Date: November 13th, 2006
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Antec
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PRODUCT INSTALLATION AND TESTING
While researching the Nine Hundred for this review, I came across some forum posts by a few people having issues with misaligned top expansion slots and video connector interference issues. Antec vowed to address these issues on future Nine Hundreds. While I don't have a mobo in my stable that uses the top slot for video, I can say that I had no issues with either the DFI Lanparty UT nF4 SLI-DR or the Asus P5LD2 motherboards.
The Nine Hundred has a distinctive look and definitely exhibits “form follows function” design elements. From the side, the window shows off the interior to good advantage, while hiding the more unsightly areas. The front fans give off a pleasant blue glow without being overpoweringly bright. This is due in part to the perforated bay covers.
After placing the mat into the tray, I added my small camera and speaker remote. Ever on the alert for a photo opportunity, my associate Mr. Bones jumped into the shot at the last second. Some users may find this tray a boon to their existence, but its size and utility is limited. Since it sacrifices nothing for its presence, Mr. Bones gives it his approval. The tiny blue LED indicates HDD activity and there is no power LED.
I set all fan controllers to “L” for low and prepared to do some testing. Should a user wish to forgo the individual controllers in favor of another device, Antec recommends that the controllers attached to the fans be set to “H.”
To gauge the cooling performance of the Nine Hundred, I've devised the following methodology. With all case fans set to low, temperatures were monitored using SysTool. After booting to desktop, the system was allowed to idle for one hour and the highest temperatures were recorded for the CPU, chipset and PWM sensors on the motherboard. Temps from the GPU and graphics card ambient sensors were also recorded. The system was then loaded with Prime95 and 3Dmark05 for one hour and the highest temperatures recorded. The computer was then shut down for one hour. This was repeated for the medium and high fan settings. Room temperature was maintained at a constant 20C throughout testing. The results were as follows.
Open test frame results using the same components at 20C room temperature are below:
With the results in, one thing is obvious; the Antec Nine Hundred is a cooling monster! These temperatures rival what I get from running these components in my open testing frame, and I find this very impressive. Using my digital thermometer probe, I found no area inside the case that exceeded 23C. This is the best performance I have ever seen in a case. Subjectively, noise levels were quite acceptable and well within expectations. At the lowest settings, the case fans were inaudible over the background system noise. With the fans set to medium, there was a perceptible increase in fan noise, and at maximum speed, the fans were fairly loud. For this system, however, the minimal drop in temps don't justify the increased noise levels, in my opinion. Hotter running systems may respond differently, and users may be able to tweak the fan settings to find their own acceptable balance between cooling and noise.
