Antec Three Hundred

Verdict:

[+] Leonidas
Good cooling options; spacious; cheap; well made

[-] Xerxes
Looks dull; doesn't have intake fan as standard

There's a saying among engineers that beauty and function are inseparable: if something works well, it looks good. With that in mind, an engineer would probably tell you the latest case from Antec looks like the Sistine Chapel.

This case is all about function, with very little in the way of gimmickry and pointless styling. It couldn't be more spartan if it started killing Persians in its underpants, and it's even named Three Hundred.

Looking at the Three Hundred, we struggle to describe it as much more than a plain black box. You'd probably have to spend a good few hours with lighting kits and spray paint to make it look exciting in any way, but this is no bad thing. With very little to look at on the outside - and the lessons learned from the battle of Thermopylae ringing in our ears - we were wary of a nasty surprise when we popped open the side panel. Would we find the case equivalent of defensive earthworks manned by suicidal spear-wielding maniacs?

INSIDE

Such suspicions were completely unwarranted; sliding off the side of this case reveals an interior just as minimalist as the exterior. The battleship grey internals couldn't look less exciting if they came with elbow patches and a copy of James Joyce's 'Ulysses' poking out of the top of a jacket pocket.

The designers of the Three Hundred have clearly disavowed themselves of the frippery of modern case design, and opted for the essentials and nothing more. This is a rare quality in the current world of half-baked, poorly implemented tick-box feature additions.

EXPANSION

The Three Hundred has six 3.5in internal bays for hard disks, which are arrayed in line with the case to aid airflow. Aside from the three 5.25in external bays above the hard disk cages, there's little else inside the Three Hundred.

We had no problem fitting a 10.5in-long GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics card or the rest of our test system in the chassis. The internals, such as they are, are well made too, with no sharp edges to catch you when you're building a PC; even the side panels are easily replaced.

THE BUILD

Despite its budget price, the Three Hundred includes cable-tidying clips around the motherboard and hard disk bays to help keep your build neat. The sparse I/O panel will also help to keep the interior tidy. This is located next to the flimsy power and reset buttons on the top of the case, so the Three Hundred is clearly designed to be placed beside a desk rather than on top of it.

The case has two USB ports, plus the stereo and microphone connections for a headset. Fewer ports means fewer interior wiring headaches, but you lack the FireWire, eSATA and additional pair of USB ports other cases offer.

PSU PLACEMENT

The PSU will be located in the bottom corner of the case, and there are no impediments to preclude the use of a large power supply. Placing the PSU at the bottom of the case can cause wiring issues, as we found with the Antec Nine Hundred, since cables will have to stretch across the motherboard to connect to disk drives.

Mounting the PSU on the floor of this case is necessary, as there's a large, 140mm exhaust fan - smaller than the 200mm 'Big Boy' fan of the Nine Hundred - set in the roof. The Three Hundred doesn't have any vents underneath the PSU bay, so if a PSU with a fan in the base is installed, the fan must face upwards. This will help to draw out air trapped around the expansion cards, however.

COOLING

Only two fans are supplied with the Three Hundred - a 120mm exhaust on the rear and the 140mm roof exhaust. Both fans are equipped with a manual three-speed control switch that can throttle the speed so that the fans are practically inaudible, or ramp up the speed to shift more air.

Focusing the fans at the rear of the case provides plenty of cooling for hot components at the rear of the case (CPU, graphics card and so on), but it means that at the front, the hard disks are left without any direct cooling. The Three Hundred has mounts (with dust guards) for two more 120mm fans at the front, however, and there's also a 120mm fan mount on the side panel, above the PCI cards.

CONCLUSION

With its understated appearance, sparse internals and low price, we were slightly worried that the Antec Three Hundred would be one of those mundane products that fail to inspire any enthusiasm.

Happily, this isn't the case with the Three Hundred; there are no unwanted piles of gadgets and inanities, and you aren't asked to pay over the odds for a basic but well-made case. The case is arguably light on cooling for a high-performance system, but you'd probably want a more extravagant-looking case for such a PC anyway.

The Three Hundred has room for monster graphics cards, though, and filling one or both of the front fan mounts will cool a high-performance PC. It's a great case for the cash.

You can buy the Antec Three Hundred for £35.07 inc VAT from Aria (price correct at time of review)

To read more about the Three Hunded, visit Antec's website

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