Antec Nine Hundred Review

Antec shatters cooling conventions again with Nine Hundred. Coupled with fantastic looks and the 200mm Big Boy fan, prepare for some real shock and awe.

Category: Case
Manufacturer: Antec
Product: Nine Hundred
Gallery: Click Here
Price: $110.00

Introduction
Antec has been incredibly successful in designing enclosures that have
captured different segments of the market. Just by looking at their
wide variety of unique computer cases over the years, it is astonishing
to see that Antec has manged to maintain a good reputation of
excellence and quality. The Antec Nine Hundred being reviewed here
today is aimed directly at the “enthusiast LAN party gaming crowd”,
with great air cooling in mind. Don’t expect this case to be quiet, but
do expect awesome performance, as you’ll read later on, from the
monstrous 200mm fan within the Antec Nine Hundred.

Specifications

Test Setup
Hardware Configuration

Case: Antec Nine Hundred

Power Supply: Antec TruePower Trio 650

Motherboard: DFI Lanparty 939 nForce4 Ultra

Processor: AMD Opteron 146 2.0GHz (Overclocked 2800 MHz)

Hard Drive: Western Digital 100GB IDE HDD

Hard Drive: Seagate 300GB SATA HDD

Hard Drive: Maxtor 250GB SATA HDD

Video: PNY GeForce 7900GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express Pictured

Video: eVGA NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express Tested

Memory: OCZ Dual-Channel PC4000 Gold Edition VX 1024MB

Optical: Lite-ON 8x DVD+/-RW

Audio: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

Cooling: Zalman CNPS9500 CPU Cooler

Cooling: ThermalRight HR-05 Chipset Heatsink

Media: Mitsumi 7-in-1 Media Drive

Display: Samsung Syncmaster 710N 17″ LCD

Software Configuration

Motherboard BIOS: NF4LD406 BIOS Update Revision A (2006/04/06)

Chipset: nForce4 Series AMD Windows Vista 32-Bit v15.00 WHQL Certified

Operating System: Windows Vista Business Edition

Video Driver: NVIDIA ForceWare Release 100 v100.65 32-bit WHQL Certified

Audio Driver: Creative SB Audigy 2 Series Vista Beta Driver 2.12.0001

Test Software: Folding@Home Console Client v5.04

{mospagebreak title=First Impressions}
Unlike other reviews where you’ve seen snapshots of the box, this time
we decided skip that and jump straight to the case. We’ve covered how
Antec chooses to portray its cases in other articles, such as in our Antec Solo review.
Bundled with the case is the usual set of screws and instruction manual
that recommends how to install your components in the case carefully.
It’s really important to take this into consideration because the Antec
900 doesn’t have much room to work with in terms of cable management.
You must plan your cable routes beforehand and determine how your power
supply cables will dangle inside.

The
Antec 900 screams “serious ass-kicking ahead”. Honestly, with the hard
angular design and enormous fan atop the case, the Antec 900 is really
an attractive piece of equipment. This case isn’t very prone to glaring
fingerprints, but as you can imagine with all the holes everywhere, it
will be a dust magnet. Unfortunately the Antec 900 doesn’t include any
air filters so dust bunnies will be free to invade every nook and
cranny inside. Antec stresses customization as a key element of the
Antec 900, and they certainly weren’t kidding. As you have read in the
specification chart, you can really mix and match components as much as
your heart desires, so even water cooling junkies can use the inside to
fit a pump and reservoir.

The front fascia is probably what you will be looking at whenever you
use your computer. Everyone has a different computer setup, but
traditionally most cases that have external connections try to place
them either on the front or top of the case for universal access. The
Antec 900 doesn’t disappoint; it goes one step further. The top of the
case houses a neat tray area for your stuff. I found it very handy and
was even more surprised when Antec included a protective mat to keep
this area free from dings and scratches. These are the little touches
that make Antec stand head and shoulders above competitors trying to
make other high performance cooling-cases.

