Cheapest price on Antec Sonata III 500 Quiet Super Mini Tower ATX Case Black order it now
Band : Antec
Model : SONATA III 500
Product Features :
- Sold Individually
>> Quiet on low/med setting a bit loud on high No static problem either
This case is nice and sleek had good access to ports and is quiet on the low or medium setting but a bit loud on high It would be nice to adjust the fan speed from the exterior it is on about an 8in cable inside the case and would take some work to get it on the outside I haven t had any the static problems that others reported had it since beginning of Feb 10 The case is a nice black piano finish everywhere except the front which is black plastic The front panel is nice and opens wide I have a 2 yr old and a 9 month old who is starting to walk and it keeps them out of the optical drives/card reader I have installed I didn t have any cuts from the metal from the initial install or when adding all the extra hard drives and re routing cables but there are a few sharp edges so be mindful Also one of the rubber feel fell off when I was sliding it back into my desk but it caught on an edge it went right back on and have had no problems since but it s only glued on not screwed
The internals are nice too The front panel cables are long enough to reach near the back if your motherboard has connections toward the rear The motherboard installed easily and the power supply has plenty of power connectors see Antec s web site for specifics I don t think it will work with dual video cards though I have 2 optical drives card reader and 3 hd going to ad a 4th soon and the power supply still has extras if I need it The hard drives have rubber gromets that isolate them There are a few areas that allow you to tuck away the extra cables to keep the case clean There s not a cable management system but it was easy to zip tie where I wanted to to keep things clean and organized
Air
I initially used only the single 120mm fan on medium and everything kept cool so I put it on low and found that everything was still very cool When moving large files though my hard drives got a little warm so I added a second Antec Tri cool 120mm fan in the front to help It actually mounts in the middle of the case if looking at the side shot photo just to the left of the hard drives This is ok but I had to move a few wires around since this is right where all my SATA and front panel hookups are on my motherboard Not a big deal though and my hard drives are running a little cooler The power supply is also amazingly quiet and along with my hard drives during larger transfers is the only thing that gets even SLIGHTLY warm with my setup
Overall still quiet running the rear fan on med or low and my front middle fan on low The front fan isn t even necessary though just thought I d add one since they re under 15 Can t even tell the cpu fan is running and can barely hear my caviar black hard drive and 2 older western digital ide drives
My setup
This case
AMD Athlon II x2 240 w/stock fan radiator
Gigabyte GA MA785GMT UD2H Micro ATX Motherboard
Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 XMS3 4 GB PC3 12800 Core i5 Memory Kit yes it works on an AMD system too
Windows 7
2 120mm fans 1 included rear 1 added in front mounts behind hard drives
1tb wd caviar black hdd 2 wd ide hdd
>> kill the 2 3 year old reviews
The product is excellent I believe the 2 3 year old reviews should be removed as the company has fixed issues and all the old reviews do is diminish the products worthyness Just sayin If it was my product I would petition removals of any reviews past current manufacture dates
>> nice case loud rear fan flimsy front door assembly
i got this case after hearing how quiet it is although not as quiet as I had hoped it s alright I guess the included rear fan is pretty loud at the highest setting so I had to swap it out with a 120mm fan silverstone fan I already had earthwatt 500 psu is alright and it s been reviewed very positively
now the most annoying thing a screw that holds the front door hinge was already snapped off when I got the unit i had to crazy glue that piece back in there it s holding so far 1week but when I look at the computer now all I think about is when is that piece going to fall off
one word of caution the case has a mount for an optional read not included 120mm fan in the front ish part of the case between the drive cage and the mobo the problem with my setup was that my video card required a PCI E power cable that basically would obscure where the fan would be rotating in other words it s not deep enough they should have put the fan right between the front of the case and the drive cage if you have a fairly recent video card and it requires the power cable to be inserted in the opposite part of the DVI/VGA plug avoid this case
other than that it s an ok case I should ve bought a deeper case
oh Amazon delivered the sucker promptly no complaint with amazon
