Swiftes

The Antec 900; a case which was considered by many as the pioneering and most well thought out case of the 21st century; an Industrial design classic which needed a rethink and some design changes, a few from day one. Quite convenient then that Antec have decided to refresh and smooth the edges one of their best high performance enclosures.
Hark, the 900-2 has awoken and is ready to show the world that change equals good! Boasting a new redesigned face that is reminiscent to it’s bigger sibling, the 1200. With new removable dust filters and a black anodized interior, Antec sure have pulled all the stops to ensure that redesigning a classic didn’t fall short.

Manufacturer Specification:

FEATURES & TECHNOLOGY USER BENEFIT
Powerful Cooling System The Nine Hundred Two possesses an impressive cooling system designed to handle even the most demanding gaming components. A top 200mm blue LED TriCool™ fan, one rear TriCool™ blue LED 120mm fan, two front blue LED 120mm fans, and two optional 120mm fan mounts cool the graphics cards and CPU. The top and rear fans feature three-speed switch controls to customize cooling and quiet. In addition, the Nine Hundred Two features a convenient water cooling platform that can be used to position a reservoir or pump.
Spacious Frame The Nine Hundred Two boasts nine drive bays and eight expansion slots, providing enough space for up to three graphics cards including Crossfire and NVidia 3-way SLI®.
Airflow Optimization The Nine Hundred Two has multiple features to ensure ideal airflow throughout the system. The enclosure features a perforated panel to take in air efficiently and washable air filters that reduce dust buildup. This is a widely requested improvement over the original Nine Hundred.
Advance Cable Management Extra space behind the motherboard tray, strategically placed openings and reusable cable ties allow extra power cables to be tucked out of the way for a tidy case with unrestricted airflow.
Front Ports To maximize ease-of-use, the Nine Hundred Two features front-mounted USB(x2), eSATA and HD Audio In & Out ports.
Top Accessory Tray The Nine Hundred Two has a convenient top accessory tray, perfect for storing personal media players, digital cameras or other small items.
Dominating Style The Nine Hundred Two retains the highly praised style of Antec’s Gamer line, showcasing a cool industrial look, a sleek black interior and a windowed side panel to show off hardware. In addition, the top, rear and front fans come with blue LED illumination, and the top illumination can be turned on and off by a convenient switch.
AQ3 Warranty Antec warrants this product to be free of defects resulting from faulty manufacture or components for three (3) years from the date of purchase.

Case Specifications

Motherboard Mini-ITX, micro ATX and Standard ATX
Power Supply Bottom-mounted; not included
Drive Bays External 3 x 5.25” in default configuration
Internal 6 x 3.5” in default configuration
Cooling System Intake Fans 2 x 120mm blue LED front variable speed fans with front controller
Exhaust Fans 1 x 200mm blue LED TriCool™ fan, top exhaust
1 x 120mm blue LED TriCool™ fan, rear exhaust

Optional Intake Fans 1 x 120mm fan, connects to drive bay for flexible positioning
1 x 120mm fan, side intake

Expansion Slots 8
Front Ports 2 x USB 2.0
1 x eSATA

Audio In, Out (AC’97 and High Definition Audio)

Without further ado, onto the reviewing!

The case arrived sturdily and secured from UPS. Got to love these guys, even when I was out and at college they left it with my neighbours until I got home. The box was wrapped in bubble wrap and took a while to open, but was protected.


Nice box design, the case is clearly showed on the box as with the specifications.


Case specifications and dimensions, along with multiple diagrams.


Antec 3 Year warranty info and the polystyrene protectors, the case is well protected.


The front/top IO panel, with the dual USB ports and E-SATA port, also notice the small HDD Led for activity. There is no Power LED as the front LED Fans are designed to show when the system is on. Also you have your standard 3.5mm Jacks and Power/Reset buttons.



On top of the case is the 200mm Antec “Big Boy” fan, not with blue led. This is controlled via the mini fan controller on the back of the case. More on that later.


The rear Blue LED TriCool 3 Speed Fan. This is an exhaust fan that vents the warm air out of the case. This fan does glow a satisfying blue when on, and makes the case look nice from the back.


Notice the pre drilled holes for Watercooling. These grommets are ideal and save time and effort for people who want an external radiator with fans and shrouds, they don’t then have to drill holes. These holes will accommodate tubing very nicely.


Now for that fan controller. This sits on the back of the case directly above the Exhaust 120mm Fan. It is identical to the one used on the 1200 and even has a gap for where the second 120mm should have been. It is nice aesthetically and blends well with the rest of the case. It allows for the speed on the top and rear fan to be changed between high, medium and low. It also allows you to switch the LED on the top fan on or off.


The side panel’s dust filter. This removable and machine washable, ideal for those in a cramped environment or where dust often accumulates.


This is the bundled 5.25” to 3.5” External adaptor for card readers and floppy drives. This works great and is of solid construction; it also continues the honeycomb theme of the case.


Bundled screws and standoffs. Nothing unusual here, apart from the long screws for securing the hard drivers in the caddies. The rest is the usual.


This is one of the 2 Bundled Hard Drive Caddies. These fit in the 5.25” bays and occupy 3 each out of the total 9. They are secured by 8 thumbscrews and allow air to be brought into the case by an Antec TriCool Blue LED fan with a 3 speed variable controller on the front of the caddy.



The Fan attached and ready to cool.


Just in case you forgot who designed your case!


This is one of the top 3 removable 5.25” Bay covers. 2 of them are covered with sound insulating foam on the inside. This helps cut down on noise and dust. The top one doesn’t have this foam as usually you would have a disc drive here.