As we swing towards the rear of the case you’ll notice the side fan
panel that is ready to take any 120mm on the market. Now, we’ve seen
some neat designs in terms of having side panels with built-in
thumbscrews which made screw management a lot easier, but the Antec 900
doesn’t include this or any type of latch release system. This would
have been nice, especially since I encountered some issues with the
side panel not sitting flush against the case after removing it. Having
the power supply situated at the bottom of the case atop silicon
grommets reduces vibrations caused by the power supply fan.
Unfortunately however, having the PSU at the bottom leaves hardly any
room to hide unused cables - this is where planning about what to do
with the component cages comes into play. Additional ventilation holes
line the case’s rear, allowing air to escape.

The
bottom of the case is nothing special besides the case feet which keep
the case from slipping around even on smooth desks. Interestingly,
although the 900 is geared towards LAN gamers, the predominantly steel
construction makes it pretty heavy when fully loaded. Sure, it isn’t as
heavy as an Antec P180 might be, but it’s up there. The power and reset
buttons have a pretty good feel to them and are placed up top in such a
way that the front of the 900 maintains a clean fascia. The same goes
with the 3.5” bay, where a 5.25” normally resides for the simple fact
that it keeps the front of the case looking clean with no additional
lines of plastic to accommodate for what is the increasingly useless
floppy bay. Just as the fans in the front, the HDD activity indicator
lights up blue.

{mospagebreak title=Features }

Take
a closer look at the pictures with the case opened up. You’ll see why
Antec couldn’t have possibly placed any sort of latch system on the
side panels. There simply isn’t enough space with the window, side fan
slot, and the rest of the grill to put one in. Ideally though, you’d
probably want a security mechanism to be able to lock your computer to
your desk or table. Considering this case is meant for LAN parties, you
should be able to secure your stuff as you would a bike on any street
pole if you don’t trust those around you. The classic Antec drive rails
aren’t incorporated with the 900, and I did miss them. Having to still
screw in optical and hard drives into place is lame, but it is a trade
off I would easily make considering the customization factor that the
900 offers.

Standard bulk data and power connector cables drift from above,
creating cable management headaches. If you place an optical drive up
here, you might want to consider moving it down one spot to accommodate
for the wire snarl. Then again I did manage to mash everything in
pretty good. Yes, there is no power supply included with the 900, so
you’re on your own for that. The Corsair line of PSU’s have been quite
hot as of late, so many individuals may opt for that type of modular
and flexible power cabling - a wise idea with the 900.
To attach any fan to the side panel, all you have to do is line your
fan up and push it in. That’s it. I did wish Antec had a mini-hook to
wrap fan wire around to maintain a neat appearance, but with enough
tugging you can mash the wire in between the fan and fan holder itself.

Antec decided to make its internal connectors one single cable that
makes connecting them to the motherboard easier. The nice thing is that
you can still pull them apart if you have a weird setup or the wire
doesn’t necessarily reach as a whole. We hope that one day case and
motherboard makers decide on a universal connector block instead of
stupidly connecting each pin, one by one , but this is a start.
The sides of the hard drive cage itself are lined with holes for the
insane number of thumb screws. At least they aren’t regular screws, but
I still would have loved to have seen some sort of large rail system
for the 900 here. Whether or not this is plausible without a major
redesign isn’t the issue, having to unscrew 8 screws to access the hard
drive cage just plain sucks.

Also don’t even think about trying to screw in your hard drive without
a magnetic screwdriver. You have to reach through stupid little holes
to reach the side of the actual cage to be able to screw in your HDD’s.
I hated having to do this without a magnetized screwdriver and you will
too. I actually bent the cage trying to remove a screw that had lost
its thread, and it drove me mad for 15 minutes as I tried prying it out
without completely destroying the cage. It’s these annoyances that
prevent the 900 from attaining a perfect score, but if you’re prepared
beforehand this shouldn’t be a issue. The fact that no silicon grommets
keep the drives from rattling is a moot point considering the fans will
be too loud for you to care about HDD noise anyway.

