[section_title title=Closer Look – Exterior]
Closer Look – Exterior
Starting with the front of the chassis, we can see that Antec have gone with a distinctive, and popular, red and black colour scheme. The first thing that struck me upon getting the chassis out of the box was the sheer size of it; this thing is an absolute monster! For all the height that this case comes with, we are only given three drive bays. Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a bad thing, there are going to be people out there who may want or expect more from a case of this price and stature. With regards to the IO panel, we have a power and reset buttons on the left hand side. Whilst they get the job done, they do feel a little flimsy in operation and don’t look very good either. To the right of those we have two USB 2.0 ports and then 3.5mm jacks for headphones and a microphone input. The right side is dominated by four USB 3.0 ports, which are wired up to two internal USB 3.0 headers. For the majority of people, you will need to use one of the USB 3.0 headers to USB 2.0 header converters that are supplied, due to the majority of mainstream motherboard only featuring support for one internal header. The red mesh around the outside of the front panel is not only there to look striking but serves a purpose in the airflow domain.
The mesh from the photo above allows the three front intake fans to draw in fresh air to feed the components inside the chassis. The expansion bays come sealed up with snap off covers. As you can see, the drive bay itself is secured in place with rivets rather than screws. This is a personal hatred of mine from a mudding point of view. If you wanted to put a radiator in the front, then some of them with larger end tanks would foul the drive bays. If it were screwed in place then it would allow for an easier removal and installation. Moving down we can see the two main fans to feed the main enclosure of the chassis. These have their own individual dust filters. Whilst they do the job well, I am a little disappointed that Antec have once again decided to use two screws to secure them in place. Users are paying a premium to get this chassis so why cut back on things like screws? Below these we have another 120mm fan, which also has its own dust filter, which is there to feed the lower compartment of the chassis. You will notice that the spacing of the fans does not allow a triple radiator to be fitted to the pre-existing mounts. This is a very bad move on the part of Antec. My personal rig is a BitFenix Shinobi XL. This can fit dual 360mm radiators in the roof and front with no modifications, and is almost half the price, so has the Antec totally trumped. You will also see that the bottom compartment is riveted to the main chassis and looks almost like it was an afterthought.
Moving onto the roof, it is largely a plain affair. It consists of a large plastic panel which has large ventilation holes on it, and is secured in place by two thumbscrews towards the rear of the chassis. Under this panel is a fan arrangement similar to what we saw on the front of the chassis. There is a raised section with two 120mm fans already pre-installed. Whilst this is good, there is a case for 360mm or even 480mm radiator support in the roof of this case. Also, Antec have decided to keep the mount central to the roof, rather than doing what a lot of other manufacturers have done recently which is offsetting the mount to allow for a larger radiator to be fitted. Again, Antec have missed a trick with the fan spacing as this could easily accommodate a 360mm radiator and possibly a 480mm. If Antec had squeezed dual 480mm radiator support in this chassis, they would have been onto a winner.
The back of the chassis is pretty much a standard affair. However, as it is so large, we had to split it into three sections. At the top we can see the two thumbscrew that have been used to hold the plastic roof panel in place. Below the right hand screw is a small rectangular panel with three switches on it. This is the fan controller that controller the speed of the rear 120mm fan as well as the two 120mm fans in the roof. This is powered by a molex connection, but I will cover that in more detail later on. Otherwise it is business a normal with the IO panel cutout on the left hand side with the 120mm fan mount on the right hand side. The criticism that I have with the mount is that it doesn’t have the option to mount a 140mm fan, which is a personal preference of mine. Also, down the left hand edge we can see some ventilation for behind the motherboard tray, a feature that we saw in the P100 review.
Moving a little further down we have the PCI expansion slots. These come with some nice red covers to tie in with the overall color scheme of the chassis and are of a high airflow design. to the right of these is another ventilated panel with two rubber grommets for external water cooling solutions and at the bottom is one of the two power supply mounts. This mount is generally covered by a blanking plate when the chassis arrives, however, it is just a case of removing the four screws and the plate slides out.
Moving down to the bottom of the chassis we can see the two power supply mounts. One of these will generally be covered by a blanking plate during use. The two buttons that you can see are to release the side panels on the bottom section. They are poorly designed, as I found even moving slightly would make both of these doors slam open against the floor every time! I cannot get my head around why Antec have decided to mount both power supplies in this fashion. If they had placed a panel in the bottom side by side with the power supply mounted vertically then they could have meshed the bottom section and given some room to mount a radiator in the bottom, this really could have been a brilliant place for a radiator like we have seen from many Cosmos 2 or TJ11 builds.
