Hardware Antec Nine Hundred

And once again I was saved.

Thank you Bit-Tech, my PC-60W PlusII is on its way.

Glad that you're never afraid to say it isn't worth it.

 

Yet another useless piece of junk on an already flooded market.

 

HARSH! (But possibly quite true )

-ed out

 

Great review, but I still dig the motherboard-ready pin headers, and screw tight card locks. But what I don't dig is that with all the fans wouldn't one want to direct the inflow of air one way or another? With the slotted PCI expansion covers, that allows air to come in from any which way it pleases, even from the hot PSU exhaust. Which may not really be a concern for some, but if you are looking for the best AIR cooled case, you might want to take the air from the lowest/coolest area possible. Not from right out of the PSU. I dunno, maybe i don't know much about it... but that seems like it just doesn't make sense

 

Hi there, new to the forums, been reading lots of sweet modding projects around here.
Anyone know if you can find that 200mm fan for sale somewhere, or any other big (larger than 120mm) fan for that matter?
Thanks in advance.

 

Although I have no opinion on the case itself, I do agree with all the folks above who prefer screws over "tooless" designs.
Screws (preferably in slots) allow for that last bit of microadjustment to get drives perfectly aligned with the front bezel- with a toolless design you take whatever the designer gives you.

Secondly, it is commonly claimed that HDDs are designed to shed heat from their sides, basically using the drive cage as a heatsink.
How is this supposed to happen if you must slap a plastic runner on the drive to "toolessly" (humorously, many of these runners must be screwed to the drive, so a screwdriver is involved anyway) insert it into the cage?

 

Comments from Antec

Hi everyone,

My name is Dan Reeves and I am the UK manager for Antec. After reading this review I thought I would put my two pence worth in as I think a few things have been overlooked.

We try to make a solution for most users needs and in the case of the Nine-Hundred gaming case we realised that a lot of people need lots of cooling for their components, but cooling that actually works well and is affordable. But the design is particularly to combat the hot components which are due out over the next year. Have you seen the roadmaps for the new graphics solutions coming out over the next year...?? Trust me, things are hotting up even further than they are right now, especially with the new SLI and crossfire configurations and quad core CPU's, not to mention all of the other components or overclocking.

Bang for buck this case cools better than any other case out there right now and is ready for the new components coming out. If you need the best cooling solution out there and you dont want to use or cannot afford to go the water cooling route then this is definately worth a look. Please bare in mind that this product is almost $100 less than a comparable product.

Also, the reason we decided to make this smaller than the usual gaming case style is because we know a lot of you are hauling your PC's all over the place to LAN party's and the Nine-Hundred is incredibly light weight.

Personally I love the design, I think it looks agressive and I think it looks just the way a gaming case should. But as with all products what one person loves another may hate and that is totally fair enough, I know it is not to everyone's taste but then we have other products to cater for other tastes. However we have sold 1000's of these cases already and it has only been on sale for 6 weeks so clearly a lot of people can see the advantage of this product.

I have included a few other reviews we have had on this product to try and give you a wider perspective of this case.

If any of you want to discuss anything with me about Antec or any of our products I would be more than happy to answer your questions.

Best Regards.
Dan.
Antec UK.

http://www.ultimateoc.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75&Itemid=32

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/antecninehundred/

 

Nine Hundred

I just purchased the nine hundred yesterday, installed my Sli setup and find the case quite nice. The sound isn't bad, and I find I don't need to run the fans on the fastest speed to get quite good cooling.

Most of your complaints I don't have issue with, and consider petty. I also think it is humorous that "gasp" you have a problem with removing the other side of the case to put a hard drive in.

Oh, and I figured out the drive cage interference before trying to put my two BFG 6800 Ultra OC's in the case.

This is a good case for the price, especially considering all the included fans.

Your review was so nit-picky, I was starting to think you had a hard-on for Antec. This is a very usable, light, and roomy case that is well priced.

Just my opinion, based on actually owning, and using one.

 

Kctay, welcome to Bit-tech

Before I disagree with youD) lemme just say that if you want to be sure that Bit-tech aren't anti-Antec, just check out the shining review of the P180 they did.

