I looked at quite a few cases before choosing this one.I chose it because of the price, the looks and because it was designed to keep things quiet. Also I desired an energy efficient power supply.The included 380w Antec Earth Watts 80plus power supply has no problem powering my nvidia 9800GT pciExpress card, dual-core processor and four sticks of ram. The result of my build is a PC that can sip power for home theater tasks but can also shift gears for a little gaming. Antec NSK2480 Desktop case 380W PS
I built a HTPC out of this case a little over 2 years ago, with a Gigabyte 780G-based micro-atx (with on-board 3200-based video)motherboard, Hauppage 2250 dual tuner card, 2X WD 640GB hard drives, DVD and wireless card, with Vista Ultimate 64 as an OS. Awesome case; barely hear it! I have the 2 fans set on Low, using an AMD Athlon X2 BE processor; with the whole Cool-n-Quiet, the system barely emits a sound. I decided not to add any external cards on purpose, and added a small overclock through the BIOS (streams/records/displays 1080P HD like a champ), and the case still keeps cool on air (even in this southern heat...). The included Power Supply has been great.
The case is big, so don't get it unless you have the room. It's solid, easy to open and maintain, with a great setup for the Hard drives (lots of good shock-absorbing grommets and logically based vents (the separate chambers are a great idea). Love it and highly recommend.
This case is great to work with! The newest version comes with the EA380D PSU which has a dark green case, 4 SATA connectors, a 4/8pin EPS connector, and a 6 pin PCI. I have this set up as an HTPC and the Lite-on BD-rom matches the silver face (sold by Amazon too and includes black and silver bezels)LITE-ON 4x Blu-ray Disc SATA Internal Optical Drive iHOS104
This is a great case. Very quiet and nice and spacious.
I almost returned it because I had a DOA power supply as well. I decided to contact Antec Support and they got back to me within 24 hours, explaining in detail what I should do to make sure it was really DOA. It turned out that I used the wrong cable for the CPU power. I do blame this on the documentation. Now that I re-read the document, I can see that I used the wrong cable, and they do mention it. It is the way this document was written. You must always be careful when writing technical documentation, and Antec made a very rookie mistake. You must always look at your writings as if it were a bomb defusal document. "Now cut the GREEN wire ... <turn page> after you cut the BLUE wire". This is basically what Antec did. They spend all their time in the paragraph talking about the 24/20 pin connector, with a little note " Note: the detachable 4-pin
section of the main power connector cannot be used in place of a 4-pin +12V connector". It would help to split this to ensure idiots like me do not plug the wrong cable in the wrong slot. I used to build a lot of cases in the 'old days', so this cable is new to me.
I give this case 5, even though I has issues, because the case itself is awesome and Antec's support was stellar. I just wish that they would fix the document online, to reflect what they sent me in an email.
I think this case really solved my HTPC needs and it what made everything come together. I am running the case with 2X 2TB HDDs and a slim Radeon 5450 graphics card. I've used the stock AMD CPU heatsink and 1X 4GB stick of RAM. I also installed Antec's VFD display (Antec 30125 VERIS Elite Multimedia Station) in the optical drive compartment.
PROS:
First of all, the power supply included with this case is excellent and is very similar to Antec EA-380D Power Supply EA-380D. It is quiet and I have not had any power related issues with my build.
The case also idles in the 30-40s with an AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0 GHz 2x1 MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor - Retail ADX250OCGQBOX using the stock CPU fan. This is certainly impressive since I have a fanless (read: silent) HIS Radeon HD 5450 Silence 1 GB (64bit) DDR3 HDMI DL-DVI (HDCP) VGA PCI Express 2.1 16x Video Card Retail (RoHS) H545H1G GPU in there. With full load, the HTPC hovers around the 50s and low 60s. The fans are not silent, but very quiet and by just sitting 5 ft away from the case, I do not notice them.
The modular optical drive and HDD drive containers are useful during install and will help you avoid spraining your wrists trying to get into the tighter spaces.
CONS:
The only con(s) I can think of is that the case can get a bit cramped in certain areas. I have installed 2 HDDs and for me, they seem very close together and airflow may not be the best in that isolated area. However, this has not translated to any real issues for me.
A quibble: the LED can be a bit bright when playing a movie in darkness, but it's something you will adjust to very quickly. (Or just disable it)
CONCLUSION:
If you are looking to build a lower-wattage HTPC, this is a perfect case. The included power supply is more than sufficient for media needs and the airflow is good enough for you not to worry.
The case is very easy to work with. Swapped a 550 watt modular 80 Plus certified PS and it runs just as quiet with no excess cables. The internal ties allowed me to secure a clean look inside the case. I really like the internal design. The case is solid in my opinion and a fine base for my 23" monitor. For the fun of it I've tastefully converted a 3.5" to 5" black converter tray under my ROM drive to quickly swap out and boot into independently without disturbing my internal primary Win 7 OS. I can play around with (validate) as many 7's 32 or 64, Ubuntu, Linus
without problems. Great for exploring if you have the extra drives.3.5-inch to 5.25-inch Mounting Frame for Floppy/Zip/Jaz/Card-Reader/Tape-Backup'
Detail Products
Detail Reviews
Click here for more information
