Antec One Hundred Mid-Tower Case

Written by Marc Fruchtman - Edited by Olin Coles

Sunday, 24 April 2011

Table of Contents: Page Index
Antec One Hundred Mid-Tower Case
Features and Specifications
Closer Look: Exterior
Detailed Exterior Features
Closer Look: Interior
Detailed Interior Features
Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Page 3 of 7

Closer Look: Exterior

The Antec One Hundred arrived double boxed, with the inner box as shown in the image above. It was well protected, and there was no damage to the inner box.

The case itself was encased in styrofoam. All the parts were present.

Antec includes a multi-language foldable pamphlet, an insert, and two parts bags. There were plenty of standoffs, and screws included. Also, 4 fan screws are included should the system builder decide to add another 120 mm fan. Antec chose to include four rubberized grommets with mounting screws for the SSD (right lower packet).

The left side of the case has an unoccupied mounting for a 120 mm fan to help cool your graphics card and other peripherals. And the front bezel hides two additional fan mounts (fans must be separately purchased).

Here we can see that Antec provided 8 expansion slots, which is a great plus for enthusiasts. A standard backplate is present. There is a 120 mm fan that pulls air from inside the case and vents to the exterior. The expansion ports are of the disposable knock-out type, therefore, you will have a large gap in your case if you remove the card that was supposed to be there. You may also note the two large punch-outs for water cooling. The remainder of any water cooling efforts are all left to after-market devices. Also, we note that this case is designed to have a bottom-mounted power supply.

The top of the case sports a nicely sized 140 mm fan that vents air to the outside. This fan was relatively quiet even when switched to the highest setting.

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Comments

# A surprising almost — Ed 2011-04-25 11:18

Nice review.

I'm not a fan of Antec tombs, but this one is pretty good except for one fatal flaw. I like the provision for two front fans. I love the oversize cpu window in the mb tray. The screw positions for the SSD is useless of course: SSD's attach very nicely with Velcro. No need for hardware.

Fatal flaw: like Lian Li, these guys are in love with rear position fans on top. Really, when you have a top intake in the forward position you see a 3-5c temp drop: cool air from the outside is better for a cpu heatsink than warm air from your case. So when the manufacturer provides only one fan position the system builder loses all flexibility.

I rate this case a "don't buy" despite its other nice features.

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# I fail to see the problems. — Olle P 2011-04-25 23:55

"SSD's attach very nicely with Velcro."
So how do you screw the Velcro onto the SSDs? (Glueing is of course not an option!)

"Fatal flaw: ... these guys are in love with rear position fans on top. Really, when you have a top intake in the forward position you see a 3-5c temp drop: cool air from the outside is better for a cpu heatsink..."
So you don't care about the temperatures at the graphics card?
With this case there's also a simple fix:
1. Add a cardboard divider horizontally above the graphics card to create two thermal zones.
2. Remove the top fan and cover that opening. (Now we have air moving horizontally through the top half of the case to cool down the CPU.)
3. Add a front intake fan or two, to add cooling for the graphics card and HDDs.

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# RE: Antec One Hundred Mid-Tower Case — MACK 2011-04-26 14:32

Ed, re:"rear position fans on top"

I think its an exaggeration to call this "fatal." Actually, I am not sure I can even say this is detrimental. But that involves this next statement:

Re: "when you have a top intake in the forward position you see a 3-5c temp drop: cool air from the outside is better for a cpu heatsink..."

Not sure what you mean by "forward position", can you give an example, of a case that has such a fan mounting in the forward position... as I am picturing this would be where most cases place the CD / DVD drives.

Also, please remember that Antec does not actually have a top "Intake", it has a top exhaust.

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# At the back, really... — Pigbristle 2011-05-04 03:53

Fan control at the back? For the people who review these cases it's not a problem, they normally have it on top of a desk with 360 access.

but many like myself have there PC underneath desks, which makes it rather awkward for getting to these fan controller switches.

Would it really add that much more in cost to run a couple of wires across the right side of the case to the front?

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# RE: At the back, really... — MACK 2011-05-04 12:28

You know, that is a good point, these days, there's almost no reason to force everything to the back since they can put USB, e-SATA, Mic etc to the front. It makes more sense to put that little switch at the front of the case. Thanks for the suggestion.

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# RE: Antec One Hundred Mid-Tower Case — Computer Ed 2011-05-04 04:57

For the money this case is hard to beat. The top tray is a god send since it can make the case work for more than holding your computer at the desk. My USB drives, and phone can always be found in the tray. Plus the slight angle of the front bevel for access to the front connections is nice. Makes it easy to get them right every time.

As for the complaintsd on the fans, in my own testing with stock cooling and then adding the two front fans I found the case cooled really well. I was able to push an overclock of a i5 2400 to 3.8 ghz and not move above 45C and my GTX 460 never gets above 60C at MAX load. If those are "FATAL" numbers then I know a lot of dead PCs.

Personally I found the case to be a great buy for the money. I love the fact they made the front panel cables long enough to easily route behind and cabale management as a whole is good for this price range.

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# good enough — realneil 2011-05-04 06:26

It looks to me as if the airflow is good enough in this case. I like it, and it shows that $50 cases can be functional and still look good.

My last $50 dollar case was the CoolerMaster 430-Elite Black, and while it's not one of their HAF (high air flow) cases, it's provided fans and the places that you can add more fans to, make it a great choice. I left both of my 120MM fan spaces on the top rear empty, they just were not needed. You can mount four 120MM fans and a 140MM as well if you need to. It has a bottom vent for the PSU and another bottom vent for another fan.

All in all this Antec case will do the job and it looks good. I'm not sure about no PSU bottom vent, they should change the design to include that.

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# RE: Antec One Hundred Mid-Tower Case — kokoy 2011-05-04 21:36

no psu intake at the bottom? FAIL

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