Page 2: Interior, Use, Conclusion
Interior:
Aside from the location of the power supply, the Three Hundred is a pretty standard ATX case. You have plenty of room to fill it with hard drives, video cards, and other nice hardware. The case had micro ATX standoffs preinstalled so it only took another few standoffs to complete a full size ATX motherboard. Thankfully, there are enough screws and such for everything (including thumbscrews).
The I/O shield and expansion blanks are all real metal parts that are easily removable. There are no snap off pieces in this case except for the front optical drive area blanks. Snap off pieces are cheap and can cut you while working with the case. Thankfully, the worst offenders are good pieces (the I/O plates). You can see the rear mounted 120mm Antec Tricool fan. It basically has a low, medium, and high setting as all Tricool fans do.
The bottom of the case holds the power supply area. Since the Nine Hundred, I have though that putting the power supply on the bottom is a good idea. It helps with the amount of cabling and such. The only problem is that motherboards are designed for the power to be at the top of the motherboard. You need to be careful to make sure that cables will properly reach. The external connections on the case are USB, audio, and the standard headers except speaker. I miss having a speaker connection. There is no Firewire connection.
The hard drive area of the case holds six hard drives. You cannot put a floppy drive in this case due to the front fan grills (seen in this picture as well). The drive area can house two 120mm fans for intake over the hot hard drives. Unlike other cases, the Three Hundred does not include clips or any fast removable locks. Instead, you use all those thumbscrews to secure a drive. There is no noise dampening in this case.
You have the ability to put three optical drives in the case. This area is fairly standard. Normal screws are required to secure the drives in place. The face plates just pop out so installing an additional drive is easy enough.
The front cover of the case snaps off very easily to give you access to the front fan holders and the ability to clean the intake screen. The entire lower portion of the front of the case has a removable dust screen which is good as long as you remember to clean it.
The front fan holders come off with two thumbscrews and then you just screw in a 120mm fan of your choice. Remounting is as easy as removing it.
Use:
The Antec Three Hundred fairs well as a standard case. As you can see, everything fits nicely into the case and has enough room to hold enough drives and other hardware to make other cases feel shame. There are no sharp edges, everything is rounded off which is one of Antec's strong points. You can see the difficulty of having the power supply at the bottom. The 8-pin CPU power connector is being fished around the graphics card and barely has any slack.
I'm pretty (not absolutely) sure you will lose a drive or two if you have a giant video card such as the 8800GTX, so please make sure to figure that into your situation. Even if you lose two drives, you have a total of four remaining. My NAS has a four drive RAID 5 array so I doubt this will be a problem for most people.
As with the Nine Hundred, this case can be as quiet or as loud as you want. Setting the fans to medium allows for a gentle "woosh" sound to be heard (yet the CPU fan is louder than all of them). Setting the fans to low drops the sound to fairly low levels that you probably won't hear over anything else. On high, the fans are audible but not annoying. Airflow in the case is pretty good so you'll be able to get by on medium or low without problems unless you have a very hot system.
Conclusion:
I've seen the case retail for about $60 which is a good value for an Antec case with a few nice features. You are getting a standard case with good expansion capabilities and a good name to back it. The Antec Three Hundred is a good addition in the series and is a good, inexpensive case for any type of build. There are no frills with this case but that is one of the good points since businesses can freely use this as well.
I'd like to thank Marina on behalf of Antec for sending this case for review.
Aside from the location of the power supply, the Three Hundred is a pretty standard ATX case. You have plenty of room to fill it with hard drives, video cards, and other nice hardware. The case had micro ATX standoffs preinstalled so it only took another few standoffs to complete a full size ATX motherboard. Thankfully, there are enough screws and such for everything (including thumbscrews).
The I/O shield and expansion blanks are all real metal parts that are easily removable. There are no snap off pieces in this case except for the front optical drive area blanks. Snap off pieces are cheap and can cut you while working with the case. Thankfully, the worst offenders are good pieces (the I/O plates). You can see the rear mounted 120mm Antec Tricool fan. It basically has a low, medium, and high setting as all Tricool fans do.
The bottom of the case holds the power supply area. Since the Nine Hundred, I have though that putting the power supply on the bottom is a good idea. It helps with the amount of cabling and such. The only problem is that motherboards are designed for the power to be at the top of the motherboard. You need to be careful to make sure that cables will properly reach. The external connections on the case are USB, audio, and the standard headers except speaker. I miss having a speaker connection. There is no Firewire connection.
The hard drive area of the case holds six hard drives. You cannot put a floppy drive in this case due to the front fan grills (seen in this picture as well). The drive area can house two 120mm fans for intake over the hot hard drives. Unlike other cases, the Three Hundred does not include clips or any fast removable locks. Instead, you use all those thumbscrews to secure a drive. There is no noise dampening in this case.
You have the ability to put three optical drives in the case. This area is fairly standard. Normal screws are required to secure the drives in place. The face plates just pop out so installing an additional drive is easy enough.
The front cover of the case snaps off very easily to give you access to the front fan holders and the ability to clean the intake screen. The entire lower portion of the front of the case has a removable dust screen which is good as long as you remember to clean it.
The front fan holders come off with two thumbscrews and then you just screw in a 120mm fan of your choice. Remounting is as easy as removing it.
Use:
The Antec Three Hundred fairs well as a standard case. As you can see, everything fits nicely into the case and has enough room to hold enough drives and other hardware to make other cases feel shame. There are no sharp edges, everything is rounded off which is one of Antec's strong points. You can see the difficulty of having the power supply at the bottom. The 8-pin CPU power connector is being fished around the graphics card and barely has any slack.
I'm pretty (not absolutely) sure you will lose a drive or two if you have a giant video card such as the 8800GTX, so please make sure to figure that into your situation. Even if you lose two drives, you have a total of four remaining. My NAS has a four drive RAID 5 array so I doubt this will be a problem for most people.
As with the Nine Hundred, this case can be as quiet or as loud as you want. Setting the fans to medium allows for a gentle "woosh" sound to be heard (yet the CPU fan is louder than all of them). Setting the fans to low drops the sound to fairly low levels that you probably won't hear over anything else. On high, the fans are audible but not annoying. Airflow in the case is pretty good so you'll be able to get by on medium or low without problems unless you have a very hot system.
Conclusion:
I've seen the case retail for about $60 which is a good value for an Antec case with a few nice features. You are getting a standard case with good expansion capabilities and a good name to back it. The Antec Three Hundred is a good addition in the series and is a good, inexpensive case for any type of build. There are no frills with this case but that is one of the good points since businesses can freely use this as well.
I'd like to thank Marina on behalf of Antec for sending this case for review.