Joined on 05/09/06
Awesome with fan
Pros: The ability to snap a 120mmx25mm fan into the place where the internal hard drive is supposed to go. I drilled a few holes on the opposite side of the case for air flow. Power supply seems adequate, I ran the machine all day under load with no problems.
Cons: Somewhat flimsy. Almost no airflow without the 120mm fan "mod". Noise of the 120mm amplified pulling through the small holes.
Overall Review: I put a D945GCLF2 in this case with 2GB ram, 2400pro and 750GB sata drive. First time running it one of the atom cores locked up. Massive overheating of the whole case. I took off the cover and removed the 2400pro. Read reviews here about snapping in a 120mm fan in place of the internal hard drive. I used an old zalman 5.25 hard drive radiator and moved the sata drive to the top bay. Currently have a 50cfm fan. If I have one handy I'll use a 30cfm instead or undervolt.
Compared with original white
Pros: Looks nicer than original. Has a builtin "rocker".
Cons: - Smaller than the original. - Tracking is *really* bad compared to previous model.
Overall Review: I had an original evoluent. The USB cable went bad so I decided to order this one. I can't get this mouse to track in a straight line. Using the same (realy cheap) mouse pad as previous the mouse seems to be senstive to the line pattern on the mouse pad. I have a verneered desk, same problem with the grain. I've been using a paper pad where the problem isn't so bad, am trying a manila folder, the surface is not pleasant to work with.
Compatible with skylake...
Pros: Just put this in a business recycled dell with a i5-6300u with void linux. uefi system testing good, compilation and light gaming good. Temps fine, low 60s when slammed (and cpu near 90C).
Cons: None so far.
Overall Review: Seems to be a good inexpensive workable option.
stable and fast
Pros: I have a pair of these, linux and windows7 with 128GB ram (wintec server series 64GB ddr3 1600 sticks), dual E5-2660 v2 in a CoolerMaster HAF-XB with ARCTIC Freezer i30 and CORSAIR HX850 power supply. Using for high performance highly threaded physics simulation software. None of the PCI-e slots are populated, board, ram cpu and storage only. Using onboard video only.
Cons: No PCI slots (I had wanted to plug in a PCI sound card for occasional but rare testing).
Overall Review: Excellent for brute force processing and parallel compilation needs. The remote console stuff is okay, I've only checked it out but don't use it since I have direct access to the console although access to these machines is always remote. Also ran fine with windows8, I just hate windows8.
Nice and tidy
Pros: Nice layout, easy to build and assemble. Lots of tie downs for cable cleanup. Decent ability to route cables although I still have a cluster of power cables at the front corner. Nice screwdriver adapter for cranking down the motherboard mounting posts.
Cons: No internal 3.5" drive bays. No active push fans in the hard drive area, just the 2x80mm for pulling air. No usb2.0 ports.
Overall Review: Very easy case to work with. Motherboard tray comes out for initial mobo mounting. I installed an asus ATX dual xeon board. This went in just fine with no problems. Unfortunately the tall heat sinks I used blocked install of a 200mm fan on top. This case would work great for test bench use. Access to the motherboard is pretty fantastic. I'll mount a 3.5" drive into one of the 5.25" bays. The mobo has no internal usb3.0 headers, just usb2.0. Would be nice to have a usb3 to 2 adapter or something.
Lots of mistakes
Pros: Cable running. Black screws, white hard drive trays, usb3.0 connector, lots of fans and filters. Really liked the added fan connector that plugged all 3 fans into one board header.
Cons: Front fan clips too tight, broke one off already. Hard drive cages: drives too close together, i can only suggest one drive per cage. The problem is you have to take out one cage in order to get any airflow so that limits this case to 1 hard drive. Rubber grommets: they fall apart, they act as heat insulators.
Overall Review: The case is built for looks, not built for serious performance or wise cooling. Absolutely *not* the ultimate case. I really wish someone would build an antec 300 in microATX size.