A decent case with solid build quality and
great cooling
On the outside, the Three Hundred Two has
the same typical Antec black paint job and utilitarian meshed front panel as
the One, with the front panel equipped with a pair of USB 3 ports and placed at
the top of the fascia.
Antec
Three Hundred Two
The Three Hundred Two sports a greater
number of fan mounts, though, with 120mm rear and 140mm roof fans included. The
right and left side panels each offer a 120mm fan mount, plus there’s a pair of
front 120mm fan mounts. Pleasingly, both the bundled cooling fans are wired
into rear-mounted two-speed fan controllers as well, and can be connected via
3-pin or Molex power plugs.
Swing open the side panel, however, and
you’ll be surprised to find a drab, bare metal interior. While the case lacks a
side panel window to show off its guts, it’s surprising to find such blandness
when painted insides have long been the norm with enthusiast cases.
The
Three Hundred Two sports a greater number of fan mounts, though, with 120mm
rear and 140mm roof fans included.
The interior offers plenty of room, though,
with a fixed hard drive cage capable of housing six 3.5in drives using mounting
rails. Meanwhile, the three 5.25in drive bays above are tool-free, and two
2.5in drive mounts are available - one at the bottom of the hard drive cage and
one on the back of the motherboard mount.
Cable routeing is simple, but effective,
with a huge 26mm of space behind the motherboard to hide cables. Three cut-out
holes are also well placed, but there’s no hole for the 8-pin EPS12V cable,
which you’ll need to route through the large CPU cut-out instead.
Out of the box, the Three Hundred Two
cooled our test hardware well, with a CPU delta T of 50°C and a GPU delta T of
34°C. Switching the fans to their lowest setting saw these temperatures rise by
1°C each, but even then the Three Hundred Two offered some of the most
effective stock cooling on test.
Swing
open the side panel, however, and you’ll be surprised to find a drab, bare
metal interior.
Adding the pair of Scythe Gentle Typhoon
1,850rpm fans (as a side-panel intake and front intake) had little impact, with
a 1°C drop in CPU temperature. The GPU delta T of 32°C was the best result of
any on test though. With two fan speeds available, we’d choose the lower
setting; at full speed, the fans sounded a little intrusive (and notably louder
than those of the One), while the noise was minimal at the lower setting.
Conclusion
With great cooling and superb build
quality, the Antec Three Hundred Two is a capable chassis, but it’s eclipsed by
the competition in a number of ways. Other cases on test sport more fan mounts,
more drive bays and better cable routeing, while matching the Three Hundred
Two’s strengths. Although there’s little to criticize it, there are better
options elsewhere.