Although
the Antec 900 doesn’t feature a motherboard tray — something we always
love here at GotFrag Hardware — the space inside the case is ample
enough that you can work with the motherboard inside. Unlike other
cases of similar dimensions, the 900 doesn’t have a steel stability bar
that runs from the front towards the back of the case. Since the PSU
sits at the bottom this isn’t needed, so you get lots of extra room to
work with in comparison to those types of cases. If you’re wondering if
an NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX or ATI Radeon X2800XTX card will fit, know
that it will be tight, but don’t expect those cards to fit with the
black fan bracket that comes with the case. It’s a shame really,
because most people probably want to use that fan to cool their GPU
instead of their CPU or PSU.

{mospagebreak title=Features - Continued }
Since the case comes equipped with a standard set of fans, we decided
to add one more side fan to the panel to go ahead and test the cooling
power of the Antec 900 versus the NZXT Zero. Now if you’ve read our review of the NZXT Zero,
you know that it comes with seven fans that provide awesome cooling
performance. Antec has gone a different route, and instead used three
120mm fans and one 200mm “Big Boy” fan. Each fan has an adjustable fan
setting selector built right into it that lets it run at low, medium,
and high. This equates to 1200, 1600, and 2000 RPM that make 25, 28,
and 30 dBA of sound. This moves 39, 56, and 79 CFM of air (120mm fan
only).

The 200mm Big Boy stands in a class all its own. The three speed
settings allow it to run at 400, 600, 800 RPM pushing 83, 108, 134 CFM
at a level of 24, 27 and 30dBA. So even at it’s lowest setting the Big
Boy hauls ass compared to any similar 120mm in existence. We would have
loved it if the case and fan cage were capable of housing fans of
multiple sizes as other case manufacturers have done, but we can only
assume size limitations prevented said feature - not that it matters
sin the Big Boy makes up for any cooling deficiencies anyway. Now even
though the fan exhausts air, imagine what a 200mm Big Boy will do for
your system if it was on a side panel.

Here you can see the fan cage exposed and how simple it is to remove
it. You have to take care as to where the fan’s power cables are routed
and that they don’t get caught and pressed between the case and the fan
cage. This isn’t tricky at all becase Antec included a little route
that does a perfect job, so kudos to Antec on the little details. Still
I would have liked to have seen some sort of fan filters. Remember, if
your case fans are clogged with dust, they are certainly not as
efficient, which results in higher case temperatures. RPM monitoring
isn’t possible with these fans, so you’re stuck to selecting fan speeds
beforehand.

The way the front of the case works is that each cage can hold three
hard drives. Now let’s say you’re into water cooling so you need to get
rid of one cage at the bottom but still want the front looking nice.
This is as simple as removing the black face plates from the cage and
screwing them directly into the case. Some of you who are clean freaks
or have nice modular power supplies may want to do the same thing as
well. The nice thing is that the side panel window is designed in such
a way as to minimize exposure to the drive cage holder and the endless
thumbscrews. All of these design elements and sweet touches really make
the 900 accessible to a large number of users - from those of us who
like to mod our cases, to regular Joe Schmoes who want to quickly build
and get their game on ASAP.

In
this instance, I installed the motherboard and then connected all the
power, reset and HDD cables to it. There is just enough space in a
corner to slide these cables down. After that I proceeded to install
the drives in their respective cages and connect all data cable
connectors first. This is essential to having a tidy setup with a
non-modular PSU. The way you arrange components inside should be
relevant to everything else. I placed the empty cage at the bottom so
unused cables had a place to settle and so SATA cables and the like had
a place to hide. The same goes with my red IDE cable. Because of the
close proximity of my IDE HDD and optical drive, I reduced two IDE
cables to one, further minimizing clutter.