As for nit-picking, that's probably a good thing overall. If a review is full of minor complaints it generally means that there aren't any major ones. The minor things should be reported in the absence of major problems or issues.

Personally I'm just not sure what Antec were aiming for here. If they wanted to make something conclusively better than the stacker they failed imo, because it just doesn't have the expansion room a stacker does. To me it just seems like a case without a niche to fill. I don't see what group of people it's really aimed at.

Finally, Dan@Antec - I'm not sure if you're going to be sticking around but I hope you at least pop in every once in a while. Don't take my criticism of the 900 as antec hating, I'm much desiring a P180 and your PSU's have powered my systems for years. The bit forum has a lot of people who know what they want, and I think it's always great when companies really listen and communicate with the customers, so it'll be good if you pop in some times in your antec rep capacity.

 

Cool It is good to see you interacting with the community.

On that note please check post #3 in this (link) thread (an idea for your Aria case).

 

Thanks for the welcome spec. I think as Dan said, this case is aimed at the gamer. This is what I use the case for, my gaming machine. I love the position of the power switch and headphone mic front panel plug-ins, great for quick access to that headset for teamspeak (all jacks, power button, etc. are nicely angled towards the user for easy access). I don't plan on messing with any of the components inside once they have been installed since this is my gaming rig and will probably go untouched (assuming I have no technical problems) for at least a year.

Another great touch is the little tray on top with rubber mat, and the reusable wire ties inside to aid in routing wires. The drive cages don’t need all 8 screws on each cage, just two on each side, diagonally opposite to the other side.

I do find it curious that you like the 180. I assembled a computer for a friend using the 180, and absolutely hated it; the running of the wires, especially the mobo power cord having to be run under the slots in the video cards was tedious.

I still think that if some of the prognosticators used the nine hundred, they would find it quite pleasant, and once in its desired location, quite attractive.

Just my three cents

 

Better that than a mini Transformer.

I just got it yesterday, couldn't take my old Antec P180 anymore. It's an amazing case. Fairly quiet with all fans set to low yet it dropped my motherboard temps by 9C and CPU temps by 6C. The loudest thing in my case now is my OCZ PowerStream 520.

Overall I like the case. Besides cooling improvement I think it looks very cutting edge yet maintains traditional case appearance without too much plastic. I like not having a front door. Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder so what one person likes another may not. I still don't know how fat people get laid but that's just me. I don't know why people stick fart pipes on their 4-banger 100HP engines or 4-foot tall wind sails on the back of their front wheel drive cars but that's just me.

In regards to the complaints in the review...

I believe in "keep it simple" so what more do you want out of it? Simple works so why reinvent the wheel? It's far better than the complicated and annoying chamber system set up in many cases, like the Antec P180. It creates wire routing hell if you ask me.

I prefer to have my $600 video card supported by screws and not push down mechanisms. That's just me though.

The single pin plugs in that picture are coming from the front panel audio connector. There are only three 2-pin plugs for the front panel HD LED, reset and power. Try not to confuse people on that.

That's true. I don't know why they used 8 screws per cage either. The cages are supported by the 5.25-inch rails anyway. Take 'em all off and just use 2 screws from the front side like I did.

That fan bracket is not needed anyway. A wind tunnel is only effective if the device you are cooling is contained within it. Creating a small wind tunnel out of the HDD cage was worthless. Just the single 120mm fan in it's location in the front is perfect for bringing in cool air to the video card area. Remember that the fans should be used to bring cool air in. The video cards usually have the required heatsink and fan(s) to cool them.

Again, I prefer to use screws to secure my $600 video cards.

Rule #1 with PC hardware...never buy a Gigabyte product.

The CM Mystique is nice but only offers 2 120mm fans and the front door thing? What is this, the age of making lamer doors to make our cases look cool? Let's go ahead and put a large 3-inch thick combination safe door on the front while we are at it.

