Antec 300 - This Week offer + 5% discount voucher - Go for it or not?!

MarcLister

MarcLister

MarcLister

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So I currently have an Akasa Omega for my Q9650/HD4870 'rig' and have had for the last three years. I loved the Akasa Eclipse 62 and unfortunately I'm getting fed up of having to open the door on the Omega if I want to change the fan speeds on my controller or to open up an optical drive.

Recently my brother got a new rig with the Intel i2500K chip and some other gubbins, it came in an Antec 300 case. It's a lot narrower than my Omega but I like the look of it, especially for the current price. :p I like the fact that it has no front door.

So considering that the Antec 300 is on offer this week at OcUK and I have a 5% discount code from OcUK, for the money (£50) is there a better case that I can realistically get to replace my Omega?

I think I will start to look at a new PC later in the year/early next year depending on what processors and gfx cards are out, or coming soon, so this really is me wanting to put my current PC into a case I'll get on with better. I'm looking at mrk's new Corsair 650D as a potential case for my next PC.

I'd really rather not spend more than £60 on this new case and since the Antec 300 is a bit cheaper this week and I can use my 5% discount as well, this is looking like quite a good bit of business. Anyone able to suggest another case? I like cases without front doors, as you might have picked up, but I also like cases with straight lines, none of this fancy curves stuff! :p

Hence my love for the Eclipse 62 and now my hankering after an Antec 300. :)
 
I have the Antec 300 sweet case if you mod it. 650D is a SEXY case if you add some watercooling to the mix its a beauty and well worth the money.
 
Well my thinking with the 650D was that my next PC would use a Corsair H80 or whatever is the best by then. A 650D and a Corsair H80 would mean an outlay of £200+ which is a bit steep for a 3 year old PC that's still fine. The 650D is definitely in my thinking for my next PC when I'll spend a bit on the components. For now though, I just want a newer case without a front door, and I think spending just under £50 is justifiable. :)

You do interest me with your mods. What mods did you make?
 
I bought an antec 300 (coming from 800d)

Love the antec 300

I did 3 cable managament holes.

One for psu cables. One for 8pin and one for misc cables around the dvd drive area.

It's a cracking case and looks the part.

I wanted todo black internals, but dont see the point really.
 
Cheers BringTheRain. Does the Antec 300 not have cable management holes? Or did you not have enough of them or weren't they in the right place?

I forgot to mention that the way my room is set up, my Omega is to my right meaning the USB ports are facing away from me. Having an Antec 300 would give me access to USB ports on the front, at the top and on my side! Helpful! I also like the idea of having the PSU at the bottom of the case. I note that the 650D also does this. Is this some kind of new thinking with cases? Better for cooling or better layout inside the case?
 
I got the Antec 300 when it first came out and to be honest I won't be buying another case until it falls apart. Does everything that i've asked for it and it's the perfect size for me. There are some cable management options but they are as profound as high end cases but with a little bit of modding everything is possible.
 
Thanks lewism. :) I think I will order one. I'm going to gut my Omega case and take all the fans and filters from it to give me lots of fans for the Antec 300. I'll see what I think of the pre-supplied fans before I think about replacing them with the fans I've already got, which are Noctua fans. I've also got 2 dust filters on the Omega so I should be able to fit all the intake fans with filters to try and make the Antec 300 cleaner than the Omega which gets quite dusty on the front and on the side intake.
 
MarcLister said:
Thanks lewism. :) I think I will order one. I'm going to gut my Omega case and take all the fans and filters from it to give me lots of fans for the Antec 300. I'll see what I think of the pre-supplied fans before I think about replacing them with the fans I've already got, which are Noctua fans. I've also got 2 dust filters on the Omega so I should be able to fit all the intake fans with filters to try and make the Antec 300 cleaner than the Omega which gets quite dusty on the front and on the side intake.
Click to expand...

It comes with a 220mm fan for the top of the case but I had to remove mines because it hit the HSF I installed (it's massive) the only issue I have with mines are the cables on my PSU aren't really that long so i'm limited with my options for hiding them there but that's nothing to do with the case.
 
Had a look at the Shinobi on the Bitfenix site, looks to me like the front air intake goes through the two meshed lines on the side of the case? Not like the Antec 300 where there's nothing in the way of the fans.
 
thats right, the Antec 300 is quite old now, have a look at the Antec 100, 300s new replacement if you like, black interior and cable management holes.
 
Just bought an Antec 300. Including delivery (free thanks to OcUK forums membership) and the 5% discount I got it for £45.59. :cool: Should be here tomorrow (Tuesday). :)
 
I had an original 300. Sold it. Cursed the day. Bought another. :D

To my mind there are several plusses, in that I really like the understated looks, the size, which is big enough, but not huge, and the build quality, which is solid.

I also think it runs cool, due to the fairly simple airflow, from low front intake to upper rear exhaust.

The points made above are very vaild, in that the cable management could be better, and I also think that it would benefit from a black interior. The cable management holes are easily done, but to change the interior to black would only really be viable if you painted it yourself, as powdercoating would take it into another price bracket (where there are a lot more options). Also, if it had a nice black interior, you'd want to show it off, so you'll want a window.

All these points however are personal things, and part of the fun.

As long as it stays around the £40 range I think it's a great buy, but it crept quite a bit over £50 at one stage, and at that price it started to get too close to larger and more expensive cases like the CM690.

If you buy one I don't think you'll be disappointed.
 
£50 is quite expensive for this case, especially since you could get a CM690 II for around this price for ages now.

BitFenix Shinobi, CM 690 II, a slightly more expensive HAF 912, Fractal Design 3000 (if you prefer this design), Lancool PC-K58, all would be better choices in my opinion.

Antec 300 isn't a bad case by any means, though.
 
Well I thought I'd update this thread seeing as I was up to 5am this morning fitting my PC components into the Antec. :p

There was a ton of dust in the old case and I used some compressed air to clean the worst of it off before the parts went into the new case.

The CPU is running at 37oC, it was at 38oC before, a bit of a difference. The 140mm top exhaust fan is on medium so perhaps putting it on full would make that temp drop a bit.

The motherboard seems to be benefitting the most from the new case or the compressed air! :D It was about 27oC before, it's now 18oC. :cool:

The graphics card was running at about 79oC. It's now on 70/71oC which is a nice drop. Again the Antec 120mm fan on the side is on medium so putting it on full might help a bit with that. I had no problems in games with the card on 79oC as a base temp so knocking nearly 10oC is brilliant, there might not be any benefit to putting the side fan up to full.

The SATA HDD was running at 20oC. Now that its right behind the bottom 120mm fan at the front of the case its now dropped to 18oC. The SSD is hidden right underneath the SATA HDD so its out of the way and not impeding the air flow as much as it would if the SSD + SATA drives were in the 120mm fan's way.

The cabling is a bit messy because it was getting late, or early, and I just wanted to finish the job off. I like the case but I'm thinking about replacing the 140mm top exhaust fan with something a bit more powerful and/or quieter. I've got the Antec 120mm fan on the side because I forgot I had another 120mm fan from my Akasa case to go on.

So can anyone recommend any decent 140mm fans to replace the Antec default fan? :)
 
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