Antec Three Hundred Two: Stay Cool, Budget Enthusiasts
by Dustin Sklavos on January 24, 2012 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Antec
- mid-tower
Noise and Thermal Testing, Overclocked
Antec's Three Hundred Two put in a solid showing in our stock settings, but as you'll see, it's under the increased thermal load from our overclocked testbed that it really starts to come into its own. This is why enthusiasts on a budget will want to take note: long, long ago overclocking was about maximizing bang for your buck, and that's what Antec is aiming to do here.
It's very nearly a clean sweep for Antec. The low fan speed continues to do a good job of keeping thermals down and idle CPU and GPU temps are among the best we've seen. The only test where the Antec doesn't place quite as high on the charts is in SSD temperatures, but anything south of 40C is more than adequate.
Of course, that performance comes at a cost. While idle noise isn't that bad at the low fan setting, the high fan speed is among our biggest offenders. The Three Hundred Two is an excellent performer, but you'll pay for it in noise. This is where all the ventilation in the sides and front comes into play, as it lets cool air in and hot air out, but unfortunately it doesn't do much to mask the noise of our test build.
Note that we are well aware of the difficulties of using a "one size fits all" testbed, but the real takeaway here is relative performance. We'll likely update to a more mainstream testbed after the Ivy Bridge launch, but whatever we choose as our baseline, there will always be other ways we could have customized for better cooling and/or lower noise levels.
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Eridanus - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
The curves on the front edges simply don't fit the rest of the design.GuyIncognito_ - Wednesday, January 25, 2012 - link
They are hideous.Azsen - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
The 2.5" slot at the bottom of the case does not work at all. I got the Antec 200 v2 recently and an Asus motherboard with SATA 6G cables that bend 90 degrees and look like this:http://techinstyle.tv/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/p...
So you can't fit your 2.5" SSD in the bottom and use the 90 degree connector because there's no room because the bottom of the case gets in the way. Then you can't just swap the connector ends around and use the straight connector on the drive because on the Asus motherboard the system panel pins (PWR, HDD, LEDs etc) get in the way so you can't use the 90 degree connector there either.
So my choices were
a) Abandon the 2.5" slot down the bottom, or
b) Buy a SATA 6G cable with two straight ends.
In the end I ended up screwing it into a 3.5" slot from one side and it's suspended there. Probably going to snap off with the weight soon so I'll be forced to shell out for the 3.5 -> 2.5" converter.
Burticus - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
At first I thought this was taking the original Three Hundred and changing what I consider to be the achilles heel.... the hard drive mounts. They re-oriented them to face outwards instead of inline which is awesome. USB 3 is nice.Front these pics and the ones on Newegg, it looks like they got rid of the front 2 120mm fans and the removable filter. The front filter is still there, and they added a power supply intake filter. But they did away with the front 2 120mm fans and made them "optional". So be prepared to pick up a couple extra fans. Honestly on my original Three Hundred I replaced the 120mm fans anyway because they were a little noisy.
http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NzA...
FYI this is $69 at Newegg right now, so I think we might see some sub $50 sales in the future.
bnolsen - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
Side mounted hard drives are vastly inferior for cooling. The brackets block half the air flow even if no hard drives are installed. Additionally it looks as if they got rid of the spacing between the drives.From the drive cooling and general airflow this case is a big thumbs down compared with the 300 which is an excellent case for small raid arrays.
zero2dash - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
I'm a fan of Antec and have been for years. Loved the P182 (even though it was too big), love my 300, loved building in a 100 a few months ago for a customer.That being said - why would anyone buy this over a 300 let alone a BitFenix Outlaw for $49?
If I'm case shopping, the Outlaw is the case to buy in the sub-$100 market.
Antec seems to have become fans of redundancy. Forgetting about the Outlaw for a minute - the 100 has a good feature set and a decent price point; the 300, slightly better in both regards. Is Antec's new objective to over-saturate the computer case market with Antec enclosures that are $10-$20 different in price than all their other enclosures, with a minor upgrade here or there? Has Antec really done anything sub-$100 other than take the same case frame, churn out a modified outside, and sell re-hash after re-hash?
I guess in Antec's world, there is no BitFenix Outlaw (or any other lower end, cheap, high feature-set case....Nzxt Gamma also comes to mind). I guess in their minds, Antec only competes with Antec.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
I'm pretty sure the Three Hundred will be discontinued now and Antec will only make the Three Hundred Two going forward.bnolsen - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
i bought all my antec 300's for $49. I haven't seen this case before, the door is bad, blocking proper air intake. It seems microcenter carries these, i'll probably go take a look since the 302 looks to be a major downgrade.rodrigu3 - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
Buying this case was cheaper than it would have been for me to replace my 6 case fans that have started to die after many years. Seems like a good build.Arbie - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
"Anyway, though I do think AnandTech does some of the best reviews on the net when it comes to cases, I'd love to see them start using the fanbays in these cases. "I agree with this. And it would be great to see more discussion of motherboard fan controls, which are the other part of the equation. Mobo reviewers almost always use an open test bed, and either ignore or only briefly mention the hardware and (BIOS) firmware supporting thermal sensors and fan speeds. Some companies (eg Asus) do a far better job of this than others (eg Gigabyte) but get no credit for it on the review sites.
Personally, I'd much rather have a thorough set of sensors and controls (which I will absolutely use) than a second graphics slot which will just sit empty. And I think that in reality most DIY folks would be better served that way. But fans and cooling are a lot less glamorous than graphics boards, so any mobo built like that would get killed in the press.