Date: December 2nd, 2008
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited By: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Antec
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PRODUCT PICTORIAL AND WALKTHROUGH
The rear of the Max is pretty conventional with the exception of the PSU placement. It lives in it's own chamber at the far right. There is a lot of open ventilation area back here and the airflow design, while unconventional, should provide good cooling.
Adjacent to the 120mm exhaust fan are the two fan speed controllers for the Antec “TriCool” exhaust fans. We've seen these on other Antec cases and they work well, providing three settings to tailor the airflow/noise ratio to the installed system needs.
Removing a single thumbscrew releases the top panel so that we can get a look inside the Max. Antec has incorporated their “chambered” design elements into the Max in the hope of providing targeted cooling and noise isolation. Partitioning up the interior like this will make the Max a bit difficult to work in, but the benefits will be worth the trouble, provided the system works as designed.
Looking in from the rear, the ODD bay on the left gives the impression that it would hold two 5.25” devices. It won't. Moving to the right, there are two drive cages, at right angles to each other, that will hold a total of four hard drives in silicone mounts.
The ODD cage lifts up and out, facilitating drive installation. Since one of these bays can't be used due to the LCD screen, another HDD mount in this area would have been a nice touch. All the front panel wiring exits under this cage and there is some room here to stash unneeded cables and wiring.
All the front panel I/O cabling is clearly marked and there is ample documentation included with the Max to get a perfect installation done the first time.
