same price.

Build quality seems to be superior to CM690 though, even from pics.:flushed_face:

You can say it best though. :slight_smile:
HDD spacing is far superior to most cases.

(Anyways most smart users use 2-3 large capacity disks at the most anyways.

Those who use more either use or get suitable cases accordingly. :P)
CM690 hdd cage is restrictive and tightly packed.

Sideways HDD cage does allow better cable managment and keeps mobo area clear but airflow is hampered.

Fitting faster fan doesn’t help too due to front bezel with small holes that are quite restrictive, esp after sucking some dust and the design and spacing of the cage- adds to noise too.

(My Antec SLK3700AMB did perform better overall than the SLB.

And since the 3700 was 2004 stock, build quality was same as older Antec cases like AMG1000 and full tower CM steel cases.)
Really liked the swing-out fan mounts at the front.

Swing-out, brush grill, brush inside of fan blades- all dust fall down, outside the case. :stuck_out_tongue:

If done frequently, not a very shabby job. :slight_smile:
Can HDDs be slid in from the front after removing bezel and swinging out the front fan? :stuck_out_tongue:
If any Antec guy is listening-

-Price should be lower.

-We mainly want MORE SPACE in motherboard area of all your cases-

i.e more distance between RHS edge of ATX mobo and the hdd cage

(for big gfx cards, so that HDD power and Sata cable don’t encroach mobo area, easy usage of sideways SATA ports and easy removal and installation).

**-**Intake grill at bottom of the case for psu cooling.

**-**And maybe some cut-outs for routing psu cables from behind the mobo plate/tray.
Else a decent effort to provide a fairly good midtower case with very good ventilation imho, especially for regular users , especially those who prefer sober looking cases.

He has a KMD690 with those cutouts for routing psu cables iirc.

Costs more than regular CM690.
If you say making cutouts is easy andcheap, so will it be with the Antec. :stuck_out_tongue:

Price should be lower for sure.

But Elite 330- i hope you were kidding. :stuck_out_tongue:
CM Elite series metal is no way near typical CM quality.

Psu at top and quite close to mobo, a pathetically slow, sole 120mm fan at the rear.

The Antec 300 will pwn the Elite 330 any day with bottom mounted psu and two good fans at the top Rear corner of the case.

Most prolly even without the front fans and the side panel vents blocked- providing much better overall system temps and mainly HDD temps.
At 1.7K odd for the CM Elite 330, i rather save some money and get a cheapo Zebronics Bijli and live with whatever it offers at 1K odd w/o psu.

(a decently fast, quad blued LED fan that can be shifted to the rear, 2 80mm fans at side of which one can be moved to the front- anyways prefer taping up side vents except one for the gfx card. :P)

18

Awesome review :slight_smile:

19

Dont even start comparing this case to CM Elite 330. They are not in same segment.

You dont get much over what is absolutely needed in Elite. You cant add more intakes in Elite. The wire management is little pain as PSU is top mounted. ( so you cant hide extra wires under your HDD :stuck_out_tongue: ). Neither can you route the cables from the backside of Elite as only 1 side panel is removable in Elite. Other one is riveted to the chassis.

And its cheap. Thats its sole purpose. Elite has better built quality than Bijli. Metal is better. Bijli’s expansion slots are very flimsy and can flex even when you are trying to remove drive bay slot cover.

Elite is slightly better. And I had a chance to see the Antec three hundred in person and its far superior in terms of built quality than Elite and for that matter even CM 690.

But I dont know if its as versatile as CM 690. Or if it can be as modder friendly as CM 690.

20

Very nice review mate. Only let down is the price. It should sell for much lesser than 3.9k to get a good hold in the market. The CM690 at around the same price looks like a more sensibly buy.