The Antec Nine Hundred is the perfect case for someone that doesn't want some huge stacker tower to have a lot of airflow. The only thing I would improve is sound dampening material on the side doors and possible less screws for the HDD cages. Also, use rubber/silicone grommets to secure the fan on the side panel so it doesn't vibrate.

Otherwise it's a superior case to many that I have had in the past. I'd pay $200 USD if they stuck a 500W+ Trio PSU with it...

 

While that used to be the case, Gigabyte's P965 boards are some of, if not the best, Core 2 motherboards on the market.

 

I have read that the nine hundred has clearance problems when using a DVI adapter in the top card slot, according to Antec it was going to be fixed in a later revision. Can anyone comment on the status of this? Has it been fixed?

 

Internet search engines

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=7507&page=2

 

Well, I have to say, I'm a little disappointed in this review after building a system in one of these cases myself.
One can only surmise that, as it was published on a Tuesday, it was perhaps written with a case of the Mondays or that Wil had just been dumped by his girlfriend and was taking it out on the Antec.

Firstly, there is misinformation present. The split pin connector is not for the front panel headers. As has been pointed out, this consists of the normal two and three pin connectors for HDD LED, power and reset buttons.
It is in fact for the mic/spkr connection (IIRC... though it may have been USB, I forget which) and is only there to supplement the block connector which the wires are attached to, in the event that your soundcard/motherboard does not follow the standard layout for the connector. I zip-tied mine to the cable but you could quite conceivably cut them off with no ill-effects if they bothered you to that extent.
Surely this became apparent when the case itself was used in a system, unless Wil had someone else assemble it on his behalf?

Cooling is perfectly adequate with the designated airflow/fan layout. The one I assembled houses an X1950XTX and a C2D 6600 at acceptable temperature levels with the fans on their lowest setting throughout. Admittedly, I'd have preferred Antec fit it with fans that had 3pin headers, rather than 4pin, so that I could regulate the speed further on-demand via software.
I doubt I'd have a problem fitting watercooling in it either and may do so at some point in the future should the system be overclocked to levels beyond the scope of the cooling to hand. I'm sure at least a few of the staff can vouch for my ability to do this.
In fact, on first impression, I'd say it could possibly be one of the easiest cases to consider watercooling in without major modification to the chassis. I'll verify this when I'm next with the case, if called upon to do so.

As for the criticism of window rivets and the featurelessness of the interior... I'm at a loss to comment.
Thumbscrews too small? I found them just right. It's nice to be able to nip them up tight with a screwdriver and discourage wanton removal of your panel by other, less respectful LANners, if you ask me.

As for comparing it to generic offerings, either I'm out of the loop on what constitutes a generic case or you guys are getting a little spoilt with review hardware and losing touch with some of the crap that's actually out there.


I did have my own criticisms of the case, I'll admit, like the difficulty of concealing case wiring when the floor-mounted PSU forces you to trail the ATX12V wire all the way up and across the mainboard and with the top-mounted I/O, the same thing happens downwards. On the whole though, with the system assembled and up and running, it's not so bad.
The girl I built it for absolutely loves it.



With that said, I think that the overall negative bias of the review on the whole has served to do one thing and one thing only - and that is to make sure that it doesn't get included in the Antec Review List.

Sorry to say it Wil but I think you missed the mark on this one.

 

Well, I just got one through the post, and it seems to suit my needs and price range perfectly. The quibbles about uncomfortable thumb screws () and having to remove both side-panels seem a bit silly to me, I just stripped the thing down and reassembled it without injuring or irritating myself and found the modular design of the HDD cages quite useful. And as said above, I'd take screws over plastic clips any day. I know how to use a screwdriver.

My only issue with it is going to be resisting putting my hot drinks on the padded tray. It's right next to the 200mm fan, and would spill straight over every single component in there, as well as making pretty patterns all over the room when it (literally) hit the fan. In short, it'd be stupid. But I don't think I'll be able to help myself: I like living on the edge >.>

 

Holy thread revival! (Sorry been looking for an opportunity to say that first for ages)

 

Wow, what an adrenalin junkie

I thought those things that slid out the front where there for holding your cups, anyway?