For my first real enthusiast build I wanted one of the best air cooling cases money could buy. As a first-time overclocker, I didn't want to venture into the water-cooling arena ... yet (even though this case has rubberized ports for tubes on the back just in case!) I wanted to overclock, and I wanted good cooling, but for simplicity's sake, I wanted to do everything with air for now.
It's a fairly roomy mid-tower case. It will accommodate most power supplies just fine. It is a bottom-mount system. This is good for cooling purposes, but may be controversial for some who prefer the standard top-mount for their PSU's. My 8800GT easily fits with enough room behind it for cable routing. I currently have two SATA hard drives in it. There is room for 4 more hard drives. My three external bays are taken by two optical drives and a 3.5" card reader.
This is one of the most time consuming cases I've ever owned. You have to remove EIGHT thumbscrews to remove the hard 3.5" hard drive enclosures. Then, instead of a screwless drive mounting system, you have to use four more screws to mount each hard drive. I've seen $59 cases that have screwless designs. Antec could've done a lot better. The only positive point of their system is that everything indeed is solidly mounted once you get done.
The external 3.5" adapter (makes your 3.5" floppy/card reader fit the 5" bays) was a complete PAIN IN THE NECK to install. I had to use my drill to make holes in the plastic adapter so my card reader would fit right, and so that the adapter would fasten properly into the 5" bay and line up with the optical drives and the rest of the front of the case. I wonder if others have had this problem...
The instruction manual is an utter joke. They should've included way more detailed descriptions and instructions, and more demonstrative pictures would've helped, too. The instructions didn't really help me much. I felt like I was on my own. Not the first PC I've build, so I made due.
Once I got everything installed, the fun truly began. I have all fans set to low, and they are so quiet. We have the computer in our bedroom, and you can hardly hear it while in bed. When you are next to it, you don't hear fan noise, just the faint movement of air. This is one of the finest air cooling cases I've ever used. You stick your hand inside and feel the air flowing quickly through the case, keeping your expensive components very cool. The 200mm exhaust fan on top pushes so much air, but with little power drain and virtually no noise. Two front LED 120mm fans draw air in over your hard drives - very smart design - and the 200mm and a rear LED 120mm fan draw air out. I installed an optional 120mm fan on the transparent side panel. Installation was easy, there - popped right in.
The case has very handsome looks. Black metal with mesh coverings over blue LED fans, along with the transparent window to show off your system's innards make for a very attractive looking device. Everyone that seen mine has been very impressed - whether male or female.
It's not heavier than you would expect. I have so much inside that my components probably outweigh the case. Overall, my experience has been excellent. The problems I had while installing were overcome with a little time and effort. Most owners will be very pleased with this case. The cooling, reliability, and solid build quality more than make up for the small inconveniences in the beginning. The front input ports work perfectly and have extremely convenient placement. There is also room for a fairly large CPU cooler.
The bottom line - this is arguably one of the best cases for air cooling. I have seen temperature tests that verify that the Antec Nine Hundred actually cools your components better than the Thermaltake Armor cases - an impressive feat for a mid-tower. There is room for dual graphics cards, a large PSU, 2 optical drives, 1 3.5" drive, and 6 hard drives, and enough stock-included high quality fans to keep things cool. I definitely recommend putting a 4th 120mm fan on the side slot. It cools my graphics card even more!!
System Specs: Antec Nine Hundred & NeoPower Blue 650w PSU, Abit IN9 32x-MAX 680i motherboard, BFG 8800GT, WD SATA 160GB & 250GB drives, 2 DVD/RW, card reader, Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU cooler, Core 2 Quad Q6700 @ 3.33GHz, 8GB A-Data DDR2 @ 1000MHz