[section_title title=Closer Look – Interior and Installation]
Closer Look – Interior and Installation
Upon removing the outer brushed aluminium shell we are greeted immediately with a view of the storage caddies implemented into the ISK 600. Antec have decided to keep all of the storage focused around the roof of the chassis, mainly because there is a lack of real estate in the main chassis, but more on that later. I actually really like this implementation, there is space for two SSD’s as well as a full size HDD, which should be plenty for the majority of people using a chassis of this size. On the underside of the front most caddie is the bracket to mount a slim loading optical drive. This implementation allows all of the wiring to be kept up high in the chassis, thus reducing the amount of airflow restricted by cables.
Having a close look at the roof caddies, you can see that they are held in place by two large screws at each end which have rubber washers around them to absorb vibration. The left most one has two 2.5 inch mounts, and just noticeable is the slim slot optical bay, which can be removed by unscrewing the four silver screws pictured. On the right hand side we have the second caddie which is capable of housing one full size HDD.
Taking a closer look at the inside of the chassis, we have on the right hand side you can see the power supply mount as well as the internals of the front IO panel. The power supply mount has an good amount of soft foam padding around it to absorb as much of the vibration from the power supply fan as possible. To the left of the power supply bracket we have two 2.5 inch storage drive holders in case you are in need of more storage options. Along the top edge of the chassis you will notice the notches cut into the frame work. These are for the storage caddies and allow the caddies to be held tightly in place once the roof panel is screwed into place.
Below we can see the rear 120mm silent exhaust fan that Antec have decided to go with. This fan has a built in fan controller which has a L and H setting, Low and High. The fan used is actually an Antec TwoCool fan and the controller switches the RPM betweem 600 RPM at low and 1200 RPM at high. On the bottom right side of the case you will also notice the input for the power plug and how it trails down that side to the power supply mount.
Here is our test rig in situ within the ISK 600. As you can see, we were able to comfortably mount our storage devices out of the way from all the cables below and still fit in the brilliant Noctua NH-U9B tower cooler under the caddies. You can also see the power supply in play with the cable running down the side to feed it. You may also be able to see, that whilst my cable management within the chassis was not great, there is still plenty of room left to route any cables to make it tidier.
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Looking at the power supply in its bracket, you will notice that there are two cut outs in the bottom of the bracket. This is to allow the user to get a screwdriver into the screw holes for the power supply to secure it to the bracket. This is a really nice touch and could have been implemented in a much more tasteless way. Antec have even gone to the trouble of making one of the holes double length to allow for different screw positions on different power supplies on the market.
Lastly here is a picture of our MSI R9 290 in position within the ISK 600. As you can see there is still a little bit of room at the end of the chassis for a slightly longer card. However, please be aware that if you were to use a longer power supply than the Antec High Current Gamer M which we have, then you would not be able to use an R9 290 graphics card in this chassis as it is almost touching the modular cables on the power supply. With regards to graphics card cooling. In about the same area as the fan is on our R9 290, there is a small meshed section on the side panel of the ISK600, this ensures that your graphics cards will be able to pull in fresh air from outside of the chassis itself. However, this is not dust filtered, so you would need to watch the dust build up on your graphics card, as well as on the inside of the chassis.
