Antec Three Hundred review

The Three Hundred is Antec's latest case to be aimed at gamers.

It's the smaller cousin of the Nine Hundred (reviewed in What's New, Shopper 230), which we praised for its cooling and versatility. The Three Hundred is similarly designed, with a power supply mount at the bottom and a large ceiling fan at the top, but is considerably more compact.

Despite the Three Hundred's size, it will accommodate a full ATX motherboard comfortably. You can just about shoehorn in an Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX graphics card, but there won't be room for a hard disk in the bay behind it. This shouldn't be a problem, though, since there are a total of six 3½in bays, plus three 5¼in bays at the top. To the right of the 3½in bays is a space for routing excess cabling, to keep it out of sight, and Antec has provided two cable clips to keep wires in place.

Once you've removed the side panel (which is held in place with two thumbscrews), it's easy to pop off the entire front panel by pressing the three retaining clips at the front. This gives you access to the two 120mm fan mounts that cover the six 3½in bays at the front. Each is held in place with two captive thumbscrews, which don't fall out when you unscrew them. Once you've swung open a mount, you can easily slide in a hard disk. Unlike Antec's Solo cases, there's no hard disk damping mechanism; the hard disks simply screw directly to the case. There aren't even any rubber grommets in the screw holes, so you may notice vibrations and the sound of your read/write heads moving from your disks as they might be amplified by the case.

Still, it's good to see two fans included at this low price - a 120mm rear one and an unusual 140mm top fan. Both have the same three-speed switch present on the Nine Hundred's fans, allowing you to choose between high airflow or low noise. We'd recommend buying at least one extra 120mm fan for the front of the case, though. Unlike the Nine Hundred, this case has a filter at the front to stop dust being sucked in.

There's no vent in the bottom of the case below the power supply mount, so you may have to install your power supply upside down. This isn't a disaster, but you might have trouble making some power cables stretch far enough.

At the top of the front panel, you get twin USB ports, power and reset buttons, and headphone and microphone jacks. It's good to see that Antec has made the cables long enough to reach any corner of the motherboard. There's no front-mounted FireWire port, though.

The Three Hundred is good value for just over £30, and it's better- designed and built than many similarly priced cases. It may not come with a power supply, but if you're looking for a compact, inexpensive case - whether or not it's for a gaming PC - then the Three Hundred is a good choice.

Author: Jim Martin