{mospagebreak title=Noise & Temperatures}
For our testing purposes we used a Fluke 62 Mini Infrared Thermometer.
It offers the best accuracy in its class, +/- 1% of reading. It also
has a very wide temperature range from -30º to 500ºC (–20º to 932ºF.)
The Fluke 62 was used at a constant distance of 10 inches from each
surface measured. Since we used the exact same components for the NZXT
Zero, testing results should be comparable since the ambient
temperature and overclock speeds are the same. Keep in mind that when I
was overclocking, the entire rig was noisy, but that was due to the
increased CPU fan speed. I found the noise of the Antec 900
considerably louder than that of the NZXT Zero, which has no adjustable
fan speed selector. While taking each measurement, Folding@Home was
running to ensure 100% CPU utilization at all times.

With
our test setup, the AMD Opteron 146 has a stock speed of 2.0GHz and was
overclocked to 2.8GHz, which required the OCZ Dual-Channel PC4000 Gold
Edition VX ram to run with 3.2 volts, and the nForce 4 chipset to run
with 1.8 volts. This of course caused extra heat to dissipate into the
case. Now, from our previous review we already know that the NZXT has
great cooling performance, but the Antec 900 shockingly still beats it
out. Simply by looking at the GPU temperatures I was amazed that the
Antec 900 managed to pull off better cooling with less fans!
Considering the internal design of the NZXT Zero compared to that of
the Antec 900 and how the hard drive bays are perpendicular to the side
panels in the NZXT, I was amazed that such a simple change in
orientation caused a ten degree temperature drop. I suspect this was
achieved by allowing cool air to run freely from the front of the case
to the back. Considering how good the NZXT was, I was flabbergasted to
say the least.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}

The Antec Nine Hundred offers unfrigginbelievable
cooling, no doubt about it. I had to double check whether or not the
fans on the Antec case weren’t running at high because even at the
lowest setting the competition simply can’t keep up. Yes, the Antec
Nine Hundred obviously makes more noise, but LAN gamers will be
dreaming of this case regardless. Anyone interested in hardcore air
cooling cannot possibly pass this case up. Here is the real kicker, I
was already in awe at the cooling power the NZXT Zero, but found way
too many faults and dings to give it a high score. The Antec Nine
Hundred cools better, looks better, costs less, and has way less design
issues and criticisms by far. It’s just too damn great.

Pros
+ Mean exterior finish.
+ Cooling performance is staggering
+ 200mm Big Boy pushes insane amounts of air.
+ Cage cable hooks keeping minor clutter contained.
+ Comes with 3 120mm TriCool fans.
+ Blue LED fans function as power on indicators - smart.
+ Very handy top USB/FireWire/Audio ports and padded device tray.
+ 3.5” in 5.25” bay adapter keeps the front clean and simple.

Cons
- No fan filters = dust heaven.
- Cramped interior makes for unruly cable management.
- Possibly for some, the lack of included power supply.
- Hard drive installation a hassle without magnetic screw.
- Having to unscrew so many thumbscrews to just access the HDD’s
- No exotic PCI retention mechanism (subjective)
- Heavy once fully equipped (36.0 Lbs)
- Side panel glue fell off, would have been nice if glass was removable.

Rating
9.0 out of 10

The
Antec Nine Hundred represents the pinnacle of case cooling technology.
It does an incredible job of keeping components cool while having a
unique look that impresses. The fact of the matter is, the Antec Nine Hundred really only competes with itself with amount of features in price range it belongs to. The Antec Nine Hundred
is not only for the gamer on the go, but for those who seek sheer power
and customization qualities that allow even the adament watercooling
aficionados to play inside the case. With that, I can absolutely say I enthusiastically recommend the Antec
Nine Hundred for anyone who loves insane cooling performance,
customization, and killer looks to backup all that hot hardware inside.
A few oddities prevent this case from achieving a perfect score,
because even as good as it is, the Antec Nine Hundred can still be even better if Antec fixes the very few quirks. Thanks for reading!