This is the dust filter that is in the drive caddies. Again this is removable and machine washable. However, you do have to remove the entire caddy to get the filter in or out which is a pain considering that is 8 thumbscrews each time.


My 7200.11 500Gb installed and ready in the caddy. Note that even with the drive in the caddy, it overhangs slightly on the connector end. Now you may think that it is feasible to install the drive for a more optimum cable management approach but the fan for the caddy would be stuck by the cables.


And the final results, the case installed an running at night and a complete photo of all parts installed.

Gotta love my Wallace and Gromit Duvet cover!


This concludes the pictorial part of the review. Next up is the temperatures and final data. The last post will be of the final conclusion and score/awards.

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Swiftes

Hardware Specifications:
Motherboard: Abit AX78 770+ AM2+
Processor: AMD Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition, overclocked to 3.2Ghz
Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD4850 Dual Slot, 625/1000
RAM: Corsair XMS2 DHX DDR2-800, 4-4-4-12 2T 2.1v
Hard Drive: Seagate 7200.11 500GB SA620AS 16Mb Cache
Power Supply: Arctic Cooling 750Watt
Processor Cooler: Xigmatek HDT-S1283 with Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound.

Interior and Cable Management:

The 900 was never the best case for cable management, with many buyer simply choosing to break out the hole saw or dremel and make some nice holes for the cables. This has been improved on the 900-2 but it has still not been completely cracked. For starters my Motherboard 8-Pin Power cable was not long enough and I had to invest in an extender which made life easier, but my 24-Pin Power was not long enough to run around the back and through the holes, leaving me with no choice other than running it across the board, which with the help of some trusty zip ties didn’t look to bad in the end.

Notice my cheating with the 9-Pin Extender!

Some more photos I took to really emphasise the quality and finish off the case.


Cooling performance and settings:

The 3 graphs show a comparison between the Low/Med/High settings. With the charts, the shorter the bar, the better the cooling performance and etc.
The Idle temps are recorded by letting the PC sit idle on the desktop for 1 Hour. Load temps are recorded by setting OCCT for 1 Hour (CPU Stress) and F@H for 1 Hour (GPU Stress). The CPU fan is set to Auto and usually speeds up to 1300rpm during load.
Here are the results:





As you can see, not a massive difference between Low and High, but a noticeable one at that. Medium to High does show a fairly big gap, but for the noise that High kicks out, it isn’t worth it unless you live/work in a loud environment; or you like your games and music loud. Therefore Medium is the best choice in my opinion for best cooling performance and noise.


Conclusion:

This case is absolutely no fantastic, no questioning that, and Antec have done what all good manufacturers should do, listen to consumer feedback and develop upon it. The truth is that the case has a few minor flaws that are still present from the 900. Nothing massive enough to impact the decision or choice to buy this case, but a few niggling problems nevertheless. The newly cut cable management holes in the case are still not brilliant, and that meant me having to root my 24-Pin Power Connector cable next to and parallel to the motherboard tray, when I would have much rather routed behind the tray for optimum cable management. People with generic or cheaper Power Supplies will encounter the issue of cables not quite being long enough, and Antec should really include an 8-Pin EPS12v extender and 24-Pin extender with the case, luckily I had a spare 8-Pin one for the review. The other issue with the case is that with slightly longer Graphics Cards, some of the 3.5” Drive Bays in the caddies will be unusable, as the GPU will practically vacate that slot. This issue becomes worse for instance if you opt for Tri-Sli/Crossfire X. With 2-3 GPU’s in one system, the user will find it a struggle to accommodate even the smallest of RAID Array’s or Multi HDD’s.
However, this merely me nitpicking. The 900-2 has been the sucker punch to the 900’s jab, a highly capable LAN/Gamers’ case followed up with an equally capable and delivering revision. The aforementioned issues prevent me from giving the case 5/5, but do not let this detract you in the slightest. This is the case the 900 should have been.

Aesthetics:
Build Quality:
Cable Management:
Airflow:
Overall: 4 Flames []
Not an Average


Many thanks go to Antec UK and Lewis PR, who were fantastic when it came to shipping the case both promptly and securely!
And thanks to the permission of Chipp!

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SlickMeister

Very nice review sir! The case looks very nice. I had to spend £30 to buy a dremel tool and black paint to add cable management holes and paint it. Nice to see that its coming in this state by default now. Continue to enjoy your Antec case.

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ATI Radeon 4870 Club!

Slinkey123

awesome! nice review Maybe if you used another PSU with longer cables the cablemanagement would be better?

Anway +rep

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My Case Design made in 3D

3DMark06 20575

Laptop
Second PC

Swiftes

Funny you should say that,, got a Corsair VX450 on the way.

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Slinkey123

ahh awesome will look nice with the braided wires to.

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My Case Design made in 3D

3DMark06 20575

Laptop
Second PC

Swiftes

Update- Had the article proof read and corrected a few spelling mistakes.

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msremmert

Excellent review and that looks a lovely case.
I can see they've not made it any longer though. I really loved my 900 but my hardware was too cramped in it to a point where the nutty cooling made no difference, which is why I had to change to the monster of a case I have now. I would have got a 1200 but that's almost... too big!
Still didn't have the heart to sell it though, so I built a PC for my sister around it.

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Why does my G9 look like a smokers lung?

Xbox 360 Gamer Tag : msremmert

Swiftes

Couldn't agree with you any more. It is a real nice case, and I just don't understand the people who say it is "Ugly or pointless". Not everyone needs the size or space that the 1200 offers, although it is a bonus.

Thanks for your feedback, this was my first review of hopefully many more.

I also plan to update the article with new results when my VX450 comes.

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Swiftes

Bump! Hoping for more feedback and peoples views!

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