Antec Eleven Hundred
The Antec Eleven Hundred is a mid-tower in
a full-tower’s disguise. The first thing you may notice with this case is that
it has a huge acrylic side-panel window with silicone Grommeted fan mounts. The
front of this enclosure is completely meshed and has slits on both the sides to
complement its design.
The right-side panel has space for mounting
a fan which will be behind the mother-board tray. Upon opening the Eleven
Hundred, you will see that it has a molex powered internal fan-hub and an
option to turn off the top fan LED. A bundled front-fan would have lowered the
temperatures inside this case but it’s still one of the few cases in our test
which are big enough to house XL-ATX boards.
Cooler Master HAF - XM
Straight out-of-the-box the HAF - XM greets
you with its sturdy body with black anodized finishing. It has a meshed front
bezel with two hot-swappable drive bays and a 200mm fan. The top of this case
is also meshed and is removable. It has space for a liquid-cooling radiator at
the top too. The left-side panel can be opened by just pulling a spring loaded
latch. Inside, a cover hides the PSU cable clutter. It also has an extra,
vertical PCI slot. The drive rails work very well and cable management is an
also breeze. This enclosure being a mid-tower can still house an XL-ATX
mother-board comfortably.
And others
We also got the Cooler Master Storm Scout 2
and the Antec Solo 2 for this test. The former is a proper gaming case which
comes with most of the features a good gaming case should have. Its design is
great and the handles at the top allow you to carry this LAN-party-friendly
case around. The contender from Antec is primed for silent computing users. It
stays quiet using sound dampening material and silicone vibration absorbers.
But due to its dimensions, there is not much space to work with in this case.
Antec P280 was almost the same as the Antec Eleven Hundred but more of a silent
computing case.
Category verdict
The Best Buy Award For this category goes
to the Corsair Carbide 400Rfor being a rock solid case with great attributes
for the price. While maneuvering inside this case, you won’t break a sweat and
the expandability it offers is great for future upgrades. The handle on top of
the Corsair Carbide 400R also helped us to pick the case up and move it around
during testing. The second best case in this section was the NZXT Phantom 410.
It’s curvaceous design and a huge feature list make it easy to recommend if you
can shell out it’s higher asking price.
Mid-towers above $300
This category is for people who want to buy
higher-end mid-towers but don’t want to jump on the full-tower band-wagon. We
must say that most of the features you may see in this category are also
avail-able on the cabinets seen in the $150 to $300 category. It’s just that
the build quality of all the cabinets in this section is exceptional.
Cooler Master Silencio 650
This case has a minimalistic and
sophisticated design element to it. Apart from being a case from the CM Silent
series, it also has numerous features up its sleeves. It has a great looking
aluminum door at the front with a brushed-metal finish. The door also snaps
into place using magnets. The orientation for opening the door can be changed
too. The top of this case has two sliding covers, one for the ports and the
other for air exhaust (this can be closed to decrease sound emanating from the
case). The internal foam padding further dampens the sounds generated from
within.
Corsair Graphite 600T
This curvy case from Corsair is bevelled at
all of its edges which gives it a very different look. The construction of the
case is rigid and the front panel of this enclosure is ventilated by a meshed
and dust-filtered grill which can be removed at the push of a button. A pair of
keys is also provided with the case to lock it (a nice feature). Along with the
buttons and ports, there is a big dial which acts as a fan controller on the
top of the case. The side panels on this case come off easily thanks to
latches, making this case as tool-free as possible. Cable-management is an easy
affair thanks to the perfectly located rubber grommets.
Cable-management
is an easy affair thanks to the perfectly located rubber grommets.
Corsair Vengeance C70
This case is designed to look like an
ammunition straight out of an armory. The build quality of the C70 seems solid
and you can carry it around by using two attached spring-loaded handles at the
top. The power and reset buttons accentuate it’s military design – there’s
actually a safety flap that you need to flip open to access the reset button.
Everything is tool-less inside this case, so installing HDDs/ SSDs or even
5.25-inch drives is easy. As for cable management, the C70 has smart clips at
the back of the motherboard with pre-routed cabinet cables.
Corsair
Vengeance C70
Category verdict
The Corsair Graphite 600T was a good
contender but the Cooler Master Silencio 650 won the Best Buy Award in this
segment as it had more number of features at its disposal and provided decent
performance compared to the others in the test. It also had an SD card slot
along with the integrated fan controller and a dual-boot switch to select a
boot drive between two different drives. The best part we found about this case
was that it was very sturdy and professional looking with a strong rubberized
base. We didn’t choose the Vengeance C70 as we thought that it was overpriced
for the features it provided in this segment.
