Spec me a case?

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Joined
5 Jan 2005
Posts
311
I have a couple of simple requirements:

I am replacing an Antec 300, my biggest bugbear with which is the noise. It's a great little case, but the vibrations of every moving part are amplified by the chassis. It makes an HDD audible from the next room. Why on earth is this, btw?

Additionally, the 300 has the PSU mount at the bottom which means all of the power cable runs need an extra twist to orient their connectors properly.

Other than that, the 300 is wonderful, so can anyone suggest anything visually similar (nice clean lines, maybe a little bigger - gotta fit a Corsair H50 in there), which isn't going to suffer the same acoustic unpleasantness and has the PSU mount in the top?

Thank you all :)
 
I'll say it before anyone else: Fractal Design R2

There's the alternative of the Lian Li PC7, which would be my choice, but it's made out of the same sort of material as the 300 so noise might still be an issue (though it'll have MUCH better fans than the 300)
 
Thank you, both - I really like the look of the fractal design r2 - just considering now how my airflow design would need to fit in - good stuff :)
 
Budget ? personally I don't think an R2 is enough of an upgrade from an antec 300 in terms of space and acoustics as I don't think the R2 is built with thick aluminium.

If you are looking for silence and decent performance I'd take a look at the antec p183.
 
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I would say I don't want to go too far north of £100 for this - the thinking with the R2 (I believe) is that it is constructed of something different. The 300 is steel, not alu (like the R2) right?
 
Well you could make the 300 quieter ? use rubber fan mounts for every fan and try and use rubber mounts for the hard drives or even suspend them in the 5.25 bay using elastic or string/whatever.Am pretty sure you could make the antec 300 much quieter with a little effort and cost.

I still say the antec p183 would be a better choice for you considering silence, you can get a p183 for around £90 if you look hard.

The r2 would be more of a sideways slight upgrade over an antec 300 rather than a full on upgrade.
 
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Lol at recommending a case with an open grilled front design to someone that wants silence.
 
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Well you could make the 300 quieter...try and use rubber mounts for the hard drives or even suspend them in the 5.25 bay using elastic or string/whatever.Am pretty sure you could make the antec 300 much quieter with a little effort and cost.


Suspending my drive in my 300 case made a huge difference, and it only took a few minutes to do.

I just used some nylon covered rubber cord and a couple of cord locks to keep it in place (useful for adjusting tension too).

The 300 is a great little case, so maybe you could try a few small mods to see how they work for you before splashing out on a new case?

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Budget ? personally I don't think an R2 is enough of an upgrade from an antec 300 in terms of space and acoustics as I don't think the R2 is built with thick aluminium.

If you are looking for silence and decent performance I'd take a look at the antec p183.

the R2 is made of steel not aluminium. It has sound proof bitumen plates and is very quiet.
 
I think the R2 is an upgrade to the 300 myself. If you have not already done so, search this forum for posts on the R2, plenty of internal pics of the case with peoples setups.

The PSU mount is at the bottom in the R2 though.....
 
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